The mayor has a new gig. Every Monday at 7 p.m. she hits the classroom to pass on her passion and know-how of American government.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the opportunity,” said Mayor April Capone. She started teaching the three-credit course at Gateway Community College two weeks ago.
“I’m inspiring my students to take a more active role in their government. It doesn’t necessarily mean I want them all to run for office,” she said. “Just to be active and aware of what their government does.”
Asked if teaching will take away from her mayor job, she said, “Oh, no. I think it adds to it. First of all, it’s after hours. It gives me an opportunity to be an ambassador for East Haven in the academic field.”.
Capone brings a mixed background of learning and doing to her government class. She has five years of experience as an elected official -- two on the Town Council and the last three in the mayor’s office. Her academic resume reads a bachelor’s from the University of New Haven, an MBA from Southern Connecticut State University and a current associate fellowship at Yale-Branford College.
The mayor and her sister, Tammy Capone, who also has an MBA, are apparently the academic superstars of the family. None of their grandparents finished high school and their parents didn’t go beyond East Haven High School. But according to the mayor, their mother, Judy Capone, drilled into the sisters' heads from a very early age that they must go to college. They had no choice.
Except that learning was a challenge for April Capone and she said she didn‘t know why.
“I had to take algebra three times in college before passing the course,” she said. “I had a problem with every math class since learning my multiplication tables when I was in the third grade.”
It apparently wasn’t due to a low IQ or an ineptitude for math, but to dyslexia. She said she wasn’t diagnosed until college. Beforehand, Capone said she blamed herself for her learning problems, believing she wasn’t “trying hard enough.”
Inverting numbers is just one of the consequences of her learning disability; she also has a hard time getting from point A to point B. “I live by my GPS,” said Capone. “I get lost easily. You learn how to really pay attention to your surroundings and learn the landmarks.”
Her GPS likely comes in handy when the college instructor moonlights, but probably not needed when the mayor goes to her day job.
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