Hartford Public Schools and the Board of Education are places where the questions are always indiscreet, but the answers seldom are.

Dr. Mya Bowen, Chairperson of the Greater Hartford African American Alliance’s Education Committee, can relate to this thought by Oscar Wilde as she sits frustrated with Hartford Public Schools’ lack of transparency in reporting.  A club could be started with the many folks feeling Ms. Bowen’s pain.

This past week marked the second time in two years in which Ms. Bowen has appeared before a Board Regular Meeting seeking information, data, and answers concerning the Superintendent’s self-chosen tutoring company, Intervene K-12.

After informing the Board in August of 2021 that the GHAAA is “ready and poised” to partner with HPS in providing extra academic support to students, Ms. Bowen came back to the Board in December of 2021 for answers regarding the Texas company being paid $3.3 million by Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez to provide extra academic support to students for the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year.

Ms. Bowen asked a dozen questions concerning the Texas tutoring company’s deal with the Superintendent, ranging from where to find budget line items to how success will be measured.

In their November 2021 proposal to HPS, Intervene K-12 promised “high dosage, high impact” tutoring from “high quality and trained tutors,” resulting in “measured results.”  Obviously, a sales pitch written by someone from Texas, where things are bigger, or gotten from the Superintendent’s “How to Lead with Rhetoric” handbook.

Intervene’s 2021 proposal stated that they would “schedule a sequence of data reviews and feedback sessions with district partners and stakeholders,” where they will “share data, insights, request feedback on programming, [and] share student feedback…”

Following the Board’s approval of the Intervene proposal in November of 2021, there can be found no Intervene reviews, data, insights, feedback results, HPS or Board reports concerning Intervene via the districts public document access site, BoardDocs.

Fast forward to last week, and we once again find a frustrated Ms. Bowen appearing before the Board and asking, what’s up with Intervene?  Ms. Bowen asked about Intervene’s failure to meet tutoring goals, about the change in tutoring schedules, about the lack of tutoring records, about the lack of due diligence, and she renewed her 2021 astonishment at the Superintendent’s selection of a Texas company.

Imagine how frustrated Ms. Bowen would be if the district had been more transparent with the knowledge that the Intervene K-12 hiring was, as described to me by one teacher, a “colossal failure,” which was predicted at the November 2021 meeting through comments made by a community organizer, a Board member, and, more importantly, two teachers.  And the Board takes comments made at the public meeting “very seriously.”

However, these comments and predictions were not taken seriously until Intervene’s contract expired seven months later in June of 2022.  The contract was not even considered (openly, at least) for renewal.  An avoidable failure if only the voices of those with knowledge of education, rather than the voice of the Superintendent and her marketing minions, had been taken “very seriously.”

In September of 2022, the Board approved the “Community Schools contracts,” contracts given to local organizations for “academic services, including tutoring.”  Among these groups were the Boys & Girls Club, Catholic Charities, and the Blue Hills Civic Association.  The total monies being paid to the six organizations equaled $3.2 million.  In February of this year, another $130,000 went out to ConnectiKids and The Village for Families and Children for additional academic and tutoring support.

How many students are actually being served by these organizations as compared to the numbers proposed?  Are grades improving among the students being tutored?  How are the companies being assessed for effectiveness?  Who are the folks doing the tutoring?  Where can parents and the community find reviews, reports, and insights on the work being done by these organizations?

Although these questions would be out of bounds for members of the Superintendent’s Board of Education to be asking, they are surely questions Ms. Bowen will be asking on behalf of Hartford and the GHAAA.  The questions are indiscreet, the answers seldom are.