Just days after learning that initial budget projections for the school year 2024-25 show a record $100 million deficit at Hartford Public Schools, for which cuts in staffing and funding to individual schools have been mentioned as possible mitigation targets, we now learn that Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez has conspired with her little lap puppies on the weakest in the nation school board to receive additional compensation for “extra duties” she had to perform due to her inability to fill vacancies in her cabinet over the past year.

Members of the board, with or without an MIT degree and an undeserved and elevated ego, will, at the December 19th Regular Meeting, vote on approving the following item:

“That the Hartford Board of Education authorizes the Hartford Board of Education Chair to negotiate a stipend, or other form of compensation and/or benefits, to be provided to the Superintendent relative to the extra duties assumed in her role over the past year due to senior executive team vacancies.”

Sounds like they are in need of a Deputy Superintendent…oh, sorry, they have one; no vacancy in that position over the past year (“New Deputy in Town”).  Deputy Paul Foster has been leading the budget discussions during board meetings ever since Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn told the district last July, “I’m outta here,” after only two years in the position.  Will Foster also be schlepping the board for “a stipend, or other form of compensation” due to working outside his job description?

Aside from Chief Talent Officer Tiffany Davis (“HPS’ Substitute for an Effective Talent Management Office”), who couldn’t recruit enough teachers to fill a one-room school house, there are some talented folks in central office who could have stepped up and taken on some “extra duties” so that Torres-Rodriguez could have continued unburdened on her 8-year failed reign as superintendent.

Take Director of Post Secondary Success, Chaka Felder-McEntire, for example.  This woman ran multiple non-profits and businesses while serving as a consultant and vice-principal at Naugatuck High School and then, while one of her non-profits, Higher Heights, was under contract to Hartford Public Schools, she was hired by Hartford Public Schools for a six-figured position within central office (“HPS Stops Reaching for Higher Heights”).  This woman is all about extra duty.

While Mr. Foster has been publicly filling in for Chief Penn since his departure, the position of Chief of Schools was vacant for 6 months after Evette Avila received a superintendent position in upstate New York in January of 2023, with Corrine Barney moving into the Chief of Schools role at HPS in July.  Madeline Negron resigned as Chief Academic Officer during this year’s summer recess as she became superintendent of New Haven schools.  Ms. Kondra Rattley of North Carolina officially replaced Ms. Negron this month. 

Based on the timing of these appointments and reports to me concerning memos from central office to teachers stating that so-and-so of central office was filling in for the departed cabinet member, it is doubtful that Torres-Rodriguez was handling a buffet plate which would justify “a stipend, or other form of compensation.”  That being said, the wearing of many hats is what real leaders do.

It seems to me that in a district which at one point last year was losing more than 30 teachers a month (“Thirty-two Teachers Will Leave Hartford Schools This Month”), there must have been one or two teachers who were given “extra duties” and extra stress due to the plethora of teaching vacancies in the district (at least one or two).  Yet I’ll be damned if I can locate a board proposal, hell, even a board discussion, about negotiating a “stipend, or other form of compensation” for those folks, unlike in New Haven where the board of education approved a 20% salary increase for teachers who took on more classes due to shortages in 2022.  It’s what real boards of education do.

No ”stipend, or other form of compensation” would be forthcoming from the state as professed friends of teachers in the state legislature failed to pass a minimum teacher salary bill during this year’s legislative session (HB06881), a bill which received no public support from a Connecticut superintendent or school board member during a special public comment session.

However, Governor Ned Lamont stated last month that the state will soon be parsing out to school districts some of the $500 million of state COVID surplus money.  Lamont suggested that school districts use a portion of their share of that windfall toward teacher bonuses.  However, Torres-Rodriguez and acting-like a CFO Paul Foster have been talking about that money being used to mitigate HPS’ “worst-case-scenario” budget deficit of $100 million.

In 2021, Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez was among the 10 highest paid superintendents in the state, with many of these folks receiving thousands of dollars’ worth of special “perks” in addition to their salary.  When viewed through the lens of Hartford Public Schools and student academic achievement, this salary largesse is certainly not based on merit, any bonus ought to be.  

Here, we ought to apply the spirit of language from the BOE’s equity policy, which states, “Academic participation and outcomes, not intentions, shall be the measure of whether we are successful.”  Merely claiming you worked harder over the past year does not justify a bonus when over the past year HPS saw across-the-board drops in academic performance, attendance, and student culture and climate.

Another issue with the superintendent bonus item coming before the board for a vote this week is in the language of the item itself.  We ought to question why it is stated that the Harford Board of Education Chair,” not the full board, will be ‘negotiating’ the bonus.  Will the full board be made aware of what the “stipend, or other form of compensation” will be, or will this be a secret between Torres-Rodriguez and Chair Rigueur?  Will it be made public, or will this be an “Executive Action?”  Will the full board be approving whatever bonus is ‘negotiated,’ or are they just approving the commencement of non-transparent ‘negotiations?’  Will we have a white Christmas, or will it be as gray as a board policy?

In October, a teacher in Louisiana attended a board of education meeting and publicly questioned the inequality between the superintendent’s raise and a teacher’s salary.  The teacher was handcuffed and arrested.  If Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez is given a bonus, school board members ought to be arrested for impersonating logical people.

 Below is a video from 2021 (“Teaching in 2021 is a Juggling Act”) of a presentation by HPS teachers Tiffany Moyer-Washington and Steven Tatum to the BOE that highlights the hypocritical greed of this issue in a way that no words could do justice.  Please watch.