What a school district doesn’t know can destroy a child’s education.

During the spring and summer of 2024, the Connecticut Legislature created a Special Education Task Force to study special education services and funding.  Apparently a prior Special Education Task Force created in 2018 was less than successful so six years later another task force was needed.  When the public cries, the government creates a task force, mostly for the sake of creating a task force.

So, in 2024, we had a task force.  Oh, keep in mind that this task force was formed before the CT Mirror story broke on how HPS failed one particular special education student during the course of her HPS stay…which spanned the creation of two legislative special education task forces.

After two meetings with the 2024 task force, the legislature said, “oops, my bad,” and they then changed the “parameters” of the task force, adding eight new members.  The task force was now composed of eight new members who missed two meetings and one of the new members was HPS Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez, who, six months after her task forces’ final report on special education in Connecticut, is being sued for negligently failing to provide special education services to at least one student.

Even after resetting the “parameters” of the task force and selecting eight new members, no one in the legislature or those currently on the task force thought it would be prudent to include on the task force, I don’t know, maybe a friggin special education teacher?!  My God.

However, the task force, in its final report, did state that there is a “general societal lack of respect for teachers,” and they talked about “amplifying the teacher position.”  But put one on a task force?  Oh, hell no!

So absent a special education teacher, and after only six meetings, two of them missed by eight of the members on the task force, the task force felt it had all the information it needed and issued it’s “Report of Findings.” 

It is in the “Report of Findings” that we find at least one area where everyone is lost and in need of special education on the issue.

The issue is the over-identification of students as being special education students.  The task force doesn’t think this a problem.  During the May 2024 meeting, a member actually wondered if there was an under-identification problem. The minutes of the meeting state, “there isn’t an over-identification – we do a very good job with our indicator 9 and 10, which is disproportionate representations based on race or ethnicity…”   Then in June, the final report stated, “none of these figures, in and of themselves, indicate that there is overidentification of students with disabilities.”

However, Torres-Rodriguez stated during the September task force meeting: “We have seen a few cases when we do a deep dive case review, we question at the district whether or not that would have been a referral for special education.”  The minutes of the meeting state that Torres-Rodriguez didn’t have any data (quelle surprise!) on this issue but “she had specific cases in which, when they have done a review, they would wonder.”

Torres-Rodriguez is telling the task force that she has cases where students are being over-identified as special education by a receiving district, and all she has done is…”wonder.”  Wonder?  You don’t stamp your feet and hold rallies and meetings to protect Hartford students?  These actions have been undertaken over misstated funding issues, don’t the rights and well-being of students deserve the same attention getting antics?

Now, what happens, as we learned during the October BOE Finance Committee Meeting, is that HPS sends students to other districts based on the Open Choice program.  Torres-Rodriguez and her Deputy, Paul Foster, reported during the October meeting that 38% of HPS students taking advantage of Open Choice are labeled as special education students.  Without giving any numbers, Foster called this “a massive over-identification of black and brown children.”  Torres-Rodriguez told the task force in September that there are a “few cases,” but in October they’re telling the BOE that there is a “massive” over-identification problem, and yet the task force, with Torres-Rodriguez as a member, concludes that there is no problem at all!

Torres-Rodriguez stated during the October BOE meeting that she has been “pushing” the state to look into the identification problem with kids leaving HPS for other districts.  Is she really “pushing” for answers, or did she just lightly tap them on the shoulder?  She couldn’t convince the task force which she sits on that there is a problem, how is she going to fare going up against the legislature?

Neither Torres-Rodriguez nor Deputy Foster cared to share data with the BOE on how many are labeled special education by HPS before they left for greener pastures, but she said the state needs to ask the questions: “When did this happen?  “Was it when the student left?  Was it when they were with us?  Is it behavioral?  Is it learning, a disability?”

If I was on the BOE, I would have asked those questions of Torres-Rodriguez.  This would define Paul Foster’s use of the term “massive.”  As many HPS students would say, “Mr., why you using big words, what does “massive” mean?”

Now keep in mind that Torres-Rodrigeuz and the district are already being sued for not running oversight on special education kids sent to some phony non-profit called High Road.  And now, from Torres-Rodriguez herself, despite her use of “deep dive reviews,” we now know that she doesn’t know the when’s or the why’s of how Open Choice students are being labeled special education!  I think we can call this a pattern of failure.

Where is the communication, the oversight, the fight for the rights and future of Hartford students by the superintendent?  No, she tells the task force that she “wonders” after doing a “deep dive case review.”

Aside from the rights of the student being violated here, there is, as Foster lays out, a financial problem with kids being labeled special education after they leave HPS for another district.  When a “regular” student chooses another district through Open Choice, HPS is not on the hook for tuition costs.  However, when a special education student relocates through Open Choice, HPS must pay the receiving district tuition and special education costs.  Both costs are labeled as district killers by the superintendent, but in response to receiving district labeling shenanigans, all the superintendent does is…”wonder.”

As it was stated in the task force final report, “the referral, eligibility and identification of students who are gifted and talented are the responsibility of individual school districts.  The district choice in the process may lead to discrepancies in the identification of students between districts within the state.”  Superintendents ought to push for laws that state that the sending district is responsible for the “referral, eligibility and identification” of special education students.  If not, kids are being neglected while adults form meaningless tasks forces and wonder.

Now, Torres-Rodriguez ought to know a thing or two about over-identification of special needs students because she practices it herself as head of HPS.  Speak to ESL teachers who will tell you that based on parents responding to a questionnaire, stating that Spanish is the main language spoken in the home, the child is labeled by HPS as a Multilingual Learner.  However, in some cases, the child, born and raised in Hartford, cannot speak Spanish at all but speaks English as well as any other Hartford student!  Also, there may be HPS students who need additional help with learning but are not considered special education students.  However, due to the lack of an effective strategy by district leadership, many of these kids fall behind and eventually are labeled special education students.  The district fails to do its job, thus creating special education students, which they later use as scapegoats in attempting to defend their worth.

Not knowing, wondering, at HPS comes in two prongs: willful negligence and inexperienced, ill-suited leadership.  And we are in the eighth year of current leadership.