New Teacher Tour Brings Grad Full Circle

Step by step on Grand Avenue Friday morning, Shaylah McQueen-Lee walked towards her near future as a K‑2 teacher at Benjamin Jepson School — marking her return to the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district after graduating from Hillhouse more than a decade ago as both valedictorian and a teen mom.

McQueen-Lee was one of roughly three dozen incoming NHPS educators to go on a two-hour walking tour of Fair Haven Friday as part of a district effort to introduce public school teachers to the city’s neighborhoods.

The Fair Haven tour was led by David Weinreb, a Fair Haven resident, former Fair Haven School teacher, and current Elm City Montessori magnet resource teacher.

The tour made stops at a mini-park at Exchange and Haven Streets, at Fair Haven Community Health Care’s (growing) headquarters near Grand and James, at Fair Haven Library, and outside Fair Haven School and Junta for Progressive Action, among other stops — all with the goal of ​“asset mapping” the community, as Weinreb put it. That is, to show incoming teachers the wealth of community resources that already exist across New Haven that they and their students and families can benefit from, both inside and outside the classroom.

Similar new-teacher tours took place Friday in Newhallville, as led by Kim Harris, and in the Hill, as led by Danny Diaz.

McQueen-Lee diligently scribbled notes in a pocket-sized notebook at each stop. Though some of the resources and restaurants and parks and other Fair Haven amenities she learned about on Friday were new to her, the neighborhood, and the school district she’s about to start working for, are familiar.

Born and raised in New Haven, McQueen-Lee said she spent five years living on Fillmore Street in Fair Haven.

She’s also a NHPS grad, former Wexler Grant volunteer, and Hillhouse High School valedictorian for the Class of 2012. She was also a teen mom while in high school, and won a Gates Millennium Scholarship to attend college and live in a dorm set aside for single moms and their kids.

McQueen-Lee said she’s subbed in NHPS in the past. Her most recent full-time job was as a recreational therapist at a nursing home in Chester. Starting next week, with the school year that starts Aug. 29, she’ll be a K‑2 and special education teacher at Benjamin Jepson School.

“Elementary has always been my preference,” she said, in terms of the grade level she’s most wanted to teach since deciding to pursue a career as an educator. She smiled and lifted her arms, talking about how she’s always bouncing off the walls with energy — and will need to direct that enthusiasm in her classroom towards helping her kids calm down and learn.

Her big takeaway from Friday’s Fair Haven walking tour: ​“Just the pride” that so many Fair Haveners have in their neighborhood, which is teeming with shops, social services, and cultural diversity. She currently lives in Hamden, but is looking to move back to her home city.

And what is she hoping to bring with her from her experience as a valedictorian and teen mom during her own time as a student at NHPS?

“Just to never give up on kids,” she said.