NORWALK, Conn. — Norwalk’s most vulnerable children deserve better than they’re getting with an early literacy program designed by Norwalk Federation of Teachers President Bruce Mellion, former Board of Education member Sue Haynie said Wednesday.
In return, Mellion attacked Haynie’s credibility, saying she is a “very negative person” and the program is on its way to national recognition.
Haynie has filed numerous Freedom of Information requests seeking information about the Literacy 4 Parents 4 Their Children program at Brookside Elementary School, a Mellion brainchild, coming to at least three BoE meetings to air her questions and complaints. The program was formed without any collaboration with Norwalk Public Schools staff or any of Norwalk’s early childhood education groups, Haynie said Wednesday.
Her overall goal is to get a good parent engagement component to the program, which is for Title I children, she said.
“Hopefully the new superintendent will garner some way to fund this, not only at the six Title I schools but at all the schools,” Haynie said. “But make it the best there is in the state, not something that gives lip service to parents, and is advantageous to the adults in the system but parents aren’t – the parents are getting food and some books and a clown but they’re not really getting the information that they need to help their kids, and I think that is shortchanging them.”
Mellion said it’s all about parent engagement.
“This is unique, the only program as far as we know in the entire country that works directly with parents to teach them how to engage with their own children in Pre-K through 3,” Mellion said. “Teaching parents, giving parents a skill of how to work with their children and it’s a parenting engagement program.”
Haynie filed an FOI request months ago seeking a copy of the curriculum for the program. She was told that was propriety information, which, she told the Board, was difficult to understand since it’s a taxpayer-funded program.
The curriculum was formed without any collaboration with the deputy superintendent’s office, the district’s instructional specialists in early childhood or English language arts, the Norwalk Early Childhood Council, Literacy How, Norwalk ACTS nor the state’s K-3 Literacy Initiative demonstration lab at Fox Run elementary School, she said.
She expressed these thoughts in a March 30 email to state officials, Norwalk interim Superintendent of Schools James Connelly, Deputy Superintendent Tony Daddona, BoE Chairman Mike Lyons and Mellion:
“If a teacher-focused program were being developed, Mr. Mellion would demand, as he should, teacher advocates be part of the process,” Haynie wrote. “Parents have every right to be represented with a commensurate level of advocacy and expertise – and that is not happening here. In any case, as a taxpayer-funded state program, shouldn’t collaboration and shared best practice be expected? … What started out as a well-intentioned program under the MOA with oversight controls appears to have turned into a privately run program designed by the NFT president with no input or sharing with NPS, literacy experts or parent advocates.”
“This is not a curriculum program directly for students,” Mellion said Wednesday. “… It’s unique unto itself and it’s not meant for those other things. It’s not meant for other teachers, it’s not meant for other entities that she’s talking about. The people who are doing it are exemplary, in terms of their background, their ability, their educational background. They are distinguished teachers and they are on a special program with the state Department of Education.”
He declined to identify who is teaching the program, saying he didn’t want to “draw them into this.”
An American Federation of Teachers story identifies the teachers as NFT union members Francine Hakim and Pamela Serlin.
As for the various education groups mentioned by Haynie, Mellion said, “If they had thought about this, maybe they would have done it. It was my idea and I did. It’s under a very small umbrella and it’s all done for parent engagement.”
Literacy 4 Parents 4 Their Children is not in alignment with the district curriculum and has no home/school connection, Haynie said.
“I think the program is positive and that anything that gets parents to read more with their children is a good thing,” Lyons said in an email. “I have told Bruce that I’d like to see the program coordinated with our K-5 Literacy initiative so they mesh, which I think would strengthen both programs. I see no reason why that coordination can’t be a good next step.”
“This program is not a quality program but it’s expensive. We paid for it to get this going, and we basically paid for pablum,” Haynie said.
Haynie is not on the Board of Ed anymore, Mellion said.
“She has had a negative attitude – and I’ll use the word ‘hatred’ – to numerous people and she has demonstrated that hatred in particular toward Norwalk employees. That’s been longstanding,” Mellion said. “… In my opinion, it’s about me more than the program, but she’s camouflaged it.”
“I admire him, as what he does as a job, in terms of representing his members,” Haynie said. “He is paid 100 percent by his members and he does his job, he does a great job of it. I have no problem with someone doing their job well, I just want – there needs to be a balance. Someone needs to be on the other side making sure they’re advocating for the kids as strongly as he’s advocating for his members. That’s the problem. It’s imbalance. There’s nobody there that really watches out for the kids. … Parents have no union, no one person speaking up for them.”
“Haynie is just horribly wrong with her facts and what she’s doing,” Mellion said. “I’m going to say it again – it’s just so unfortunate that she’s always a force of negative and ‘what’s wrong and what’s bad.’ She goes around just trashing something that is just exemplary. We got it up and running really quickly and it’s really good. We didn’t have to go to all those other groups and organizations – it would have never gotten done.”
Not a bad thing that the NFT president thought of it, he said.
“We have exemplary people developing and working on it,” Mellion said. “I don’t have the background to do it but I am working with them to develop it in the name of parent engagement, for parents, in the best interest of students.”
There are budgetary concerns, Haynie said.
“The first thing that would go when times get tough would be the food and the entertainment,” Haynie said. “So the curriculum better be powerful, better be worth it, because think about it. When things are tough, for parent engagement pieces, the first things they cut out is going to be the nonessential stuff. So the curriculum needs to be great. It needs to be worth their time and it needs to help their kids.”
Parents are so grateful for the program that they come to him crying, Mellion said.
“We are not about closing the achievement gap,” Mellion said. “We are going on process of eliminating the achievement gap and never let it get started. I’ve got other ideas as well. … I believe that we can eliminate it if we work with parents and teach them how to work with their children in an effective way, everything that is being done is highly effective, proven and tested.”
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