‘Glaring and alarming’ issues spur closer monitoring of Connecticut district’s special education services

The Connecticut State Department of Education will expand oversight into the Hartford Public Schools district after one of its special education students sued, saying she graduated without learning to read or write.

Aleysha Ortiz filed the lawsuit in 2024, prompting state lawmakers to call for a deeper investigation into public-school services, CT Insider reported.

“What I’m hoping to see is obviously better educational outcomes, not only in Hartford, but across the state, and more oversight, and really, more repercussions for districts in which the students are coming out like this,” said state senator Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield.

In response, the department commissioned a review by the New Solutions K-12 company. It found “systemic issues” within the district’s special education services, state Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker concluded in a June 26 letter to lawmakers.

“This level of engagement reflects the urgency and seriousness of the identified issues and our commitment to ensuring that all Hartford students receive the services and support to which they are entitled,” she wrote.

‘A perfect storm’ of challenges

Harding called the review “glaring and alarming,” adding many of the problems described apply to districts beyond Hartford.

“I really would like to see more specific action plans that we could put in place, maybe statewide, to ensure that this doesn’t happen again going forward,” he said.

Problems included staffing shortages, “limited supports for students” and lack of oversight regarding open choice special education costs, the report found.

“These interconnected challenges have created a perfect storm, compounding on each other in a vicious cycle.”

The district serves more than 16,000 students across 39 schools. It also “leads the state for the most educator vacancies” at more than 200 listed positions, according to CT Insider.

“Many of those were for special education positions, including around 50 special education teacher vacancies and 80 special education paraeducator openings.”

Shortfalls in special education services are occurring in multiple states. For example, Wisconsin recently released a report finding higher turnover rates for educators in special education compared to their counterparts.

“The ongoing staffing challenges facing Wisconsin’s schools continue to be rooted in retention,” the report concluded. “The data suggests that if Wisconsin could retain its educators, along with more completers of educator preparation programs, this would significantly address the shortages schools are experiencing.”

‘This happens a lot through Hartford schools’

As previously reported by The Heartlander, Ortiz and her family moved from Puerto Rico to Connecticut after hearing of its educational reputation.

“We heard Connecticut had the best education and things like that, which is one of the reasons we came to Hartford,” she said. “We came to get better opportunities.”

Although she attended public school from age 6, the school never taught her basic skills such as reading, writing or mathematics, according to Ortiz.

“Since [my junior year], I told my case manager I want to learn how to write, and she’d tell me, ‘In college, they don’t do that. They go in there, record and leave. they do the same thing you do,’” she recalled. “I’d say ‘Yeah, but I still want to know how to write. It’s my right.’ I wanted to learn, but [I was told] there wasn’t time, and there weren’t teachers to sit down and teach me.”

Other students – not just those in special education – are experiencing a similar lack of learning, according to an anonymous Hartford paraeducator.

“I think this happens a lot through Hartford schools,” the source explained. “I don’t think a lot of kids in Hartford get their services. She’s not the only one. … Any school [in the district], you’ll find kids, even that are not in special ed, that don’t even know how to read and write – they just pass them over.”

Ortiz criticized school officials for limiting her to such tools as speech-to-text technology and calculators, while graduating her as an honor roll student.

“People didn’t forget about me. No, people chose not to [educate me],” Ortiz said. “People chose not to [change] my IEP. People chose not to do this and that and this and that.

“I’m the one paying the consequences, while those people are still getting their checks.”