Ansonia High School raises funds for trip

“I have done this trip before with other students, and it is beautiful to see the transformation. They come back so changed by what they have experienced, their thinking is broader.”

Reese Morales, Ansonia Public Schools’ equity and communications director

ANSONIA — School officials and advocates are raising funds to give more than a dozen Ansonia High School students a chance to visit historically Black colleges and universities in the spring.

Students who take these trips come back with a new outlook, said Reese Morales, Ansonia Public Schools’ equity and communications director. “I have done this trip before with other students, and it is beautiful to see the transformation. They come back so changed by what they have experienced, their thinking is broader,” Morales said.

This kind of college campus tour has a special meaning for students of color, said Leslie Youngblood. “There are educational institutions that care about them that know they exist, and they can do it as long as they believe it and see it,” Youngblood said.

Youngblood, 57, is a member of the Emergent Leaders HBCU / Civil Rights Tour Fundraising Committee, an organization set up to raise funds for an upcoming spring break trip from Ansonia to historically Black colleges and universities throughout the south.

While the scheduled trip is months away, parents, school officials and advocates have spent their time raising money so 15 Ansonia High School students can tour the institutions and visit landmarks from the Civil Rights Era.

The trip is scheduled for the 2023 spring break, so students won’t miss classes, Morales said.

Students would tour several well-known colleges and universities, including Morehouse College, Spelman College and Tuskegee University.

They will also visit several well-known civil rights landmarks including the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr. led disenfranchised Black voters on a series of marches to the state capital in 1965. State police brutally attempted to repress the initial march in an event later known as Bloody Sunday.

Rich Martinez, 47, has two children, a junior and senior at the school and both will be going on the trip. Learning about the civil rights movement will teach them life lessons, he said.

“What came to mind for me was an opportunity for my kids to learn more about hard times in the past... it would teach them so much in life right now: ethics, responsibility,” Martinez said.

Parents and committee members have so far raised about $35,000 through donations, Morales said. The trip will cost $40,000 and is being planned through World Strides, an educational travel company. In a letter to parents, the district stated students who participate are eligible for college credit.

Many students wanted to go, Morales said, but were put off by the cost. According to a new report from the Valley Foundation, Ansonia has a median household income of $53,709, the lowest of all Naugatuck Valley municipalities and far lower than the state average which is slightly over $79,000. Youngblood said community members raised the funds, despite the costs, because of the opportunities it can lead to.

Other organizations and people have donated money as well.

“It’s a bit of a stretch, right, that we were able to do this but we were able to,” Youngblood said.

An academic study published in 2021 showed students who visited colleges on tours were likelier to take advanced courses in high school. Marginalized students who otherwise struggled with societal expectations of themselves and a lack of cultural knowledge about college, showed increased interest in college as a result of these tours.

Maliqa Mosley-Williams, who graduated from Ansonia High School in 2020 and is now the chair of the Valley MLK Committee, has also helped with fundraising.

Mosley-Williams said travel can be eye opening especially for students who have never left the state.

“As someone who stayed in state for college, I think it’s crucial for students especially living in a small town to branch out and see what the world has to offer. Visiting HBCUs is amazing exposure. This is an opportunity a lot of students don’t get to experience,” Mosley-Williams said.

Morales echoed MosleyWilliams’ comments. He said at least a few of the 15 students scheduled to go have never left Connecticut before.

Students will travel to colleges and universities that exist because of the deep racial inequities in education, according to the National Museum of African American History & Culture. They were the only higher educational institutions in the country catering to Black students. Many notable African Americans and those with partial African American ancestry have graduated from the colleges and universities including Vice President Kamala Harris who graduated from Howard University.

Morales said the trip would broaden students’ thinking and Youngblood said she wants students to envision success. The students are coming from a school which historically lagged behind statewide graduation rates.

According to the state Department of Education, Ansonia’s four year graduation rates in 2020-21 show all students have suffered due to the pandemic. Black students have seen their graduation rates decline from 81.6 percent in 2020 to 75.9 percent in 2021. Hispanic students had a graduation rate of 82 percent in 2020 but by 2021 it declined to 74.4 percent. White students graduated at 86.8 percent in 2020 but slumped to 67.4 percent a year later.

The 2021 state average for Black students is 81.6 percent, 82.3 percent for Hispanics and 94 percent for white students which all slightly increased since 2020.

Morales said when he was a high school student in Bridgeport, he remembered doing something similar to this. He traveled to Washington, D.C., and toured landmarks. He remembers other students who previously went to trips like the one he is planning now, who are studying abroad. One University of New Haven student he said, studied abroad in Florence, Italy.

Taking the trip as a high school student changed him.

“I was blessed that my teachers, they saw leadership, and they saw my potential and they took me under their wing,” Morales said.