New Haven Superintendent Discusses $29 Million Federal Grant on KALW

New Haven Unified School District Superintendent Kari McVeigh sat down with Bay Area public radio station KALW earlier this week to talk about how the $29. 4 million federal Race to the Top grant will impact the struggling district.

Listen to the 9-minute radio interview on the KALW website.

The local school district was one of 16 nationwide to receive the federal award, which will be used over the next four years.

On Tuesday evening, McVeigh explained to radio host Hana Baba that the money can only be used on new projects and won’t restore the recent cuts the district has made.

“It is really so that we can use it to open the doors for student learning,” McVeigh told Baba. “The work we’ve been doing for the last four years, really, was the work that we built on and expanded in the grant.”

Many of those new projects are focused on technology, personalizing education, college and career readiness, and community engagement.

The funds will allow the district to develop and use technology “in a way that we were probably three to five years away from,” McVeigh said.

McVeigh added that a bond will be required in the future to maintain and advance the technology after the grant's funds run out.

Though it won't remedy all of the district's problems, the funds have opened up some jobs and allowed the district to hire media specialists to re-open school libraries as well as hire more counselors at Logan.

“It’s still $29.3 million and that’s never a bad thing,” McVeigh told Baba.