Southern’s impact in the Yale Teaching Fellowship is already being felt inside New Haven classrooms — where members of the program’s inaugural cohort, enrolled at Southern for graduate study and teacher certification, are gaining real-world experience while helping to fill urgent staffing gaps in the district.
This fall, 23 fellows began their placements across New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), with many focused on high-need areas like math, science, and special education. Supported by a $10 million investment from Yale University and a collaborative framework with New Haven Public Schools and New Haven Promise, the fellowship is designed to train and retain educators while addressing the city’s critical teacher shortage.
As the program’s education partner, Southern Connecticut State University is providing all fellows with the coursework, certification, and academic mentorship required to become fully licensed teachers in Connecticut. Over the next four years, Southern will prepare more than 100 new educators through the program — including paraprofessionals, support staff, and cross-endorsing teachers — strengthening a homegrown, equity-driven talent pipeline for New Haven’s schools.
Inside classrooms like Clinton Avenue School, Southern student-teachers such as Lizmarie Maldonado and Hilbania Papazahariou are putting theory into practice alongside experienced NHPS mentors. Their journey — guided by Southern’s College of Education — exemplifies the program’s innovative blend of university rigor and in-school immersion.
“Learning in my classes helps,” said Papazahariou, “but seeing it all in person is another level. I’m getting so much. I don’t want to leave the building.”
Maldonado, who observed and then stepped in to co-lead a math lesson for fourth graders, reflected on how Southern’s coursework is enhanced by in-person mentorship:
“If I don’t understand why a teacher does something while researching, I can connect the dots by asking my mentor or observing her in class.”
Read the full story in the New Haven Independent: Inaugural Yale Fellows Teach & Learn In NHPS
