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.” 

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