The Hamden Board of Education held a general meeting Tuesday night, where they approved two new board members to fill vacant seats.
Reuel Parks and David Asbery were approved in a six to one vote, to fill the vacancy left by two democratic board members who stepped down in recent months.
Parks, a retired clinical therapist and juvenile parole officer, looks forward to being an advocate for the youth of Hamden School District, much like he was an advocate for children re-entering society when he worked for the Connecticut Juvenile Training School.
“With the information I’ve acquired and with some of the skills I have acquired over the years, I think I can be very impactful on the board.” said Parks. “I’ve seen it from the punitive side as well as the clinical side and I think those are the strengths I can use to be a part of the larger conversation to ensure that all of the needs of our students in the town of Hamden are met.”
Asbery, a Director of Office Services, also runs a nonprofit organization called “Fixing Fathers” and works to help fathers be better role models and parents. Asbery looks forward to working with a united board to tackle many issues including race issues he sees within the school district.
These issues include not hiring enough teachers of color and the high suspension and expulsion rate of colored students.
“I think the schools doing a great job, but in those two specific areas we need to come to the conclusion that it’s a black eye and we’ve done horrible,” said Asbery. “We need to find some things that we can do to do better and put that on the table, because I don’t think it’s on the table.”
Both Parks and Asbery are parents of Hamden School District students and expressed they will be advocates for all parents, students and teachers at the Hamden School District.
Chairman Arturo Perez-Cabello and School Superintendent Jody Goeler both addressed the issue of a student bringing a gun to Hamden High School last Tuesday.
Both Perez-Cabello and Goeler expressed this event was an unfortunate example of gun violence issues in the United States, as well as the Hamden community. They also praised the work of staff members, as well as community members, who de-escalated the situation.
“I think our staff handled it very well,” said Goeler. “Within ten minutes of [administrators] getting this information from someone in the community, the student was being escorted to the office.”
Goeler also said the district had prepared for a situation like this.
“The fact that we have these committees, protocols, training and communications mechanisms, our teachers and administrators were ready to act upon receiving this information. We knew exactly what to do.”
Goeler says a committee will review the entire situation and determine areas that they can improve. He also stated he is not in favor of making students go through metal detectors each day.
“I don’t believe having a metal detector is the way to go with this.” said Goeler. “Maybe down the road it may need to be, but at this point lining kids up in front of Hamden High School on cold days and making them go through a metal detector and possibly getting frisked, creates a whole other series of issues of how we treat kids and how that changes our whole climate and culture of the school.”
The next Hamden Board of Education meeting will be held on October 26th at district office located at 60 Putnam Ave, Hamden, CT.