How many central office folks does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

According to EdSight, the state’s “official source for education data,” Hartford Public Schools has more certified staff in central office than any other district in Connecticut, more than twice the average of other public-school districts “

This means that there are more degrees hanging on the walls of central office which were not earned from Trump University, and which were earned based on the learning the “best practices” of educating beautiful and capable children.

Leading this pool of loyal-despite-the-failures central office staffing, is Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez with her Doctor of Educational Leadership, who despite eight years of failing as the educational leader at HPS is now lecturing at Yale University (“How to Lead with Rhetoric While Skewing Data”), who said, on the eve of her being named superintendent in 2016, that she understood what Hartford students “need to experience in our schools in order to be successful” (Hartford Courant, Dec. 1, 2016, p.B6).

However, not confident in her understanding of what Hartford schools needs are and not trusting or hearing the advice of her over-educated staff, 1,700 teachers, parents, or the community, the Board of Education will, on September 19th, approve the Superintendent’s half-million contract for an outside firm called Attuned Education Partners, who is going to come into Hartford, ask folks what innovation in education means to them and supposedly will create a plan and a program to implement what they have heard from HPS stakeholders.

Attuned arrives in a school district with their team (58% of listed school partners are charter schools), assess and analyze systems and processes, and then develop plans and projects to leave the district “with more knowledge, skill, and confidence” to achieve success.  Attuned claims their “proven approach” is successful in part because “we listen,” which has garnered them a marketing approval score (Net Promoter Score) of 86%, which means most of their clients had a positive experience.  Whether that “positive experience” was in engaging with Attuned or whether it means there were positive results from Attuned’s work long after they were gone, is not clear.

Members of the Attuned team first met with the BOE in May of this year and Board Member Johnson was so shocked when Board Members were asked by Attuned representatives what innovation in education means to them, that he wanted to call a halt to the meeting until board members had a chance to review the question (“Hartford Board of Education Caught Off Guard”).

Attuned then trained the central office F.A.C.E.S. team (Family and Community Education Supports), a group once known as the “Parent & Caregiver Academy” and created by TNTP  in 2021(The New Teacher Project, which has received nearly a million dollars in contracts from HPS over the last 3 years and has as one of their Vice Presidents, Board Member Kim Oliver), but then rebranded as F.A.C.E.S. the following year.  Attuned trained this central office team on how to hold family focus groups to gather feedback on what HPS should do to innovate education.  HPS also employs the company Qualtrics for more than $100k a year to help screw in the lightbulb.  Qualtrics is a data company hired for the “collection and reporting of stakeholder perception.”

Supposedly armed with copious community feedback (“surveying the broader community to develop a community based definition of innovation to drive innovative practices at HPS”), Attuned created a 5-school innovation pilot program called “Inet.”   The Superintendent had said that district schools would choose on their own whether they wanted to participate in the program. 

The 5 volunteering schools were not identified during central office presentations until specifically asked for by Board Member Deristel-Leger in August. 

Betances Learning Lab, Betances STEM, Breakthrough North, Bulkeley High School, and Sanchez Elementary are the schools volunteering to host the Inet pilot program, however, what that innovation program consists of in each school was never revealed or discussed.  What type of innovation program was designed for each of the five schools based on community feedback?  Is it shorter school days?  Is it more hugging and less math?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Part II of Attuned’s contract with HPS calls for them to instruct the well-educated staff in central office on how to “implement effective principal supervision practices,” because, as the Superintendent said, district principals asked for this. 

Attuned will also “assess the efficacy” of central office systems and procedures to assure that they align with the undisclosed innovation systems and procedures being implemented in the five Inet pilot schools, to identify “barriers” to innovation.  Omitting the fact that the biggest barrier to success in HPS is central office itself, I’m sure.

Despite Attuned’s proclamation that “we keep student impact at the center,” their stated measurable outcomes, how the public can assess their success at HPS, is of the feel-good variety, the satisfaction of central office and whether they would recommend Attuned to West Hartford Public Schools.  Their stated measurable outcomes mention nothing of measurable, positive impacts on students.

As to whether the Inet program could be expanded to other schools in the district, Attuned’s Chief School Officer, Natalie Gordon (who also serves on the Board of RISE, another perennial contract winning partner of HPS), stated that Attuned will have such an impact on central office systems and procedures that the effects will ripple throughout the district like an “Impeach Trump” movement and will spur innovation and success everywhere a bus stops.

In August, the Biden administration issued a rule banning incandescent lightbulbs.