As a new school year is about to begin (August 27th) at Hartford Public Schools and as we await word of how ineffective HPS’ teacher recruitment and retention strategies have been, it is appropriate to remember former Office of Talent Management Chief at HPS, Tiffany Curtis.

During a June, 2023 board of education meeting on a proposal to award the Tennessee-based education recruiting company ESS up to $2 million to bring teachers to Hartford (because Avon, CT’s Adams & Knight recruiting efforts were a joke), OTM Chief Curtis issued one of the most absurd comments made by a member of Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez’s hand-picked cabinet as you are likely to ever hear outside of anyone not named Torres-Rodriguez.  Curtis stated:

“OTM may not have direct insight or oversight in how to retain teachers in schools because we are not right there in every school.”

Tiffany Curtis, Ed.D. (I know, right?), disappeared from most BOE meetings following this one-for-the-ages comment, and in less than a year she turned up as Assistant Superintendent for Bloomfield Schools where I’m sure she’ll utter something to the effect that assistant superintendents are not right there in every school so they don’t have direct insight into what the district actually needs to succeed.

Curtis joins fellow HPS cabinet member Bethany Silver in abandoning the sinking ship in Hartford and going to Bloomfield.  Silver “retired” from HPS in September of 2023 only to be named Superintendent of Bloomfield Schools four months later.  Silver, former HPS Chief Performance Officer, was mostly tasked with redlining semantic changes to CABE (Connecticut Association of Boards of Education) model policies as recommended by BOE members during Policy Committee meetings.  I feel for Bloomfield Schools.

Gone also from the superintendent’s cabinet is Nuchette Black-Burke.  It is not known for what HPS’ former Chief of Family and Community Partnerships abandoned HPS, but perhaps she has more time to focus on her responsibilities as ceremonial mayor of Windsor.

The rag of a newspaper, the Hartford Courant, and WFSB (“We’re Friends of the School Board”) will surely miss the spoon-fed rhetorical news releases and “official” comments of HPS propaganda chief Jesse Sugarman who has abandoned HPS to coin cute little phrases like “beautiful and capable students” for Travelers.

Torres-Rodriguez still hasn’t replaced former Chief Financial Officer Philip Penn who abandoned HPS in the summer of 2023, thereby avoiding HPS’ record setting budget deficits and state financial oversight.

And of course, although not yet official, clearer thinking minds came to power in Hartford this year and dismantled the Phil Rigueur-led worst-BOE-of-all-time, throwing overboard the core of former Mayor Bronin’s BOE appointees, the worst decisions made by a leader of a public institution since MIT leadership decided to support eugenics and antisemitism.

Eight down, one to go.