On the eve of becoming Hartford’s permanent superintendent in 2016, Leslie Torres-Rodriguez stated that because she attended Hartford schools while in pigtails, she understood what Hartford students need to be successful. 

Fast forward nearly eight years and we find the state moving to provide financial oversight for the district (“Superintendent Steers HPS into State Financial Oversight”), the federal government investigating the district for mistreatment of special education students (“Superintendent Steers HPS into Civil Rights Lawsuit”), and just this week, Mayor Arulampalam announced that the city will be stepping into the district to find solutions for its academic, attendance, and financial failings while under the failed understanding and failed “leadership” of Torres-Rodriguez.

In their coverage of the Mayor announcing the creation of a city Blue Ribbon Commission on Education to investigate the many failings of HPS, Fox61 and the superintendent attempt to steer the conversation toward the issue being one of funding, while a Co-Chair of the Commission, Andrea Comer, stated that “Money isn't always the answer…it's not just about money…”  Comer told the CTInsider that the commission will be looking at why students are graduating from HPS and then being told by post-secondary schools that they are illiterate.  Comer served on the Hartford board of education from 2005 to 2009.

The Commission would be wise to take note of the fact that HPS ranks at the bottom of Connecticut Alliance districts, which are the thirty-six districts with similar student demographics as Hartford, in academics and attendance but they rank 15th in per pupil spending.

From the city’s document of the mayor’s announcement, another Co-Chair of the Committee, Catherine Carbone, stated that the committee will also be “examining policy outcomes and avenues to ensure Hartford schools and students can thrive and prosper.”  Carbone has been a teacher and principal in East Hartford Schools, an assistant superintendent and department chief in Hartford Public Schools, and just recently retired after five years as superintendent of Bristol Public Schools.

Arulampalam told Fox61 that the city taking this “unprecedented” step in to address the failings of Torres-Rodrigeuz and HPS is a result of the many “concerns” he has heard from Hartford residents, students, parents, and teachers.  Arulampalam said this is a message to Hartford residents, “…we hear you.  There is hope to be had.”  This is in contrast to the late-not-so-great Rigueur-led board of education which listened only to Torres-Rodrigeuz, drank her Kool-Aid and not once stood and issued concerns about the failings of the district.  This is Arulampalam stepping in because he has skin in the game; his kids go to Hartford Schools, unlike the children of Mayor Bronin and unlike, says word on the street, the children of Torres-Rodriguez.

Superintendent Torres-Rodriguez referred to the city stepping in as “additional insight,” which is similar to her response to the state taking over financial oversight of the district and to the feds investigating her special education practices.  It’s like her arms were cut off and she’s calling it a flesh wound.  Now that chief propaganda specialist for HPS Jesse Sugarman has moved on to create BS for Travelers, I think Monty Python is writing Torres-Rodriguez’s scripts.

So while Torres-Rodriguez paints federal, state, and local intervention into the district as just stakeholders stepping up to help with district funding, as Chris Powell of the CTMirror pointed out this is “belated” notice by those stakeholders that HPS is a “mess,” and that Torres-Rodriguez would rather these stakeholders go back to overlooking her failures.