During the June Hartford Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez celebrated the 2023-24 school year restart of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council (SSAC).  From the SSAC, two members sat on the BOE during Regular Meetings as non-voting student members.  These positions are required by the City of Hartford’s municipal code.

Torres-Rodriguez stated that the purpose of the SSAC was to “amplify student voice,” and she said this SSAC was “instrumental” in getting school counselors into Hartford’s middle schools.  She also gave the group kudos for assisting in the development of the “equity-based school budget” process, which is the parsing out of HPS dollars to individual schools.

Despite the SSAC and student voice being an invaluable resource to the school district, as pointed out by the superintendent and celebrated monthly by the BOE, months ago a proposal was presented to BOE members to utilize a Hartford Teachers Advisory Council (HTAC) to the board of education.  I have it on good authority that the proposal was criticized and shot down by the late, not-so-great misplaced chair of the board, Phillip Rigueur.  You can read the entire proposal as created by Hartford teacher Richard de Meij, with assistance from a “cross section of Hartford Public Schools educators,” here.

However, now that there is a new (albeit, illegitimate) board of ed in town, with members who haven’t yet hitched their wagon to the runaway choo choo train that is Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez, it is vital that this proposal be revisited by the BOE.

This proposal is not like some banana republic coup attempt of the board of education.  It is clearly stated that the intent is not to give BOE voting rights to members of the HTAC.  It is an attempt to amplify teacher voice in a formal manner, to weave that voice “into the fabric of policy decision-making, and contracts approval processes that impact students, teachers, teaching and learning in Hartford’s classrooms.” 

It is a proposal to bring the voice and experience of those in the trenches everyday to provide real data and information to the BOE as they make decisions regarding policy and programs, curriculum, budgeting, vendor contracts, and oversight, rather than the BOE’s relying solely on the rhetorical information and skewed data given to them by the superintendent and her minions.

This is not a proposal crafted from the dreams of a hyper-progressive after having too many cocktails.  As stated above, a student advisory council to the BOE is welcomed with open arms and apparently consulted on issues such as budgets and staffing in schools.  After the last state takeover of HPS, the State Board of Trustees in 1999 recommended the continued use of legislative advisory councils to the district.  The BOE’s own bylaws (9400) lay the foundational reasoning for an HTAC: “The board shall rely on the school staff, students, and the community to provide evidence of the effect of the policies which it has adopted.” 

A few examples of school board advisory councils in the U.S. are, the Baltimore City Schools Parent and Community Advisory Board, Seattle’s African American Male Advisory Committee, Houston’s Curriculum and Instruction Advisory Committee, NYC’s Multilingual Learners Advisory Council, and the Clark County School District’s Diversity and Equity Advisory Committee.  And who has been advising the Hartford BOE?  Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez and that halfassed collegiate level quasi-state agency CABE (Connecticut Association of Boards of Education).

Rather than finding out from state investigations that district finances have been ill managed, that district special education students have been ill served, the BOE’s utilizing a teacher’s advisory group would have made them aware of the itch before it became a pimple.  If Christopher Columbus had utilized a Vikings advisory group, he wouldn’t have mistaken the Caribbean for Asia.

What amount of arrogance and egoism runs through a board member’s veins to dismiss the counsel of education experts, while that member has amoeba sized insight into education? 

Laws and statutes may not require a teacher’s advisory council to the board of education, but common sense and a commitment to ensuring that a quality education is being offered does.