Amistad Middle School & Amistad Elementary School

A modernist, flat and sleek charter school, made of orange brick with rectangular window panes breaking up the large structure. Most recently renovated in 2011, the building and surrounding sidewalks and parking lots are impeccably maintained, and provide sharp orderliness against the more eclectic architectural styles of the surrounding residential neighborhood. The two schools, with separate opposite entrances, sit next to a playground, and currently serves children in Kindergarten through the 8^th Grade.  

Timothy Dwight Elementary School, 1863-2008 

      The New Haven Public Timothy Dwight School was originally opened in 1863. That building served the Public School for 100 years before it was demolished to construct a new modern building in 1964, in the modern style at the time, with an interior courtyards and play-space in addition to the fourteen classrooms. In 1974 an extension was built of mainly classrooms, and a small multipurpose space that had served as cafeteria, gym, and auditorium. In 2001, a larger gym was built and added to the building. In 2008, the Dwight School closed, and in 2009 the building was bought by Achievement First for $4.51 million. In the same year, the 1974 addition was demolished, and a new $31.5 million project to renovated the existing 1965 building and add a 53,000 square-foot addition of two floors of classrooms, a new gym, and another interior courtyard was begun. Amistad Academy Elementary School and Amistad Academy Middle School moved into the building and began their first school year there in the Fall of 2011 and have been in operation serving grades K-8 since.  

The original Timothy Dwight School was built in 1863 to serve a growing population in the developing Dwight neighborhood. In 1963 the building was demolished on grounds of being old and unfit as well as ill-suited for modern uses. The demolition of the original Dwight School building followed a period of sweeping urban renewal in New Haven of which the Dwight Neighborhood was much a part. Unlike in downtown areas, where large swaths were demolished for highway and housing construction, the Dwight Neighborhood’s main renewal projects during this era were the new Dwight School building and affordable co-op developments that followed the existing city blocks. The Dwight PTA and the Dwight Community Improvement Association were two community lead groups very involved in these projects. During the construction of the 1965 building students were displaced for only a year, and returned to a new school both modern in its architectural design and aesthetic and its use of space to best fit students. Notably in both the New Haven Register and a later letter from the architects at the school’s opening ceremony, designers impress the innovation of an interior courtyard design, mainly to “minimize window breakage.” 

In 2008, after 145 years of operation the Timothy Dwight School closed to be consolidated with Troup Magnet Academy of Science. A few months later in 2009, the building was sold to Achievement First, controversial amongst Dwight residents who had hoped to convert the building into a community center. The Greater Dwight Development Corp helped pay for the school’s 2001 addition, and the city brokered a deal that would allow the Corp continued access to the addition, as well as four seats on the school’s advisory team. The 2009 purchase of the building by the state funded charter school company coincided with new initiatives by the city of New Haven to improve its public education, as students lagged behind the rest of Connecticut in reading and math. The Amistad Academy began in New Haven in 1999, becoming Achievement First in 2003 and expanded to surrounding Connecticut and Rhode Island cities and New York City. Their school serves districts highly underperforming compared to state averages and boasts scores higher than state averages for their pupils. Amistad Elementary and Middle Schools moved into 130 Edgewood for the 2011 school year and continue to admit pupils based on random lottery.

The school is surrounded by a mostly quiet residential neighborhood. Within its block, it is bordered by mostly typical Victorian homes of the Dwight Neighborhood on the Dwight Street side, and the Garden Street Playground on the Chapel and Day Street corner. Two middle income co-op developments of the 1960s Dwight Renewal Project boarder the school, one across from it on Edgewood Avenue, the other across Day Street.  

The flat, low-lying brick building stretches across most of a city block, conveying sleek, simple modernity with its linear, simplistic forms. The original one story building stretches along Edgewood Avenue between Dwight and Day street, with an entrance for the elementary school there. A small interior courtyard with a playground for the elementary school is concealed within the building, an innovative design for its time. The two story 2009 addition on the other side of the building, along Cofield Way, seamlessly blends with the original architecture, also employing orange brick, flat and linear shapes, and large sections of windows, as well as creating a separate middle school entrance. Built in a shallow U shape, this addition also adds an interior courtyard between the middle and elementary school. Tucked behind a police precinct which shares the block, the 2001 gym addition is the only component that does not meld with the original design, using light blue and grey colors and a slanted shed-style roof. 

Bailey, Melissa. “Past Meets Future At “Amistadized” Dwight.” New Haven Independent, August 16, 2011. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/amistad_academy_opens/

Benton, Elizabeth. “Demolition at former Dwight School makes way for charter expansion.” New Haven Register, December 2, 2009. https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Demolition-at-former-Dwight-School-makes-way-for-11642131.php

“New Haven Public Schools.” U.S. Department of Education. Accessed February 26, 2018. https://www.ed.gov/labor-management-collaboration/conference/new-haven-public-schools

“Results Across Achievement First.” Achievement First. Accessed February 20, 2018. http://www.achievementfirst.org/results/across-achievement-first/

Sanborn Map Company. Sanborn-Perris Map Co. Sanborn (Firm). “New Haven Volume Two: Insurance Maps of Connecticut .” New York, NY, 1923.

Staff. “Dwight School Graduates—Itself.” New Haven Independent, June 23, 3008. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/dwight_school_graduates_--_itself/