Not only has Hartford Public Schools received complaints and criticisms about their being one of the lowest paying school districts for teachers in the state, but complaints surfaced this month concerning HPS not paying teachers what they are contractually owed.

At the Board of Education’s October Regular Meeting , Joshua Bouchard, a social studies teacher at McDonough Middle School, reported to the board that he and others at McDonough have been dealing with class overages since last year.   A class overage situation occurs when the number of students in a class exceeds 28 students.  Bouchard stated that central office was notified of these overages “multiple times,” who most likely responded, “we don’t see that.”

As a result of the overages and as allowed by union contract, Bouchard stated that teachers began to file class size claims for extra pay for each class where student numbers exceeded the 28 student limit.  As of October 17th, HPS has only paid out a fraction of what teachers are owed, Bouchard himself receiving payment for just one class, rather than a lump sum payment for the 6 classes for which he filed and as was expected.  Bouchard stated teachers are upset, discouraged, and disheartened.  He said that teachers are overworked, and students deserve the best classroom possible, which cannot happen with classes of 30 plus students.

Not only do these complaints create a negative teacher culture and climate, but they also cripple a district which has struggled to retain teachers, while also hurting recruitment efforts of not only regular class teachers, but paraprofessionals and substitute teachers as well.

 Most of all, as Mr. Bouchard alluded to, students suffer harm from overworked and discouraged teachers.

If the claims made by the 6th and 7th grade teachers Mr. Bouchard spoke of are valid, and if correct procedure for filing class size claims as spelled out in the union contract was followed, this is another in a growing list of failures for Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez and her hand-picked central office team.