Four months ago, the Hartford Board of Education announced the retirement of Hartford Public Schools Chief Performance Officer, Bethany Silver.  Silver was leaving HPS after only three years as CPO.

However, Silver’s effective HPS retirement date having only occurred, her time as a retiree was short lived as this past week it was announced by news organizations, such as the Hartford Courant (Jan. 12 ,2024, p. B1), and professional news organizations such as the CT Insider and NBC Connecticut, that Silver had been hired as acting superintendent of Bloomfield Schools.

Ms. Silver will be replacing Superintendent James Thompson who chose to use some accrued time and take a six-month vacation rather than remain an active lame-duck superintendent.  Thompson was the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents’ choice for Superintendent of the Year in 2017, however, and while admitting no knowledge of Mr. Thompson’s leadership effectiveness, based on recognition plaques bestowed upon Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez and HPS’ Board of Education, folks in education leadership positions are often given awards and recognition based on considerations other than student academic achievement, which is the basis for hiring or appointing educational leaders, right?  It’s almost like asking for bonus pay while your district ranks at the bottom of every positive metric measure imaginable.

So, no matter how well students perform academically in Bloomfield, Ms. Silver will, at some point, be honored for her time as that district’s superintendent.  HPS student academic performance under Chief Performance Officer Silver has not been something to write home about and has been something Torres-Rodriguez’s well-paid marketing team in central office cannot even spin in a positive direction, although they give it the ol’ college try, but it obviously didn’t hurt Silver’s resume with the Bloomfield BOE.  If things do not go well in Bloomfield for Ms. Silver, like Michael Jordan, she can retire again.

However, like an NBA player who has sat on the bench for years and suddenly when given a shot, he shines, perhaps former Torrez-Rodriguez appointees such as Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn, Chief Academics Officer Madeline Negron, Chief of Schools Evette Avilla, and CFO Silver, along with the hundreds of teachers (and two board members) who have left over the past year, will breathe a sigh of relief and shine as they free themselves from the failed,  “toxic” environment which Torres-Rodriguez has created at HPS.