Zachary Suri, Contributing Photographer

Hundreds of students, teachers and parents gathered in front of Gateway Community College at rush hour on Tuesday holding signs reading “Protect public schools” and “Education equals opportunity.” 

Car after car on George Street blew their horns in support of the coalition of labor unions and immigrant rights groups marching to protest Trump administration policies. One driver waved a red scarf from their window as a show of solidarity. Another shouted “I love this” as she drove by. Students waved at the crowd from the windows of a passing school bus. 

“I want to protest the tyranny of one individual,” Jack Cardello, a teacher at The Sound School in City Point, told the News. 

Cardello had a simple message for President Trump: “Think about the kids. Think about the future.” 

After a few lively speeches and chants from students, community college professors and organizers, the march followed a police escort and the Hillhouse High School marching band down Church Street to the New Haven Green, where the marchers — now around 200 — gathered around the flagpole across from City Hall. 

At Gateway, Cynthia, an undocumented student at Wilbur Cross High School and organizer with CT Students for a Dream, addressed the crowd through an interpreter. 

“I ask you to join me in search for justice, equity and human rights,” she said. “We cannot continue living in fear. We cannot continue to be treated as if we were less than others. We are people.”

In recent months, fears around immigration enforcement in New Haven have often centered on schools. The Trump administration has already signaled that they will no longer exempt schools from immigration enforcement raids. 

The administration has also proposed eliminating the Department of Education, which provided around $24 million in grants to New Haven Public Schools in the last fiscal year alone, according to district spokesman Justin Harmon. 

Education funding has also been a focus of budget negotiations in Hartford. Last month, Governor Ned Lamont proposed adjustments to the state’s fiscal guardrails to support modest increases in education funding and historic investments in early childhood care, in his biennial budget address. 

NHPS administrators, local unions and activists in particular have emphasized the dire need for state funds to support basic special education services. 

While the governor’s budget provides an additional $50 million for special education in the state, none of these funds would be spent until the 2026-27 fiscal year. Advocates say funds are needed this school year. 

Last week, the state’s General Assembly passed $40 million in emergency funding for special education in this school year while the governor was out of the country. Lamont vetoed these provisions on Monday, a move he justified as critical to preserving the state’s fiscal guardrails.  

On Friday, Mayor Justin Elicker announced his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. The proposal included a $5 million increase for NHPS, but fell short of the $23.2 million requested by NHPS superintendent Madeline Negrón. 

On Tuesday morning, Lamont announced a compromise with state legislators to reinstate the emergency funds, using interest on federal pandemic aid to pay for them.

Hours later, protestors stood around the flagpole outside New Haven City Hall chanting “We win when we fight” and “No justice, no peace.” 

“We are here because we want to send a clear message to our leaders in Washington, D.C. that we will stand up and fight back to protect our kids and protect our schools,” Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, told the crowd. “They’re trying to give billionaires tax cuts while they decimate the Department of Education, and we’re not going to let it happen.” 

Ambar Santiago Rojas, a student at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School in West Haven and a member of the Semilla Collective, described the harmful effects of proposed cuts to the Department of Education. 

“The proposed federal education cuts would devastate students like me. They would gut special education programs, slash funding for low-income schools, take away resources from English learners, and make college even more unaffordable for working-class families such as mine. These cuts aren’t just numbers. They mean losing teachers, losing support, and losing opportunities that could change lives,” she said. 

Students in New Haven rely on public schools for food, education and safety, Santiago Rojas said. 

“This fight is not just about school budgets. It’s about who gets the change to succeed and who gets left behind,” she told the crowd. “When politicians attack our public schools, they are attacking us.” 

Ernest Pagan, an NHPS parent and the president of Carpenters Local Union 326, told the News that he has confidence in city and state leaders, but is deeply concerned about threats to education programs at the federal level. 

For Pagan, the march was a symbol of New Haven solidarity and commitment to supporting teachers. 

“This is a New Haven thing, this is what we do,” he said. “This is not a fight that we could win on our couches. We’ve got to come outside, and we’ve got to come to the streets.”

NHPS serves around 19,000 students in New Haven.