Christian Robles, Contributing Photographer

As the third hour of a contentious meeting of the Board of Alders Education Committee approached on Wednesday night, Alder Frank Redente Jr. posed three simple questions to Jamar Alleyne, executive director of facilities at ABM, the private corporation New Haven Public Schools contracts with for custodial management. 

Redente asked Alleyne to name the assistant director of custodial operations at ABM responsible for hiring. “Lisa Hopkins,” Alleyne responded. And who is the building manager at Wilbur Cross High School? “Heaven Hopkins,” Alleyne said.

Redente then asked Alleyne to clarify the relationship between the two. Alleyne replied that he believes Heaven is Lisa’s daughter. 

Speaking to the News after the meeting, Redente, Alder Sarah Miller ’03 and the president of the custodial union expressed concern about potential nepotism in the hiring process. 

Wilbur Cross has been plagued by serious facilities crises and decades of deferred maintenance.  Wilbur Cross teachers, parents and students showed up in full force at the Board of Education’s meeting on Monday to speak about these dire conditions.  

On Wednesday, Alleyne quickly added that Lisa Hopkins was not involved in the hiring of her daughter, insisting there was a “layer of supervision” put in place to prevent a potential conflict of interest. He had previously told the committee that Lisa Hopkins was the one responsible for reviewing applicants’ resumes and making hiring decisions. 

Heaven Hopkins did not respond to a request for comment. Lisa Hopkins could not be reached for comment.

Justin Harmon, director of marketing and communications for New Haven Public Schools, initially declined to comment on Thursday. On Friday, he forwarded a comment from ABM to the News. 

“I have been asked by ABM to respond to your query,” he wrote. “Both mother and daughter were originally hired by ABM as part-time employees. The mother had nothing to do with the hiring of her daughter. They are both productive employees.”

Lisa Hopkins ran unsuccessfully for Ward 22 alder in 2007 and 2009. She served as director of the Haven Group supporting affordable housing in New Haven in years prior. According to a profile from the News in 2007, Hopkins raised her daughter Heaven — now 29 — as a single mother.

Civil service exams for building manager positions were recently eliminated to help fill the 17 vacancies in the district, according to Tom DeLucia, president of Local 287, which represents the custodial workers in the school system not replaced by ABM employees. He expressed opposition to the rollback of the exams, arguing that loosening merit-based qualifications would lead to corruption and nepotism. 

“Basically what it does is it lets people’s friends get hired,” DeLucia said. 

Heaven Hopkins is currently listed on the Wilbur Cross staff directory as the building manager for the district’s largest comprehensive high school. 

According to Redente, her only previous experience was as a “part-timer” for the previous private custodial management contractor, AFB. Lisa Hopkins was also previously employed by AFB, according to Redente and DeLucia. 

“If she was a part-timer at that company, what qualifies her to be a building manager at Wilbur Cross High School, our largest high school in the district?” Redente asked. 

Wilbur Cross has been plagued by facilities and maintenance crises in recent weeks, a common issue in schools around New Haven. The library and music room are shut due to mold. The staircases are in dangerous conditions. Teachers have been forced to clean up puddles of cleaning chemicals and floodwaters themselves. 

Alder Salvatore Punzo, education committee chairman and former New Haven Public Schools principal, questioned why critical facilities issues at Wilbur Cross were not addressed before the school year began last month. 

“It doesn’t make much sense if you’re a building manager … to allow that building to open or to not send up a red flag to the powers-that-be that this work needs to be done. That is unacceptable. How did that happen?” Punzo asked Alleyne. 

Building managers are not responsible for completing the work, Alleyne told Punzo. They only submit the necessary work orders to the ABM system.

Several Wilbur Cross graduates and a former teacher voiced their frustration with the maintenance crisis at Wilbur Cross to the committee. 

DeLucia, himself a Wilbur Cross graduate and a custodian in the school system, expressed anger at the state of the high school’s facilities. He placed much of the blame on the privatization of custodial management and the reduction of union custodial jobs.

“It’s disgusting,” he told the News. “Back then, it was all unionized, the facilities department, the custodians, everything was taken care of.”

Redente, a youth development coordinator at Fair Haven School and a New Haven Public Schools employee for over 30 years, believes that the hiring process at Wilbur Cross and “the leadership of maintenance” there is “absolutely” responsible for the facilities crisis. 

Alder Sarah Miller also expressed concern that the hiring process at Wilbur Cross was not above board.

“I think we should look at it,” she said. “There’s a long history of hiring family members who are unqualified in the New Haven public schools.”

ABM Industries is headquartered in New York City.