When I start receiving numerous documents regarding school operations, I know things are acting up. Last week I received several documents from a source including e-mails and internal memos detailing poor, dangerous conditions at schools, including Hartford High School.
One teacher I spoke with said that Hartford High is a "powder keg" ready to explode. The teacher detailed assaults on other staff members , teachers and security officers. They even related details about a student that was injured after they were thrown down a flight of stairs at Hartford High
Another of the documents I received was an e-mail a teacher had sent to other teachers detailing an assault on him as well as describing dangerous conditions throughout the school by students loitering and threatening teachers. Rather than the Administration address the concerns, they responded by threatening the teacher with discipline for using the network to send the message, in an e-mail sent by Hartford High Principal Anthony Brooks to admonish the teacher
Apparently , staff members have also recently had a meeting with the Superintendent to detail their concerns, but little or nothing has changed. Drug use in the hallways is apparently a regular occurrence and clouds of marijuana smoke are overlooked , all apparently part of the education process in Hartford.
Now today I received a call regarding the Chief Operating Officer Jose Colon-Rivas. The caller was suspicious because they had called the COO's Office and received cryptic responses as to his whereabouts and the caller got the impression that he was gone or had been terminated. After some checking, I found that Colon-Rivas has apparently been placed on "administrative suspension" for undisclosed reasons, possibly missing computers and equipment.
In addition, it appears that the Executive Director of Security and Internal Investigations for the Hartford Schools, retired Connecticut State Police Major Alexander Rios, has also abruptly left his position and now, according to sources has started a new job with CREC.
Here is one of the memo's I received detailing problems in the Hartford Schools, more to come on this. If anyone has further information, please feel free to contact me. All information is kept confidential.
SCN_0011 by on Scribd
21 comments:
That's the plain truth in that memo.
It is truly sad that in a city with only a 120k people somehow they cant get this shit right i swear hartford is a third world country its disgusting.You should see the hood boogers that hang at Parker Memorial Center on north main street. This us what Malcolm X and MLK died for so that black kids and some adults could be Ratchet and not take pride in themselves or their community. We had more pride in ourselves when we Indentured Servants(Slaves) fighting for freedom smh
I heard retired Sergeant Dave Dufault took a serious beating from some of them bad ass hartford high kids they broke his ribs and sent him to the hospital how true is that Kevin?
Under Mayor Bronin’s entire watch.......Hartford has completely tanked, failing miserably, historically unprecedented to even all the previous failures.
Project Veritas for Hartford Public Schools! Good job uncovering the health insurance fraud now take it a step further into what’s really going wrong.
Wait for it..these people have no idea what is best for city schools...gangs were gone and they are bringing it all back..make a teacher,support staff,parent and union led boe ...get rid of all the central office cush and swag..and put the money back into K-8 before Hartford city schools look like Detroit..
I was physically assaulted by a student several years ago years ago at HPHS. The damage I received affects me to this day, and I have been fighting a Workers Comp case ever since. I have never received so much as any word of concern from the Superintendent or the Board of Education. I have gone from having an average of 2 days of absence per year before the attack to over 40 days of absence per year afterwards.
Luke Cage asked above about Officer DuFault. He was attacked at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year, taken down by a riot of students, kicked and stomped horribly, and was taken out by ambulance. He has not been back since.
According to the press release, the Superintendent stated only that, "No student was harmed." She did not mention Officer Dufault.
In the interim between the assault on me and DuFault, teachers throughout HPHS have been regularly assaulted, several have had bones broken in student assaults, many have had their lives threatened repeatedly.
Students have claimed their hallway hangouts in which mobs of students loiter in the halls, cussing out and verbally threatening and insulting any teacher who dares to pass. Nothing is ever done. Most teachers are afraid of coming to work. Administration always blames us and criticizes us when we make any attempt to intervene to get students back to class.
Our school, HPHS, is unsafe!
These are not new issues if you look back 20/30 years it has always been this way. It's easy to blame when you don't have the historical perspective to reference. Managing an inner city school is hard, take a look at New Haven, Bridgeport and Waterbury, they are having the same issues as well. Are you going to blame our Mayor and BOE for that as well??? Everyone needs to take an active roll in trying to fix the issues instead of blaming. These are our kids and community but again all we are doing is pointing fingers!!! Besides being a Monday morning quarterback what have any of you done to attempt to help!!!! It's like blaming our police officers for the crime in our neighborhoods, they are not the once committing the crimes. when they ask us for information we are quick to shove our tails between our legs because we don't want to get involved. Take an active roll and stop the BS already!!!!
Not so fast citizen ..New Haven has BOE that is responsive and use Hartford as an example what not to do..
https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/New-Haven-BOE-aims-to-end-no-bid-contracts-13648459.php
Bridgeport is in complete chaos and Waterbury not far behind with all the law suits
https://ctmirror.org/category/ct-viewpoints/current-bridgeport-school-board-chaos-resembles-2011-meltdown/
Comparing bad to bad as your standard for what incompetent school management makes you part of the problem. HPS management is way too over paid to have this many issues . All of the people in charge of this poor level "managing" need to be let go.
I beg to differ, I am from New Haven and still have strong ties there and will tell you that they are having there fair share of issues as well. If NH BOE is so responsive why is there a pending lawsuit against their Board Chair for harassment??? Bulling and sexist behavioral is that what you call responsive?????
We are quick to judge our own BOE and School Leadership because of issues that are common in any organization. This isn't new, this isn't isolated just to us!!!! We are currently dealing with dysfunction, deception and betrayal in state government. Hence Ned Lamont!!!!
At the tune of 270000 let go. I don't think my Doctor makes that much.
During Hartford's search for a new Superintendent, candidate Sullivan offered to clean house starting with downtown. "I looked at the directory and saw how we can save millions." Wonder why he didn't get the job.
FOLLOW THE MONEY. Any BOE members in the pockets of charter schools? Just sayin.'
Right, but wrong, wrong, wrong. I too am a teacher at HPHS. I have a LOT of teaching and business and parenting experience – not some twentysomething anyway, so you might want to listen. Most of our kids, if not doing the right thing, WANT to do the right thing, though admittedly there is a "thug" (or "thug wannabe") subset that causes most of our problems. The others have family responsibilities, aren't allowed to walk through the neighborhood, have a job. Jobs. House burned down. Parents jailed for low level drug offenses (while simultaneously Wall Street slavers over “pot stocks”). In short, all that comes with poverty.
HPHS is "the island of misfit toys" which sounds pejorative, but remember in that crappy dated white-bread “Rudolph” holiday special who the REAL heroes turned out to be. HPHS has 33% (+) special education, 33% (+) English language learners, 90+ languages spoken in the district, no tax base... and HPHS has no resources to speak of. But more to the point: only about 25% of kids arrive at HPHS near grade level in numeracy (math) and literacy (reading). That can be set squarely at the feet of the district (and middle-school social promotion), and absolutely not HPHS.
Given these facts, our Superintendent (who did not teach high school) assigning blame to teachers for our halls being full of pot smoke and uncontrolled kids, for our classes not being "engaging" (read : entertaining) enough, is in a word obscene. To claim that somehow teachers' "effective" evaluations are not valid is, in another word, offensive. The worst teacher on their worst day does what downtown’s bureaucrats cannot do. What most never even attempted.
So, downtown, here's an idea: rather than playing numbers games, and instead of abdicating your responsibilities and blaming overworked teachers for your shortcomings, ENFORCE AN ATTENDANCE POLICY. While you're at it, ENFORCE A CELLPHONE POLICY. Kids are coordinating their drug use, beatdowns, and general hall nonsense, via phones.
But you probably won’t because HPHS is being set up to fail. So are its Principal and its teachers.
At HPS the students know they do not have to attend any classes (hang in the hallways, behave badly, get suspended…) to be awarded with a minimum grade of 50 for marking periods #1,#2,& #3. They don’t even have to show up until marking period #4 and only need to pass that one marking period to get full credit per the Hartford BOE. This policy only serves to exacerbate the above conditions.
Well Hartford's putting all their energy into reading in the early grades. Can't argue with success! 25% of 9th graders at HPHS are reading at grade level. Wait... what?
Well Written Marcus ! Need a new BOE with Teachers, Support Services Staff Union and Parents filling the seats. Vote of NO Confidence for CO and BOE is long over due. If you think HPHS is having issues now that these incompetents can not sort through just wait till these fools bring back the middle schools...Need to clean it up now before it is too late. They closed Quirk and the middle schools bc it did not work well in the City of Hartford..Do not let history repeat itself.. bust a move. Maybe Jose will lead it after he is done being dragged through the mud by their investigation -inquisition schemes.
Need a BOE with teachers,parents not political hacks
Hartford Federation of Teachers live nine lives in the Hartford Public Schools. This is not something new. Babies having more Babies. This is the key issue why Hartford is a poverty ridden city. New Haven has an outstanding corrupt role model Mayor Toni Harp (former State Senator.)New Haven public schools are a failing mess.
Every city in the state of CT has failing schools. Politics is always a factor. Hartford Superintendent Torres should be fired. But that will never happen. Hartford Board of Education has no clue. HBE signed off on a outrageous contact for Torres. My heart brakes for Hartford teachers.
Hartford spent $19,616.47 per pupil in 2017-18. ( http://ctschoolfinance.org/assets/uploads/files/2017-18-Net-Current-Expenditures-Per-Pupil.pdf ). That puts them in the top quarter of CT school districts.
Let's not hear ANY jive about poor poor Hartford with its poor poor tax base. The schools are extremely well funded. Badly run schools are entirely the fault of the BOE and school administration. No excuses.
Student performance is of course impacted by the entire environment - drug culture, violent neighborhoods, single/no parents, poverty, teenage pregnancy, abuse, job opportunity, college opportunity, amnesty children who are illiterate, and so forth. That's a separate discussion that seems unlikely to be initiated by the cowardly city 'leadership', it's easier to blame the schools.
The contract teachers just signed off on...well the Union signed off on is crap!
Shafted again
leaving this ship
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