CCA has been dedicated to protecting the educational rights of expelled students in a variety of ways, including individual and systemic advocacy through our Juvenile Justice, Alternative Schools, and Educational Success Projects.  For more information, contact Marisa Mascolo Halm ([log in to unmask]), Leon Smith ([log in to unmask]), or Kathryn Meyer ([log in to unmask]).

See the article and link below for the full story about New Haven’s “Homebound Program” for expelled students.

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“Homebound Program Under Review”

This is how New Haven is educating a high school freshman who got expelled: It sent her to class for two hours, then sent her home with a one-page worksheet and word-search puzzle in which students circle vocabulary words in a grid of letters.

That was the school day recently for Francesca Cruz, a former High School in the Community student now serving a 180-day expulsion for getting into a fight in the school cafeteria.

Cruz is one of 40 students participating in the city’s “homebound” program, which offers two hours of daily instruction for students who have been expelled.

Superintendent Garth Harries said he is planning to review the program.

“In the context of trying to prioritize our collective work for disengaged youth, I think we need to be looking at our homebound program,” he said. “Intuitively it doesn’t make sense that students who by their action are telling us that they’re most in need of something are only getting two hours of instruction per day.”

The practice of offering expelled kids just two hours of instruction per day—the minimum required by state law—is similar in New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford, the state’s three largest cities.

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/homebound/

Kathryn Scheinberg Meyer, Esq.

Center for Children’s Advocacy

2470 Fairfield Avenue

Bridgeport, CT 06605

203-223-8975