Embedded Files
Neither of the actions mentioned in the title have occurred yet, but when the Hartford Public Schools Board of Education meets tomorrow morning, March 11 (8:30 a.m.), they will be presented with a $200,000 proposal (available here) to expand the Esports program to another two schools, Annie Fisher STEM Magnet and Noah Webster Magnet, and as those reading and subscribing to the Hartford Schools Report know, if you get before the BOE, you’ve got a deal, no meaningful questions asked.
So, just weeks after hearing from BOE Student Representatives (video here) that janitorial services have reached the point of being a “health concern,” that many school restrooms are missing stall doors, have broken toilets, sinks, soap dispensers, water fountains, and walls, HPS and the weakest-in-the-nation BOE will spend $200,000 so that Annie and Noah can have an esports lab, joining SMSA, Betances Stem, Classical, and University High which got them early in 2023 (view here, and here).
Yes, the funds are coming from a state “Extracurricular Program” grant, but if the district can convince the federal government that using a $2.1 million grant to hire three central office folks fits under the umbrella of community schools programming (which they did here), then it shouldn’t be a great shake to convince an equally corrupt state government that spending $200,000 on repairing restrooms fits under the umbrella of an extracurricular activity, especially if they hear some of the stories of what goes on in HPS restrooms.
With a straight face, HPS leadership has told us in previous esports presentations that the goal of the esports program is to improve attendance and school engagement. Let’s be clear, the real reason is to attract suburban white kids to HPS magnet schools, if not, they wouldn’t be placing them all in magnet schools; give a neighborhood school an esports lab!
But folks, it’s not working; someone overestimated the draw that video games have on wealthier, white, suburban students, especially if they have to travel over the worse-than-a-back-road-in-Maine thoroughfares of Farmington Avenue, Prospect Street, and New Park Road to get to them. As a whole, HPS enrollment is up slightly this year, less than 1%, but an increase, nevertheless. However, the four magnet schools which have esports labs, as a group their enrollment this year is down nearly 4% at 3.8%. I know this because I read it on the internet at EdSight.gov, the state’s “official source for education data.”
However, taking HPS leadership on it’s rhetorical word that esports will improve attendance and school engagement, let’s be like diligent Jim Shmerling, who stated during the last BOE Regular Meeting that he’s “interested in results” (yes, he actually said that, watch it here), and look into this attendance and school engagement thing.
The chart below was presented by HPS’ rhetorical leader, Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, during a board meeting in November of 2023 (presentation available here). The red and black arrows were added by me for dramatic visual clarity. Red arrows represent those schools with an esports lab as of October 2023, and the black arrows represent the two schools which will soon have an esports lab.
The chart represents the change in chronic absenteeism rates for each school from October of 2022 to October of 2023. The longer the green lines, the more the chronic absenteeism rate dropped.
As my little arrows point out, none of the top 12 schools with the best improvement in chronic absenteeism had an esports lab, however, two schools in the bottom 12 schools with the lowest improvement rates in chronic absenteeism, did have an esports lab. And one of them, UHSSE, were veterans of the esporting world, competing in esports contests long before they had their own esports lab, even winning a state championship. UHSSE was, according to this data, one of only 2 schools which saw an increase in chronic absenteeism year over year in October of 2023.
As the chart shows, two schools (Fisher and Webster) which were among the best in reversing their chronic absenteeism rates, will be getting an esports lab…to assist in reversing their chronic absenteeism rates.
As an aside to the ineffectiveness of esports on improving student attendance, you will note at the lower left of the chart a note from the superintendent that states those schools which have a green box around them, are schools which have a “Student Engagement Specialist.” Of the top 10 schools in improving chronic absenteeism, only one of them had this engagement specialist, however, of the bottom 10 schools in improving chronic absenteeism, three of them had engagement specialists.
On the other hand, but as an equity aside, note that 3 of the 4 worst improving rates of chronic absenteeism occurred in neighborhood schools, which have neither an engagement specialist nor an esports lab.
What this limited data tells us is that any rhetoric spewed from HPS leadership on the attendance benefits of hiring engagement specialists or on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on video games, is meaningless.
We’ve been told that esports labs build student engagement with their school. I would share student engagement and connectedness data with you, however, student responses to the district’s feel-good Fall 2023 Culture and Climate survey are still being twisted and skewed by the district and Qualtrics, the company paid $110,000 by the district each year to run this survey operation. No Fall 2023 results are available even though Spring 2024 surveys are now being distributed. Jesus. This is evidence of the low priority and importance this district and the BOE give to actual data, no matter what Shmerling says.
But anyhoo, back to the engagement thing. If students are engaged in their school community, we ought to see less bad behaviors (I’m not a schooled educator, I’m just assuming this). Well, HPS had a district wide suspension rate of 13.4% for the school year 2022-23. The four schools which received an esports lab early in 2023 had suspension rates higher than the district average, ranging from 13.5% to 29.7%!
Now of course not every student in the schools which have esports labs are taking part in the program, so using school-wide data may be off the mark. However, this is an ongoing problem with this data-guarded superintendent who spends millions on outside vendors to come into HPS and work with a handful of kids, rather than creating programs which will benefit students district wide.
Yet even data representing this handful subset is not being shared with the board. The little Proposed Contract Summary which board members will ignore tomorrow morning, contains no data whereby board members can assess the impact of having already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the esports program, thereby justifying the awarding of another $200,000 contract to the same company, Stay Plugged In (or SPIN for short).
And schools have broken toilets!
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse