NHPS veteran educator and TFA mentor Zania Collier (right) thanks TFA Corps members for teaching her this summer as well. Lili Filppu and Natalie Quiroz-Duran returned to New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) this summer — this time not as students, but as educators preparing for their first year of teaching this coming fall. Quiroz-Duran and Filppu are two of 39 incoming Teach for America (TFA) Corps members who were celebrated at an induction and summer practicum conclusion event hosted at CT State Gateway, formerly known as Gateway Community College, last week.  Of those 39 corps members, 10 are headed into New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) while the others will take on roles in Hartford and Bridgeport. An additional seven corps members will also be working in New Haven through TFA’s charter partners Achievement First and Elevate. The TFA Corps program supports aspiring educators in securing a full-time, two-year teaching position in “under-resourced K-12 schools” as they pursue their master’s degree and teaching certification. Filppu is a New Haven native who graduated from Sound School and attended FAME and Davis Street School while growing up in Fair Haven and then in Westville.  She discovered her love for her hometown while attending Sound because, at the time, she rode the city bus on a daily basis. “This is more about connecting back with my community,” she said about her goal to teach specifically in New Haven.  Starting in the fall, Filppu will return to New Haven not to take the former Q bus — now the 246 — to hang out downtown with friends, but instead to teach biology at Wilbur Cross High School.  Being a student at Sound is what helped Filppu discover her love for science. When she first went on to attend the University of Connecticut (UCONN) for physiology and neurology, Filppu struggled and was academically dismissed. She went on to work in New Haven while briefly attending Gateway. Once she returned to UCONN, she majored in psychology and began working at the campus’s academic achievement center. While working, she heard stories similar to hers of students capable of excellence but struggling with the structure of college academics.  “I was a passive learner but I know I’m not the only one,” she said. “I want students to not just hear that other people have struggled like them but to see I got through it and am here now to support them however I can.”  This led her to realize “it’s clear what I think I should do.” Just before graduating this past spring, Filppu joined TFA to expand her teaching toolkit before returning home “where I belong,” she said.  Another New Haven native, Natalie Quiroz-Duran, also said her upbringing in the city and public school district put her on track to want to return.  Quiroz-Duran did her TFA summer practicum at FAME with 5th through 8th grade special education programs. One of her takeaways from the summer was learning to adapt. She supported classrooms that had some middle school students learning basic addition while others were learning algebra.  Her biggest takeaway was the confirmation that returning home is the right decision for her. “As a New Haven Promise scholar, New Haven helped shape me and pour so much into me. Now I’m giving back,” she said.  She decided on special education because she has a family member who receives special education services and that team’s impact inspired her daily. She was introduced to TFA while working for NHPS as a part-time community aid for its McKinney Vento services.  That work — which included talking with families to connect them with resources like bookbags, uniforms, and food pantries — exposed her to the population of hundreds of homeless NHPS students and added to her passion to help in a larger way. Quiroz-Duran will bring her passion to King/Robinson School, where she will teach special education for her first year.  Fellow TFA Corps member Tie-ese Stewart moved to Hartford in 2017 and was inspired by the “phenomenal” teachers she had growing up. She recalled using a blackboard and chalk to teach her dolls when she was a child. Over the summer Stewart taught modern world history at Metropolitan Business Academy, which hosted the district’s credit recovery program. “The community could use more love and I have that to give,” she said.  During last Wednesday’s ceremony, remarks were shared by TFA CT Executive Director Dolores Garcia-Blocker and 2025 Corps members Deborah Butler and Madison Goodson, who this spring finished their first year of teaching.  Butler, a Hartford special education teacher, said that she selected TFA CT because she saw a need in her community. So, as a teacher does, she made a plan, then made change.  She told the room full of incoming teachers that some days will be great while others will be “very hard and exhausting.”  She also said that TFA staff were always just a call, email, or text away. “Thankfully no problem is too unique and no disaster too monstrous for TFA,” she said.  Her first year had more ups than downs and she even got to conclude it this summer by flying to Beijing with 24 of her students.  Meanwhile, Goodson, an English educator at Achievement First High School, spoke about how the hardest year of her life was her first year of teaching. She also described her first year as making her feel unstoppable.  Throughout the year she experienced an abrupt principal change, school closure over safety, a curriculum without standards, parents cursing her out, and a department not properly trained to coach her.  “If I’m completely honest, when it came to the technicalities of teaching, I spent most of my first year trying not to drown,” she said.  She continued that being unstoppable “is not about wins, it is about showing up every single day ready to try again.”  She reminded the 2026 TFA Corps members that they too are unstoppable and to embrace the daily resets the teaching profession offers. She recalled sitting with students for support while they made calls for job interviews and having honest conversations with them about their post-secondary plans and college. “I may not have increased data numbers this first year, but my students were able to change school policy because of the space I gave them to speak to school leaders,” she concluded.  Corps member Judiana Seda is stepping into a special education teaching role in the fall after previously working as a family advocate for NHPS’ Head Start program.  While working with families through HeadStart, Seda said she began getting curious about teaching students. She found her already seasoned skills in goal setting, collaboration, and listening are just as needed in the classroom as they are when meeting to support elementary families.  TFA Senior Managing Director of Strategy and Impact Sarah Diggs hosted last week’s ceremony. Diggs was previously NHPS’ coordinator of recruitment and retention. She noted during the ceremony that “when people work and teach where they have roots, they’re more likely to stay.”  During TFA’s summer practicum, cohorts of two to three TFA Corps members were paired with a NHPS mentor while working at the district’s summer sites.  Mentors shared during the ceremony about the TFA Corps members’ skills in turning behavior resets into lessons, creating inclusive learning environments for students and staff, commanding a full classroom’s attention, and creating creative lesson plans.  NHPS educators and summer mentors Nick DeCapua and Zania Collier said they learned from their TFA mentees throughout the summer.  DeCapua, who had Quiroz-Duran and Porsha Wiliams in his cohort, said they became masters of understanding that with special education especially, “27 kids on your caseload means you have to be 27 different teachers.” Collier said she plans to use several activities in her own classroom that she learned this summer from her cohort, which included David Reynolds, Peter Katcher, and Stewart.  NHPS Asst. Supt. Keisha Redd-Hananns reported that the summer practicum for TFA came at no cost to the district. She said she is proud that NHPS continues to expand its number of TFA Corps members so much that it is considering whether it may need to open up another summer school site for TFA Corps members to participate in the future. Corps members receive certificates and mentors’ gift cards at last week’s celebration. 2025 Corps members share about their first year of teaching. TFA staffers Justin Taylor, Sarah Diggs, Mikayla Brown, and Francisco Cruz. The post Future Teachers Celebrated At TFA Ceremony appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less