001Good evening. As chairperson of the Harford Board of Education, I hereby call the call to order the February 17, 2026 regular meeting. I wish to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers. The board superintendent and I are pleased that you have joined us as we celebrate achievement, review information, and make policy decisions related to the effective operation of the Harford public schools. This is a regular meeting and all items that will be discussed or voted on this evening have been posted as required by state law. As the Harford Board of Education, we are here to set goals, listen to reports of the superintendent, approve budgets, contracts, and personnel appointments, and make policy for the district. We are not here to make management decisions or solve problems of individuals. Management is
002the responsibility of the superintendent. The monthly meetings of the board are open to the public. They are a time when the board conducts its business of governing the school system in a public arena. The regular meetings are not meetings with the public. Therefore, comments from the audience will be confined to the time designated for the public to address the board. The quorum and courtesy are important elements in effective public meetings. Please silence your cell phones or communication devices and refrain from talking while others are speaking. Since it is legally mandated that proceedings be accurately recorded, I may have to ask for order periodically should the noise begin to interfere with our recording capabilities. I am pleased that you have taken this time this evening to join us. We are very proud of this school system
003and thank you for your interest in Harford Public Schools. Now, this will be read in Spanish. Harford. Hartford. individual. for got the Harford. Thank you. The board of education conducts its annual organizational meeting every February. This is a process when officers are elected and we use paper ballots for each office. The nominations will be made. The candidates names will be listed on the ballot and each member will sign the form. Miss Santiago will collect the paper ballots and will inform us of the results. After that, Miss Miser, assistant um court counsel, and I believe she's not here. It's another um member of our court council will proceed with the oath of office. Board chairperson, I will now take nominations for the office of board chairpersons. Madame Chair, I nominate um Francois Darl Leger um for
004the office of board chair. >> Miss Dary Ledger, do you accept the nomination? >> I accept. >> Any other nominations? um for um chair of the board. I would nominate Shante Brody >> and I accept the nomination. Any other nominations for chair of the board? Having heard none, I now close the nominations for chair of the board. Please cast your votes. Thank you. >> Board vice chair. I will now take nominations for the office of the board vice chair. I nominate myself and I accept myself. So I don't need to ask Mr. Mills does he accept his nomination. Any other nominations on the floor for the office of vice chair of the board? I nominate Francois Dorsell Ledger for vice chair. >> Miss Darisel Ledger, do you accept the nomination? >> I accept. >> Once
005more, any other nominations on the floor for the office of vice chair of the board? Having heard none, I will now close the nominations for vice chair of the board. Please cast your votes. board second vice chair. I will now take nominations for the office of board second vice chair. Hi Tyrone Walker. I am lifting up my name as candidate for second vice chair board of ed. >> And I don't have to say that you accept the nomination of Mr. Walker. >> Correct. Thank you. >> Any other nomination on the floor for the office of second vice chair of the board? Having heard none, I now close the nominations for second vice chair of the board. Please cast your votes. >> [clears throat] >> Board Secretary. I will now take nominations for the office of
006board secretary. >> I would nominate Corey Mills. >> Mr. Mills, do you accept the nomination? >> I accept. Any additional nominations on the floor for the office of board secretary? Having heard none, I now close the nominations for secretary of the board. Please cast your votes. First, I will say um that the vote will be included in the meeting minutes as well as the ballots being available for public inspection. And now the officers will um take their oath. Thank you. Um, tonight we will have recognitions. Superintendent Townsel. [clears throat] >> Thank you. I am so proud to recognize six of our magnet schools this evening. That sounds weird, don't it? >> Does that sound weird? >> It's a little >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry, >> Test. I am so proud to recognize six of our
007magnet schools this evening who've earned the 2026 Magnet Schools of America Merit Awards. Annie Fischer STEM Magnet School earned the Merit School of Excellence Award and Breakthrough Magnet School North, Breakthrough Magnet School South, Great Path Academy, Montasauri Magnet School at Annie Fiser and Noah Webster Micro Society Magnet School have each earned the Merit School of Distinction Award for Magnet Schools of America. So, let's clap that up. [applause] To receive a National Merit Award, members of Magnet Schools of America must submit a detailed application that is scored by a panel of educators. These schools are judged and scored on the demonstrated ability to raise student academic achievement, promote racial and socioeconomic diversity, provide integrated curricula and instruction, and create strong family and community partnerships that enhance the school's magnet theme. Congratulations to all of the teachers,
008leaders, staff, students, parents, and families who contribute to the culture of success in our amazing schools. Principal Wilson Ruff of Annie Fischer STEM, Principal Misaro of Breakthrough Magnet North, Principal Gustinen of Breakthrough Magnet South, Principal Fitzgerald, Great Path, Principal Novo McDonald from Anna Annie Fischer, Monastery, and Principal Jacobson of Noah Webster. Please come forward to accept the recognition on behalf of myself and the Hartford Public Schools Board of Education. [applause] Yes, [cheering] they're going to step up front and we get up there with Congratulations. Yes. right in front. Thank you and congratulations again. public comment. Um, now we will move um into public comment. Mr. Mills, >> we as a board in collaboration with the superintendent and district leadership are committed to cultivating a culture of excellence at all levels of HPS. We thank you
009for taking the time to attend tonight's board meeting. We appreciate you coming out to learn more about Hartford Public Schools and for sharing your thoughts and concerns. We have established a protocol to track and respond to concerns raised. We want you to know that we take your concerns seriously and to that end staff will follow up within 48 hours if follow-up is required via the preferred method of contact the speaker has indicated on the sign-in sheet. As a reminder, you have three minutes to speak. At the two-minute mark, the bell will ring letting you know that you have one minute left. At the second bell, please wrap up your comments. Now, this will be read in Spanish. Hartford. Hartford investig Spanish was rough today. Our first speaker, Hi, I'm sorry, Bobby Abate. Uh, good evening.
010Uh, my name is Bobby Abate. I'm a retired teacher at Harford Public High School. Taught there for 35 years. I'm here tonight representing a group of uh students, former teachers, current teachers, community activists, and and several others. We are petitioning the board to name the basketball court at Hartford Public High School after one of our own, Marcus Cami. Marcus grew up in Belleview Square. He came through the Harford Parks and Recreation uh parks and wreck basketball. He we won the state title with him uh in 1993, 27 and0. He was uh he was uh the player of the year at UMass, several times defensive player of the year. uh we we just want to name the court. We're not saying let's name the whole fieldhouse. We're saying just the court so that students when they're
011playing in the gym on the court on the track will see that here we are we have this kid who grew up poor who worked hard who thought education was very serious. As a matter of fact, when after his 17th year uh career with the uh NBA, he went back to UMass to get his degree. He didn't need that degree. He wanted it to show his family and to show kids from Hartford, we can do this. We've we've uh we've sent in our petition and a proposal uh and we hope you look favorably on it. We'll be here at uh future uh meetings and we'll be supplying more letters of recommendation and so on. Thank you for your time. Hi Cynthiani. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Can you all hear me? Right. Well, good evening
012and uh happy new year. I haven't spoke to you guys since the new year. So, happy new year. Um I again I want to thank you all for serving especially the board. Um, we know this is a tankless job. You worked very tireless. So, I want to make sure you know that we appreciate you for doing that. Um, and all I also do want to support naming the court after Marcus Cami too because I was a big part of Harer High and so I want to make sure that you all know that it's really important to support your own. Okay. So, I'm here for a couple of things. So, I'm here to ask the superintendent to help us. I'm with the Maple Avenue NRZ group and I'm asking the superintendent to help me with what
013is FE Avenue with your security and the Harford to work with the Harford police and your security to address the issue of prostitution on Maple Avenue and um Frank and Wesfield Avenue. Um our children doesn't deserve to come to school every morning seeing prostitute and drug dealers on Wesfield Avenue next to our schools. even though we have a drugs sign says uh no drug zone but no one pays it seems in mind. So I just want to know you could work with your security um I'm not sure if you still have um the former chief Daryl Roberts there have him work with Huffer police to address that issue because it's really bad. Our parents complain all the time about the issues of seeing these prostitutes and going to our children our children going to school.
014So I'm hoping you can address that. Um I'm also here to continue to talk about the study around consolidation of our schools. Um we have 12 high we have 11 high school in the city of Otford. But my concern is why do we have 11 high school and we're losing kids every year. I like your idea of wanting to bring our kids back to our school, but until we can show our public school, until we can show that there is something to bring them back to, I'm not sure if they will come back. Okay? We don't want kids leave a school that may be getting a librarian in the suburbs or in crack program or whatever program they are and they come to Hartford and we have beautiful library and no one is in that
015library. Okay. We need to make sure we have the guidance counselor, everyone that everything that they need, the all the manity that they need before you ask them to come back. Yes, Hartford High, Weaver, Buckley, they have lots of money that they can give kids for scholarship, not only the promised one, but there is a lot of money in these schools to give children um scholarship to go off to college, but they cannot give it away because these kids are going to suburban school and they that you have to be in Hartford High or Buckley or Weaver to get that money. So, I'm hoping that you'll think about that when you said I want them to come back. Okay? make sure that they're coming back to something that they won't. Parents do not run away
016from goodness. They run away from something that they're not getting. All right. So, that's a third thing. Um, I would like to make sure the board is working with everyone. The board needs to work with the mayor to get what they need. Superintendent, you need to work with the mayor to get what you need. This year, budget is going to be really tight. So you're going to need to figure out how you're going to work to make it work for our children. It's not about the adult. It's about making sure we have the finance to give our children what they need in the building. We see a beautiful Buckley and it's almost empty. The library, I'm not sure if you've seen it, empty, right? So how do we expect to have our children back to
017Harford if we're not addressing these issues? And I know you came into a lot. So, and it's going to take a a while to get addressed, but let's build one school that has everything at a time and we can bring those kids back to Harer High or to Buckley or to Weaver. We need to have program that attracts them. Mechanic, whatever kids like, trade program. These are things that we're supposed to have in our high school, please. >> Yes. Um, these are things that we're supposed to have in our high school so we can attract kids to these building. All right. Princet is overcrowded, but they can't get into Princet. So, let's get them back into Harford, Buckley, and Weaver. Okay. Thank you, Sarah Kovac. Hello Hartford Board of Education and Superintendent Dr. Townsel. My
018name is Sarah Kovac and I am a senior organizer at Educators for Excellence, a local nonprofit organization that ensures that teachers have a leading voice in the policies that impact their students and profession. I am here tonight to read a statement on behalf of Hartford Educator Alan Vanderott. This following is her statement. Members of the board and superintendent Dr. Townel, I am here to clarify the criticism from special educators about completing service logs. While we recognize the importance of completing these, changes made to how they must be completed this school year have made the task much more complicated and burdensome. Previously, we could lock service time for all the student members of a small group at the same time. Objectives, attendance, and progress monitoring notes. This year, we are required to add this information separately
019for each individual student in the group. Every time service times are logged, I have to go into each student's individual tabs and log almost exactly the same information as many times as there are students in that group. If a small group has eight students in it, I have to enter the same information eight times, even if it's the same. This is an administrative burden that leads only to more burntout educators, not better served students. It is not realistic for us to complete these logs after every group that we see as is expected. I have other things I need to complete during my prep time. Prepare differentiated lessons, write IEPs, schedule and hold PPT meetings, work on evaluations, write reports, and more. Even if I could use my prep time, it is not enough time to
020complete this task. Because of this, I am finding that I am forced to work on these service logs outside of school hours almost daily. I tracked my time spent on this from September 8th through September 30th. And through that time alone, I clocked more than 13 hours outside of the workday completing them in addition to the time spent during the workday. I share this as just one example of an incredibly time-consuming task that special educators take on in addition to the work of serving some of our most vulnerable students. There are many more. That's why I'm calling on this board to seek out and implement evidence-based solutions to the special education crisis, including financial incentives for special education teachers that reflect the challenging nature of their job and careful prioritization of the administrative tasks special
021educators are required to complete based on the impact they have on their kids. Shared in activism, Mrs. Ellen Vanderott, special education teacher at Environmental Sciences Magnet School. Thank you for your time. Tiffany Moyer, Washington. Um, I had written this speech to take place before the vote and then I realized that the vote happened before the public's comment. So, so instead of a request, this is going to be a charge. Um, so first I want to thank the superintendent and Ruth Anne and Steven Tatum for responding to my emails that I sent last month um and accepting the invitation to see my students capstones. Um, I know that tonight we're voting on the new chair. Um, I didn't have any particular candidate in mind, but I did have some comments and so I want to make
022those now that we have a chair. Um, the waiting the way that these meetings are held is very symbolic of how dysfunctional Hartford public schools have been. The board of ed is literally sitting on a stage away from teachers and community with bylaws that prevent them from responding while we beg for things on behalf of our children. A new chair of the board needs to change this. I'm not talking about the structure of how we run these meetings. I'm talking about the actual relationship that happens between the community, the teachers, and the board of education. This is just symbolic of that broken relationship. So, I have four things I want to encourage you to consider. One, consider how well as a chair you'll work with local leaders from parents, community members, local SGC's, President HFT,
023and the mayor. The chair of the board has to be able to negotiate and work collaboratively with different leaders to make effective change in Hartford, even if they disagree with them, especially if they disagree with them. Please consider someone who will respond and listen to educators. We're the front lines. Because we have some of the longest school days in the state, we might spend more hours a day with students than their parents do. So, we need to be respected and listened to. We know it's realistic in the classroom when it comes to supplies, appropriate curriculum, and classroom management decisions. Yet, year after year, we've been left out of discussions and decisions around these topics. We need a chair of the board who will partner with us and challenge us to continue to do our best
024and provide us with opportunities to speak out about what has actually helped our students, but will actually support our students and not just hire outside consultants to tell us what to do. Three, just because it's been done a certain way doesn't mean that it needs to continue to be done that way. We need a shakeup. Hartford needs something new. The status quo is not doing any favors for our students. Four, consider yourself willing to represent and speak for all Hartford schools. For too long, we have had infighting, community versus magnet schools, but we're a district of both. We need a chair who will advocate and support all of Hartford public schools, not prioritize one over the other. They all have purposes and functions within our community. In most college prep programs, universities teach O'Neal right
025alongside with Brown versus Board of Education when it comes to the desegregation of public schools. Hartford could be a frontr runner in making drastic change in racial equity within our state and our country without having to demolish our neighborhood schools. We need a chair who will champion all of our schools. And lastly, we need someone who will devote the time to the city in the way that we ask them to. Thank you, [applause] Richard Deay. Richard Demay, Carol Gail. Good evening, members of the board, superintendent of schools. My name is Carol Gail. I'm a Hartford resident and president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers. Tonight's agenda includes a contract that focuses on student recruitment. HFT certainly applauds the focus on student recruitment as an investment in Hartford public schools. However, this effort will only succeed
026if teacher ret if the teacher retention problem is also addressed. The two must operate handinand. Retaining teachers builds relationships, traditions, identity, opportunities, a sense of re of belonging, and community partnerships, all of which strengthen students connection with school. I have expounded on numerous ways to improve teacher retention in previous public comments and refer you to my email which followed up on those ideas. Tonight, I'd like to bring your attention to a recent plan that addresses the lack of music, art, and library at Hartford Public Schools that was recently shared with the superintendent. This plan represents one specific effort that will cost the district no additional funds, but will help recruit and retain students by enhancing our school offerings such that every student at Hartford Public Schools has both a music and an art class. Something
027I've been advocating for for about a dozen years or more. Not only do robust music and arts programs help students with self-expression, music and art teachers also collaborate with other teachers to create memorable experiences such as exhibits, performances, or schoolwide celebrations. These experiences in turn build student connection in all the ways I mentioned earlier. Howard Gardner expanded the ways in which people learn to include multiple intelligences. Verbal linguistic and logical mathematical are the only two of these intelligences. They're only two, but our school curriculum is heavily focused on those two. Other intelligences include musical, spatial, visual, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal, interpersonal, and more. These intelligences are tapped very strongly by a robust art and music curriculum. Yet, hundreds of Hartford students lack both music and arts education. And thousands of Hartford students have one or the
028other, but not both. 25 to 30% of all students in K8 schools. And over 37% of all Hartford Public School students lack access to art andor music programs. Art, music, and library are contentrich subjects. They are undervalued and often seen as only necessary to provide prep time for classroom teachers. They have often been used as substitutes to provide coverage for vacancies or teacher absences. However, art and music education benefit children academically, help develop growth mindsets, and forge connections to school. The plan presented to the superintendent solves the problem of access to arts education by a redistribution of resources. It outlines a plan to ensure every Hartford student gets art, music, and library or media tech. This plan will attract students back to Hartford. It requires leadership that understands and values the unified arts and is
029willing to veer from the status quo in order to make improvements. I believe Hartford Public Schools has that leadership in Superintendent Townsel. So as you consider the contract for Kesa K12, be sure you do not approve this in a vacuum. Make it contingent on also investing in our schools such that our teacher retention rate improves and all students have a robust art and music education under a certified educator. Thank you. [applause] Michael DS. My name is uh Michael DS, 74 Rosemont Street in Hartford. Um, I'm addressing first a c a city council meeting that I went to last Monday and there was all sorts of chaos uh ensuing when I went went into the council chambers and there were several groups of people that were quite angry about the uh the automobile accidents uh motor
030vehicle accidents really that have taken place in the past here to the city of Hartford. People killed, people injured. And um uh they were they were looking for some kind of a a a a solution. And uh one solution that came up, of course, was a a collaborative community effort to uh have the will to to want to do this. And I I suggested there was a a suggestion actually uh uh by some Buckley High School students who weren't even in in a regular high school. They were uh moving around from from building to building. But they suggested that we start uh have a de institute a driver education course and that may be uh I remember we had it when I was in in high school and driver education is uh very beneficial for
031students and uh we might consider that and uh and of course I also suggested to the council that they start thinking about the Harford public schools budget coming up this ing and I uh Sunday speaking of the unified arts Sunday in the heart current there was an article on uh the vocational technical education and family consumer science and u we those we used to have those in middle school and high school up until about 10 years ago 10 or 12 years ago So, well, they took it out to save money. Of course, they I I had not seen where the money went, but they they were saving money. And uh so we uh uh the the article said that we need to bring these back because this is where the jobs are. AI is taking
032everyone's taking up a lot of jobs, but no one's going to be banging a nail. There's no computer that's going to bang a nail or or uh connect electrical wires. Uh so um we we should bring back a vocational technical education, family consumer science and also the unified arts. These keep kids uh this is attracts kids to Hartford. Thank you. [applause] Annette Armstrong, Millie Arcas, apologies. Jerel Pagan. Hello, my name is Jerie. This is my first time attending a board of education meeting and although I feel lucky to have the chance to present my concerns to the board, I really wish it had not come to this. I appreciate your time and your consideration with my concerns. The passion for my child's education and well-being are my number one priority, and I feel that my
033requests for additional services and to have her stay back or repeat her grade have fallen on deaf ears. I am aware of the No Child Left Behind Act when you have an IEP, but I don't think it's the best solution for every child and it should be dealt with on a case-bycase basis. My daughter has been receiving services since grammar school due to not being able to hold her back a grade. I tried a different approach in requesting a paraprofessional which has yet to be considered. I had a PPT meeting held on 211 that was moved by a chain of emails I sent to the teachers about my daughter's concerns. They are to retest my daughter and revisit in 6 weeks. However, I am here to ensure that the ball is not dropped yet again
034and that this gets addressed for certain. And although these moves are put in place, my daughter's testing scores well before this difficult year of several absences were always quite low and insufficient. Her absences are due to her mental health as well as personal issues. With all of the information and resources that are now available to our children, I do not understand why my requests for more services, including a one-on-one pair professional, have yet to be granted. I am sure many of you are parents and would fight every step of the way to ensure the best future possible for your children. Please do not let her be a statistic that is failed by our broken system. Please help me get the resources to help her soar and set her up for a lifetime of success. I
035appreciate your time and I'm hopeful we can come to a solution that we both can live with. Thank you. [applause] Claude Watt, Alyssa Peterson, Good evening board members and superintendent and congratulations to Miss Browy for being elected chair. First, I would like to thank attorney Lori Miserak for her commitment to keeping board business open after I filed a Freedom of Information complaint. She rectified what I viewed as an illegal election conducted last fall secretly behind curtains with no proof of which board members voted for which candidate. Board minutes have since been corrected with the appropriate information. I'm here tonight to continue to force the issue that the public's business be done in the open and specifically as regards the mayor's task force relative to school consolidation and your budgeting process. I've asked multiple times to
036please consider or publicly explain why you're not closing at least one out of town campus and bringing those students and teachers back to Hartford. The two closures would be Great Path Academy in Manchester and Pathways Academy of Technology and Design in East Hartford. Closing both represents a savings of $10 million per your own budget and the badly needed teachers would be transitioned back into our Hartford campuses. Again, at least one closure could save 5 million. It's a hard task, but another hard task is admitting failure. At least the one I'm describing is well-intentioned failure. I was present and squawking 30 years ago when the state took over our board of ed because the union and administration were at loggerheads and kids were graduating who kids were graduating who couldn't read and write or do simple
037math. Then came the demands for the racially integrated schools, the lawsuits, and the resulting deals from Horton Chef. Well, guess what? It's 30 years later and it's become clear that Hartford schools were again graduating kids last year who couldn't read or write well. And this year's big revelation that Craig schools look no different than Hartford schools. Allegedly, there's very few white students left. As one teacher described, CRE is just another Hartford school system. So to that end, I say to you all, you need to force the issue with the state of Connecticut to study how to consolidate CRE and the board of education. They have become the same thing. Two nonraially integrated systems with our surrounding towns finally opening up a lot more choice seats. That's where parents can send their kids if they want
038an integrated experience. Combining CRE and Board of Ed systems will achieve terrific savings and return our children to our Hartford neighborhood schools, reduced costly busing, and make our neighborhoods whole again. Our Hartford kids don't go to school with their neighbors, don't have friends to play with in the parks or on sports team together, and their parents don't know each other. It was an unintended consequence of chef that has seriously harmed Hartford um as a whole, the fabric of Hartford as a whole. In closing, combining CRE and Board of Ed is the answer to budget savings. Start the discussion now with the state of Connecticut. Thank you for listening. And I apologize um I have to leave um this evening, but I will be watching all of you online. Thank you later. John Walton. So good
039evening Dr. Tanzu. Good evening, distinguished board members. It's a lot that's been said tonight, and President DS is completely right about what he said, bringing back the vocational education to attract students back to our city schools. The other speakers are right as well. Um, mostly everybody had a point, um, including the president of the teachers union about what it takes to retain teachers into our school. But I'm going to talk about something a little bit different. Board member Wilson and board member Mills, you asked me a question a while back at a board meeting about who should be the leader of Harford Public Schools. And that question was, I believe I answered it and uh board member Mill said to me, someone who's for the people, with the people, something along those lines. Well, you
040you picked an individual, this board, this picked an individual who is about that. And he gave me a charge cuz he looked at the situation and I come and I give a lot of criticism rightfully so because in order to change things you have to ruffle feathers. So he gave me a charge to partner and he ex extended his hand to say listen give me an opportunity to clean this up or at least try. One thing I didn't hear anyone mention, and you shouldn't, but this is the so-called month of black history. Well, black history can't be reduced in a month because if anybody who's educated would know, black history is everyone's history. And one of the reasons why we have students who are in a community who tend to do negative things is because
041of opportunity, lack of opportunity. We have to start bridging that gap to teach our students, whether they're from the south end to the north end, about who they really are, right? We have students from Puerto Rico, students from Jamaica, students from Dominican Republic, students from Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, and so on. And what we all are a part of is that human family. And when we start thinking with that mindset, so you're going to have to activate your third eye in order to understand and keep up with what I'm saying, but when we start teaching that and and and and modeling that, not just in teaching our children, but in how we operate in business, when we conduct ourselves with one another, we have to be an example. So I celebrate individuals like yourselves, a distinguished
042leader and Dr. Tanzu who who has all the accomplishments he needs to be you know celebrated our chair chairwoman the rest of you who sit in your chairs and your individual accomplishments but now I'm asking you to be a little bit brave because as the parents said here the system is broken so she needs your help to repair it but we can't repair it being in silos we can't repair it being on islands by ourselves we can't repair it if we're all thinking about protecting the check, right? Because many of us look at success as what you've accomplished so that you can impress your friends or you can impress your family or just so you can feel comfortable about yourself. And nothing's wrong with that. But it shouldn't be at the sake of our children.
043It shouldn't be at the sake of our community because you're going to have to look yourselves in the mirror one day. And when you get old and see the people around you, it's not going to be about how much money you made, what car you drive, what house you have, but it's going to be about, and just for a minute, I would like to extend my time so I don't lose thought. Miss Santiago, thank you. So, it's going to be about what you accomplished in this life for other people. Be bigger than yourself. If we talk about foundational black Americans, right, Dr. King, Malcolm X, some who are not foundation black mayors, Marcus Garvey, even entertainers like Bob Marley. The reason they were great is because they thought about other people other than themselves. They
044took the risk to educate, open the minds of everyone. And because of that, they have influence all over the world. Not just here. They influence music, education, art, everything that we do, the way you dress, what you find to be successful. So, if we're going to be a Hartford needs to lead, not follow. And that leadership comes when we put it all together, not separate. God rest her soul, my dear sister Stacy McCain, when she was principal at Bizzy, right? She recognized something in me that I didn't recognize myself. And um, you know, I joke with my mom who named me after a biblical figure. Then we don't share the same religious background, but she named me after a biblical figure figure called John the Baptist who was considered in the Bible to be kind
045of a crazy man. So my sister saw in me some kind of leadership that I didn't see in myself. And she said, "John, you have half foundational black children, half Puerto Rican children from the Caribbean. How can we bridge the gap since we have a large Hispanic community? Bridge the gap of understanding between the cultures." Well, I found a place in Puerto Rico called Lewis. Interesting enough, Lewise is one of the first black settlements, slave settlements in Puerto Rico, which means what? That all of us are connected somehow. And the foundation of humanity started from one place. Whether you consider yourself to be white or black, whether you consider yourself to be to culture identify to a particular land, you still started from one source and that's the human source. And if we understand that
046and start doing that and with the leadership of Dr. to towns or who I'm going to give and extend my hand in partnership and the opportunity to not tear down Harford public schools although it deserves some criticism but to help him build it with you because I think once we do that and once we build it this way and we start treating each other like human family from where we live to where we work to where we send our kids to school we all have the same goal I believe we can make Harford public schools a success So, I'm not going to give you the logistics of it. I'm just going to ask you to just do your very best and be brave in making decisions that might be out of the box. I thank
047you for your time and I thank you for your attention. >> And our last speaker is Michael Susi. It's been a while. >> [clears throat] >> Um do know I was keeping uh notes from afar. Um I told you guys in the beginning of the year that if I were not here it's usually because of a school function. So I mean in November I don't understand how there's over this was an oversight what um the board of ed meeting was scheduled during parent teacher conferences. So, I don't know how that became how that was how that couldn't have been remedied, but I digress. And then of winter sports season, there's basketball games all over the um every single day practically. So, but I sat down and I treated it like as a podcast listening to
048every single board of ed meeting. So, I took mental notes myself. That's how I spent my day yesterday and today. Um, one, there's a couple things that stuck out to me and these will be both my talking points. One is a comment that was said, I believe, at the last meeting from the superintendent when it came to the budget was um along the lines of that we shouldn't be nervous about it. I'm going to tell you that I'm the face of a concerned teacher. Oh, you said we you should not be concerned. I am a concerned educator. I've been on the chopping block twice now within the past two years because I was the lowest uh senior in my position in the school. I teach social studies at Parkford public high school. Um both years
049I was able to retain my uh position back either through um magic money coming through or last year was actually um really fighting for myself. Um and I'm telling you that if I'm in that position again where I have to interview for a position within the district for a job that I do not want, I'm going to walk Okay, you will lose an educator like me. Now, I want to build something in Hartford. I know I'm a good educator. Um, but if I don't see that my talent is being valued here, I'm going to walk. And I know that there's other teachers like that. So, I am concerned because I still do want to stay here. But if my name comes up on a list that says we are cutting his position, now mind you,
050Harford Public High School, we have I'm one of six social studies teachers. We have no IT person because it's not in the budget, right? We have over 600, 700 kids, but no IT guy. And we're supposed to have somebody from the district come down once a week to service the computers. And that hasn't happened. And I know that hasn't happened because I tape off the computers I do have that don't work and they still haven't been fixed even though I filled a Google form. I've nothing. And I have a student in the stands from a parent who can attest that the computers are not that great. We also have other issues as well. So my class sizes I am the only world history teacher because of budget cuts. the other world history teacher, he retired.
051His position got um and they just never filled his position. I have 160 students. My classes are from last time I checked on Power School, my smallest classes, 16 kids. That's my honors class. But then they go as follows. 23, 26, 27, 28, 24, and 22. How am I supposed to without really with some of those classes they do I do have ML support because I have ML students but I do not have special ed support. So when I have a student crying out to me that says I need help but she's in a class of 28 kids with no parent support, no special ed support. I try to do as much as I can, but because it's not budgeted and I've looked at the spreadsheets and stuff like that. So, when I know when
052my my principal is saying it's not there because the district is saying it's not there, I know she's telling the truth because I see it with my own eyes. So, but when I have kids telling me they need more support and they're not getting more support, I know that my class because I've worked as a pair professional in Weathersfield. I have worked as a case manager in Weathersfield. I've worked in Berlin. I've worked in East Windsor. Um I'm from Bristol. I've done intrip in West Hartford. I've worked in a bunch of suburban districts, but I s still decide to stay here. I know that if I had that same class in Weathersfield, that would be considered a push-in class where I would have a special ed teacher. Out of 28 kids, now it's down to
05326 because a couple students got moved out. 26 kids, 13 of them have IEPs, one has a 504. Any other district, automatically you'd have a push in support. And that's the issue is that the system is broken. This equity budget, if we're going with this equity budget again, it's going to hurt Weaver, Harford High, Buckley, even your magnets too, probably. So, but it's just really frustrating as educator where I speak and I speak and I speak and hopefully now with a new superintendent. Now, I know the board you were receptive to me last year because I had all of you guys coming out, how is your job? Like, do you have a job yet? Do you did you get your position back? And I respect that. I respect those of you who reached out to
054me and I'm showing you a little bit of respect. But I want I want to see but as I talked to you in August saying I'm hopeful and I'm weary. I'm hopeful that you hear me out in understanding that this budgeting process needs to be different. It cannot be like it was in the past. And I see I think I saw $22 million deficit which means in my head trauma back is that we're going to be not going to be adding more teachers. We're going to be subtracting again. And I've, as I've already said, if I'm at my list, I'm out. [applause] And that concludes public comment. Thank you. We now move on to the report um of the chair. Um, as you may know, um, by now, Board Docs has transitioned to Diligent Community,
055a modern board management platform that streamlines agenda creation, minutes, and board packet publishing while improving public access to meeting information. Um please bear with us as we work out any kinks but we think um you will be pleased um with more user um friendly um interface. Um as far as the board um report a few um meetings um I've been in many. The ones that stand out are um some members in the superintendent attended the um CABE, the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education legislative breakfast at the state capital. Um um other board members and staff um met with some of the Harford delegation to advocate for our legislative agenda. Um the superintendent and I um have um met with the mayor. I've met with the mayor um multiple times over the last month. Um
056we have a standing meeting um that happens um um with the mayor um also. So, I just wanted to take um a point of privilege um to say um many of us wear many different hats in a community, but I just want to level set like myself. So, I started um and this is what what drives me and I'm saying this after um the our leadership vote um that happened this evening. So for maybe 12 years, I sat out there. I advocated um for kids I didn't know, kids I did know, at times advocated for my own children. Um I was even advocating um 16 years ago pregnant with my daughter. She's been at many board meetings, my oldest two. Um she's actually at this board meeting tonight. So there has always been a lot
057of sacrifices. At one point of sitting out there advocating for many years, um I knew it was something I was not getting cuz it was simple in my mind like it may be to others. Just do something about it. Um it's not working. Fix it. This school is doing well. Take that curriculum and put it in this school. So what I did, I left my corporate America job and I substitute um taught for four years. That was very eyeopening cuz it put all things in perspective for me. So I had the parent leadership role working with the superintendents as they came and went. Then I was in the school thoroughly understood what the staff went through, what supports were there were not there. And I didn't ask to be in this position. I didn't for
058myself, but others did and they thought it was a good idea. So I took um on the challenge. So when I operate um in this seat um it does not go and I've been asked many other many meetings they'll say could you remove this hat and could you remove that hat? Um I don't. I wear them all. I'm a parent. I'm a part of um this Harford community. I'm a graduate um of this great Weaver High School and I serve the community. So that is the only making sure we set up kids to have the best opportunity is what my goal is. I know I share that goal um with other board members and we agreed upon that. That's why we um hired the superintendent that we did that has vision um that will get
059our district closer to um the goal that we see ahead of us. Um so I just wanted to say those things. I've never ever not met with someone been willing to work with anybody for the betterment of Harford public school students. that has never been a part of who I am and it never will be a part of who I will ever be. With that said, I will turn it over um to the so the superintendent council can give his report. >> Thank you, Chairwoman Brody. First calendar update for the 2025 26 year test. This is better now. It's better now. Please be advised that the Hartford Public School District calendar has been officially updated to account for the recent inclement weather. In our ongoing effort to increase instructional consistency and to minimize the extension
060of the school year in June, we are prioritizing makeup dates within the existing academic term. Consequently, Wednesday, March 11th, 2026 would now be utilized as a snow day makeup date. Scheduled details for March 11th is students early release day and for staff school-based professional learning following student dismissal. As a result of this adjustment, the current last day of school is scheduled for June 18th, 2026. Please note that we should if we experience any um inclement weather during that season, further adjustments to the calendar will require to meet state and contractual mandates. So, please ensure this change is communicated clearly to your school communities and reflected on your local site calendars. And if those are here, if you can just signal boost the message about the calendar update. I'm proud to share the conlon national success.
061We had two of our schools, Sports and Medical Sciences Academy and Canelli School, achieve top five national rankings in the fourth annual US National Canothlon, competing against districts nationwide from December through mid January. Our students excelled in the SAT Sprinters math category by consistently leveling up their skills to proficient and master levels. This recognition highlights the incredible dedication of our students and educators in leveraging the digital tools to accelerate academic growth and college readiness. Huge congratulations to them. I'm on a climate and culture tour across the entire district. We call it the rich tour. We that stands for real informations for the champions of Hartford. And I'm excited to share that at every last one of our secondary schools, I have the opportunity to go facetoface with our leaders, our teachers, and our students to
062not only talk about expectations of the Hartford Public School System, but to encourage our families and our young people to do what they need to do to be successful because we often tell them that tomorrow is coming and in order to accomplish tomorrow, you have to achieve today. So, please follow those updates on our uh website. We are constantly advocating for educational funding. Hartford Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Caitlyn Richard and I will be discussing our budget for the 2026 27 school year and our plans for education funding advocacy at our next community budget forum tomorrow, February 18th, at 5:00 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. middle school located at 25 Ridgefield Street. I urge you to join us. For more information, please go to our website. We will have dinner, Spanish interpretation, and child
063care for four children four and older will be provided. In addition, we have the Hartford Public Schools Community Post Flash Pose. During the next few months as we collaborate with the entire Hartford Public School community on our school year 2627 budget, we will be sharing quick questions or flash polls with you via parent square to gather your feedback about what you value in your educational experience in Hartford public schools and what can be approved upon. I'm so thankful to many of you who have already responded to secure our anonymous community polls over the last couple of months. We will be sharing a dashboard reflecting your response. Our next community budget forum is going to take place tomorrow, February 18th. We encourage all to be a part of the conversation and I do want to share
064we we are not we're trying to be as transparent as we possibly can be with our budget process. So please be engaged. I'd like to give a congratulations to student athletes of Buckley, Capitol Prep, Classical Magnet, Hartford Public, HMTCA, SMSA, University High, and Weaver, who excelled in the 2026 Greater Harford Conference Indoor Track and Field Championship at the Floyd Little Athletic Center Fieldhouse in New Haven on February 4th. And a major congratulations to both our Hartford Magnet Trinity College Prep Phoenix girls team who brought home their fourth consecutive title with 97 points and their runner-up high Hawks with 70 points. A major shout out to Harford Public High School Owls Haneife Jones who earned the sportsmanship bracelet. He won the 55 meter dash in the 300 meter with two new meat record times. His times
065placed him as the third fastest and 10th fastest freshman in the country for each respective event. Shout out to that young man there who clapped that up. And that's a part of our, you know, we always talk about the triple A's in Hartford Public Schools, academics, athletics, and arts trying to level up in all those categories. And we have some real life evidence of that. Read across America. Hartford Public Schools is supporting the United Way with their annual ReadAcross America Day. United Way's ReadAcross America Day is an event that invites volunteers and community partners to display a lifelong passion for literacy amongst our young learners. The book of choice for this event is See Marcus Grow by Marcus Bridgewwater. And that event will take place on March 5th, 2025. With that, uh, Chairwoman Brody, I'd
066like to transition into our budget update because that ends my superintendent reports. >> Thank you. I can I squeeze in first I did forget. I'm sorry. Um I know our um policy chair um Miss Rof Fortune, she may still be listening online, but I wanted to um definitely note that through the policy committee, the board moved forward um the ask to rename Harford P public high school basketball court after Marcus Cami. As per policy, a public announcement is to be made at a regular meeting followed by a three-month period in which the public is welcome to comment and or submit letters to the board office before an official vote. So, I just wanted to squeeze that in there. >> Okay. >> Thank you. So, I'll transition. So, it's important to share that we are um
067in budget season and it's hardcore work. I promise you, every day and every night, myself, my team, members of our board of education are constantly thinking about how we can better support Hartford Public Schools. And the bottom line is everything comes down to revenues and expenditures. And we do understand that our families want the best that they can possibly have for their children. And I've asked our team to look at the academic return on investment on what we're doing here in Hartford Public Schools. And my goal is to advocate for funding, but I have to let the community know what you are funding. And right now with where we are, we have educators, families, students running through the wall to do their best they can so when we have an ask to make, people can
068feel good about investing in Hartford Public Schools. So with that, I'd like to go to our first slide um and just show that we are highlighting progress on our strategic plan so far. So what I'm doing is sharing with you what's happening right now in real time so that you can make the informed decision to invest in Hartford Public Schools. And this message is for those who who have the power to give us the revenue needed to have a better tomorrow here in Harford. Uh specifically, go back to the last slide. Uh we have uh the four strategic priorities of the board is whole and healthy students, expansive learning and opportunities, skilled and diverse teams, operational and management excellence. And it's my goal to go through each one of those priorities and let you know
069the academic return on investment in real time right now. And then we're going to break down the dollars and cents of what we need to move forward as a district. So before we discuss the fiscal hurdles ahead, we must acknowledge the momentum we've built. These numbers are not only statistics. I'm trying to share some tangible returns on investment. The board's pre of the board's previous goals. Our students are showing up more, achieving more, and engaging more deeply in academics, athletics, and the arts. And as we pivot to the budget details, our goal is to sustain this trajectory. Fewer students are missing school. Chronic absenteeism is down nearly 5 percentage points from last year. To put that progress in even broader context, our daily attendance rate is now the highest it have been in the last
070five years. Since 2022, we've gained 3.4 percentage points. We know that attendance is the most single reliable predictor of academic success. So when we see our students s when we see this kind of sustained improvement, we know it will show up on our academic data as well. Next, I'd like to share our kindergarten through five dibbles composite score is up more than seven percentage points. The composite score proficiency is up more than 7 percentage points since February 2025. So, we're up 7% more now in 26 than we were last year. And Dibbles measure the foundational reading skills that determine whether a child becomes confident, capable as a reader. And strong early readers become strong students across all subjects. With regards to middle school, reading and math proficiency is up. Proficiency is up more than two
071percentage points from this time last year in the winter. And math interimm 2 point uh two proficiency, excuse me, math interimm 2 proficiency is also up 7 percentage points compared to this time last year. Together, these games do reflect a focused instructional effort across our middle grades, and the teachers are committed to high quality curriculum and targeted intervention. With regards to our arts, our programs are doing more than just teaching music. We are trying to build our district culture. I did have the opportunity to meet with the team at Noah Webster and seeing the great things they're doing with art education, specifically in music, and trying to share that across, most specifically looking at the Noah Webster Middle School drum line where the students are traveling to our elementary schools to mentor fourth and fifth
072graders. They're talking to young students about the behavioral expectations and what it means to be a leader. Next month's our our dance and theater festival will bring students to Weaver High School in Canella for highlevel workshops. In May, our string festival at Martin Luther King and Breakthrough North will feature a massive unified ensemble. And these events will provide, excuse me, these events will prove to break down silos and create centralized hubs of excellence where students from across the city can work together as one team. And finally, we are bridging the gaps in our classroom in Hartford's most prestigious institutions. On May 20th alone, we have kindergarten through 12th grade artists feature at the Wadsswwords Athenium for our 53rd Youth Arts Renaissance, while our third graders will be performing at the Bushnell with the Hartford Symphony.
073And with regards to athletics, since 2022, middle school sports participation has surged nearly 50% with programs like flag football and outdoor track more than doubling in size. That growth creates a critical early hook for students, fostering a sense of belonging that has a proven deterrent to chronic absenteeism by having extracurricular opportunities. In our high schools, we are increasingly competitive at the state stage, highlighted by the Hartford Public High School, Weaver High School, and Classical Magnet School football co-op, reaching the state semifinals, and University High securing their dual conference championships. And through a new student athlete academic adviser, we have professionalized the student and student athlete by providing real-time grade monitoring and college planning. Those advisers ensure that the motivation found on the field translate to motivation found in the classroom. And we're seeing higher grade
074point average growth across all of our student athletes. On priority three, looking at skilled and diverse teams, we have fewer vacancies than we did this time last year, which is directly supporting our student learning and climate and culture outcomes. Specifically, compared to this time last year, 41 fewer teacher vacancies compared to this time last year, 33 fewer special education teacher vacancies. And on all of the slides, which are public and posted, you can see real life comments from educators and family members commenting on the strategic priorities of the board of education and how they see real tangible results. And looking at the very last priority, operational and management excellence, Hartford Public Schools faces a continual structural deficit driven by a flat revenue and rising cost. Our deficit is driven by special education tuition and door-to-door
075transportation for Hartford resident students who do not attend a Hartford public school. And this includes non-Hartford public magnet schools, open choice schools, and outofdist placements. Right now, we are proposing what we need and not specifically talking about what we will cut because the goal is to advocate first and then respond when we get an answer to that. We have cut significantly over the past decade. Further cuts will jeopardize the progress that we already are making in real time. Additionally, we will focus on specific legislative advocacy solutions to increase fiscal sustainability for Hartford Public School and to address these structural issues. So, we identify or we do the homework for anybody who's in charge of making those decisions. You don't have to figure it out. We've already did the homework. The question is, can we execute
076on the recommendations that we have? Going to the next slide. And I know this is a table, but let me just keep it clear. In the last three fiscal years, we have cut $70 million and over 500 positions over the last three years. So, the question is, where do we cut next? I We're working as hard as we possibly can. I've had our chief financial officer and her team get all of our contracted services and see, hey, can we cut there first? And the good news is we are on annual contract. So some things may fall off off rip, especially if there's no academic return on investment. Ladies and gentlemen, this is some of the hardest work that can be done in the school system. And the good news is we're doing the hard work
077in real time. So we only need the support and the advocacy and people leaning in and engaging with the information and the facts as it stand. [clears throat] So with that, I will park my bus on information with the budget and I will hand the keys over to our chief financial officer, Caitlyn Richard. >> Mike, >> oh, let me try again. Good evening. Um, and I will add to that all the progress the superintendent just shared is in the context of having cut $70 million. So I just want folks to think about what it could look like if we actually had more money to invest in some of this work. I'm going to share some of what we talked about at the last board finance committee meeting. So I encourage anyone in the public who
078wants a more detailed discussion to look at that from last Monday, but I want to make sure we talk about it a bit here. So this is our overall approach to the budget process. Like the superintendent highlighted, it's multiaceted. We're looking at all of our data and saying what are some of the strategic resource decisions we can make and we're also saying what needs to change structurally so that we're operating in different conditions that will allow us to keep making progress. And in the bedrock of all of that is the community engagement. So when you saw the quotes on those slides, those are actually from those community pulses that the superintendent referenced. So we're sending out questions via Parrot Square. We're getting your feedback. We're looking for highlights and we're also looking at what to
079improve and it really is informing this budget process. So just wanted to highlight that as well. This is our timeline. Um I'm going to give an update on our deficit estimate for next year. We've been sharing that we will have more information as of January. That's when we get a better sense of middle of the year enrollment, our tuition estimates, etc., and we feed that into a better estimate. We've also started the school and central office budget process. So, elementary and middle schools have been working through their budgets for next year, and high schools have been working on their schedules. So, that was one switch this year. The high schools are working through all of their courses first to center student needs, and then we'll be building their budget. [snorts] We also, as highlighted, and
080I'll talk about it at the end, we have our budget forum tomorrow that we're really encouraging folks to attend that is going to focus on the legislative advocacy. So, how you can get involved in this advocacy movement. [snorts] So, for our updated deficit estimate, we gave the estimate back in October. We've been reiterating it of about $35 million. This did build in some assumptions that we would have lower vacancy rates next year, that our enrollment would um be lower as it is this year compared to last year. But some things have changed since then. So over the course of this year, we have had some changes that will affect next year's budget as well. They are all related to what we've been talking about with special education. So one of them is around some of
081the needs of our students for special education pareducators. So a need to increase the amount of those staff in the current year, which will impact next year as well. We also have seen increases to special education tuition rates. So, we always assume those will go up. We assumed about 8%. It's even higher than that. And I'll talk in a minute about what the state can do, but setting rates around those increases would be very helpful because right now there isn't a lot of regulation on those. We also are experiencing less uh grant dollars from the state for special education and our excess cost grant, which is for the services that are the most expensive. costs are just rising statewide and the state has not invested enough to keep up with that. So when you add
082those together plus some uncertainty in federal funding, it's about $10 million extra which makes it about $45 million for the deficit for next year. We're trying to be as transparent as possible to share with you this is our new understanding and what we're going to be working towards. And I will say as we shared in some of our previous meetings and community forums, this doesn't include some of the city funded items. So the city is funding some specific items in the budget this year. We've talked about that. It's things like our community- based organizations, dental clinics, CT rise, readyct. And so there will be an ask to the city as well to maintain some of that programming. This is the really important part of this. So we have a structural deficit. It's about $45 million.
083We have come up with solutions at the state level that could yield $70 million more dollars for us. So if all of these things happened, we actually would have a surplus. We would be able to say with this new money, what do we most want to invest in that's getting outcomes for our kids. So the following actions, I'm going to give an overview. And then I am going to encourage everyone to attend tomorrow night. We'll be sharing more information with the details. So the [snorts] first thing that the state could do is adjust state funding for inflation. So the state funding per pupil amount has not been changed since 2013. Inflation has changed a lot since then. And I think we all know that in our own lives that costs have gone up and so
084changing increasing that based on inflation. And then also starting to eliminate general education tuition that is part of our budget. We pay tuition to the non-Hartford magnet schools would yield about 20 million for us. And that's partly in new funding and partly in just eliminating some costs we have. [snorts] The second piece is asking the state to fulfill what they said they were going to do in the last legislative session. So, we had a lot of victories in the last legislative session. A lot of us were out there testifying. We had a big community movement and we had a lot of progress, but the state hasn't acted on some of those yet. So, we have a grant called the seed grant. It's not fully funded. It's only 19% funded. The state also said they would
085set rates on special education tuition and transportation. It has not done so yet. So, this is just asking the state to do what it said it was going to do, and that would yield about $30 million. again new funding and also just decrease costs because if those tuition rates don't go up then we don't have a deficit. Finally, we are asking that um in the open choice process where we are responsible for the costs of students special education services um that we also would be responsible for helping determine those services. So right now we pay for the costs we are not part of the process and so the state department of education is actually proposing that we would be responsible for both of those and we are saying that's great we would need more funding
086to do that well so we want to adequately uh and effectively support those students we would need the full funding for those students to be able to provide those services. So those are the three pillars. It's an inflation adjustment fulfilling commitments in special education from last time and a specific piece around school choice in special education which is um a bit complex but unique to Hartford. And so with this like I said that's that would be 70 million more dollars in additional funding for Hartford and we would not be in a deficit. And so it's really important right now for the community following along is to become part of this movement to advocate to the state. So if we can all get aligned on these three things that would lead to these outcomes for us,
087we have a much bigger opportunity of doing that. And so the last piece here is just sharing we have the forum. It's tomorrow night 5:30 at MLK. Um we're asking everyone to come out. There will be dinner. Um we also will be sharing all of our resources online for those who can't make it. But we're really going to dive into these priorities and we're going to talk about how you can get involved. We're going to share how you testify, some templates for testifying, postcards you can send your legislators, some of those community polls you can be a part of. So, just there's a lot of ways to get involved. So, if you're a community member, a staff member, this is a great place. Um, we'll be doing more forums throughout this season. We'll be coming
088to every board meeting with an update. Um, and really that's the takeaway is we're making progress. We have a structural deficit that requires structural changes and we need your voice to do that. Thank you, Chairwoman Broady. That concludes the budget presentation. >> Thank you. And as a reminder, um you can find the superintendent report, full committee report, students report, all attachment and videos, and the meeting agenda on community. Um all committee and workshop meetings are livereamed as well as viewable after the meeting. The YouTube links are saved in each meeting's agenda in community. Um, I highly encourage the community to view the meetings and read the reports when possible. Um, if you have any questions or feedback, please contact Christina Santiago, our board liaison at cantiagoartfordschools.org. Now, we will move on um to the agenda.
089So, first will be um the consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are 5.1, approval of minutes from January 20th, 2026. Any comments or questions on the consent agenda? Do I have a motion to vote on the consent agenda? >> So moved. Second. >> All those in favor signify by by saying I. >> I. >> Any naysay? >> Abstensions. The eyes have it. So now we'll move on to the um business agenda. 6.1 um contract approval, KESA K12. Um the motion is that the Harford Board of Education authorized the superintendent to execute a contract with Kesa K12 for the term outlined in the contract ending June 30th, 2027 at an amount not to exceed $500,000. Do I have a motion? >> Some moved. >> Second, Mr. Superintendent. >> Thank you, Chairwoman Brody. This is a
090new contract to increase Hartford Public Schools enrollment by recruiting students and addressing no-shows. Increasing enrollment increases the resources available to educate all of our students through additional per pupil revenue and decreased tuition payments. Quesa K12 works shoulder-to-shoulder with district staff on the ground to reach families and recruit students. This is a performance-based contract, which means we pay per new student recruited. The cost will be capped at 500,000. The cost benefit analysis is that this is a sole source vendor. It is a performance-based contract. We will pay $935 per new student recruited or no show student who attends by October one count date. If no new or no show students are recruited, we don't pay anything. The funding source would be general fund. The money to pay CESA comes from the increase per pupil revenue or
091decreased tuition payments for the recruited students. Specifically for a nonHartford resident enrolling in a Hartford public magnet school, we will receive about $14,000 per student through the magnet operating grant. For a Hartford resident returning from a CRE school, we would not pay about $4,000 in general education tuition and would not pay any special education tuition if applicable. For a Hartford resident returning from a charter school, we will receive a ECS funding with a base amount of $11,525 plus weights. And for a Hartford resident returning from an open choice school, we would receive 50% of the base ECS funding of 11,525 plus weights. And we already receive another 50% and would not pay any special education tuition if applicable. The term of this contract is one year. The budget is 935 $935 per new student recruit,
092excuse me, $935 per new student recruited. Covers a hands-on recruitment team that execute targeted outreach to new movers, no shows, recent withdrawals, and priority neighborhoods. Messaging that highlight our district unique assets and persistent followup until a decision is made. On the ground support, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with staff to bring students back. Clear reporting that ties every dollar paid to the documented enrollment impact. Attached, there's a scope of work for the vendor. There's a description of how the scope and services align with the priorities and strategies of our board of education. Specific outcomes are increased student enrollment through recruitment, increase resources by having increased per pupil revenue, and decreased tuition payments, and increased community engagement support through personalized family touch points, and opportunities to share Hartford public school success stories. The goals of how do we know
093we've achieved this is through increased student enrollment, additional dollars made through available uh through the increase of student enrollment and through per pupil revenue and decreased tuition payments and the number of families contact to discuss enrollment in Hartford public schools. We have not worked with Kesa K12 before and their experience includes working in 26 states having campaigns across urban, suburban, and rural districts with high choice competition. Over 100,000 students have been enrolled through phase one new enrollment and phase 2 no-show recovery students enrolled and attending public schools. There's been $141 million in fiscal year 2425 budget impact which has been verified budget increases tied directly to enrolled students. With that, I would turn it back over to the chairwoman of the board. >> Any questions or discussion? >> You got to recognize me. >> No,
094thank you. I was raising my >> Mr. Mills. >> Thank you. Very kind. Uh, so I typically hate declarative statements uh from the board. So I'm going to frame this as a question uh to the superintendent, but can you just reiterate that this is above and beyond what work that people who are already in the district could be performing? >> Absolutely. We do not have staff right now going doortodoor knocking, finding our no-shows, going for new recruited students. I mean, there is no recruitment campaign at all. Now, are we trying to retain our young people? Absolutely. But if we recall, there are over 9,000 young people who should be attending Hartford Public School that do not attend Hartford Public Schools, and we're going to put our best foot forward to bring them home. >> Thank
095you, >> Miss Daryl Stadger. >> Thank you so much. Um, so I have a question for clarification for public consumption and for clarification purposes. So the $935 um per new student recruitment, what is the return on investment, if you could just talk about that? >> Great question. the return on investment of paying that $935 per student goes to, for example, a non-enroll a non-Hartford resident enrolling in a Hartford public schools, we would receive about $14,000. So out of that $14,000, we would pay $935 just for grabbing and bringing that young person there. Um, I've I identified four different levels. So for a non for a Hartford resident coming from a CRE school out of we're paying $4,000 of tuition will pay we'll receive about $3,000 of that. In addition to a Hartford resident returning from
096a charter school we will receive about $11,500. So out of that we will pay the 900. So whatever we have coming in is that small percentage we pay going out for bringing that young person back. So it increases our revenue overall by having higher enrollment in our district. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome, >> Mr. Tatum. >> Um, as a follow-up question to that point, um, and I'm not sure if maybe if CFO Richard could shed some light on this. I know that sometimes like the revenue for students that enroll um there's like a delay in when we receive the the additional revenue whether it's through ECS or or like the the sort of per pupil counts that we get um from the state the funding. And so I'm thinking about like if we owe
097these thousands of dollars, you know, this contract would approve up to half a million in the this next fiscal year. Um do we know that we would receive additional revenue next fiscal year as well? um that could that could uh from which we could draw to pay the the contract or would there be like a gap in uh where we would need to come up with some money before we realize that additional revenue with increased enrollment? >> So I'll say for the most part it works out because so the magnet operating grant so that's for suburban students who would be recruited to the school. We get that based on the October one of the current year. So that would be current revenue for non-HPS magnet schools. It's actually just not paying tuition. So in that
098case, we're already getting the revenue, but we just wouldn't have to pay tuition in this case. So that would also factor in the current year as well as the open choice special ed tuition. The only thing that could have a delay is for um open choice students. We currently only receive half of the ECS revenue for that student. And if that student came back, we would get the other half, but that would be in a future year. But I think that's a small set of students and a small amount of money. So most of the money would be realized in the current year because it's either the magnet operating grant or it is it's actually a decreased cost. It's not paying for tuition that we plan to. >> Thank you. >> And I did want
099to say case of K12 representatives are here if we had um questions for them. For the listening audience, we have um engaged with um Kesa K12 um in committee and asked questions um through that process. So are there any um other questions? >> Um yes. >> You want to engage with case of K12? >> Oh, no. >> No. Um I I do have a question that that could relate to them, but the um I want my comment to focus on um I think my desire that um we attach some affirmative progress in terms of district um performance and outcomes to this because I I think that the if there's some real synergy, it's that um if we're if we're going to invest in bringing students back to the district to the tune of almost $1,000
100per student, I'd also want us to find resources to bet on ourselves. I think what for example um [snorts] uh Carol Gail brought up um attaching it to some effort um to bring art and music back to the school where where there's clearly a an affordable way to make that happen. Um and there may be some other types of programs, but I I would like to see that as as part of this type of packaging. Um because my concern is if people come and they don't really see a changed school setting, I'm not confident they're going to stay. I I believe you can get them here. You can't make them stay. We have to make them stay. And so I would like to see that that attachment made. So I'm saying that more for us
101in terms of how we we package that. And so, let me end saying it because it's not critical to me that we pass it tonight. It's critical to me that we get this packaged correctly before we launch off and do it. >> And I wanted to layer um something on top of Mr. Walker's comment because I I was surprised cuz we advocate and I have for many years for the unified arts, but it in one of our meetings um last year we found out we have plenty vacancies too. So it's sometimes it's not a matter of offering it is a matter of us even finding the staff for those positions too cuz those I was surprised. I thought we just were we had teachers who wanted to know fill those positions and the positions wasn't
102there but we have those positions and they're vacant. So that we need to um just realize that and know that some recruitment is needed in that area too um for what we're advocating for. So um Miss um Estrada Perez and then um Miss Dariselle Ledger. I know that we've had an opportunity to engage with um with Kaisa K12 at the at like a committee meeting, but those are those are not always watched. So, I wanted to give an opportunity for you all to be able to give a little bit of background of who you are, the work you've done, who you've worked with. We already had a little bit of the success that you've had in the past, but I think it would be really important to know the kind of work that you've done
103in the past, the work that you, you know, who you are. And I think this is a better, you know, we've talked about it, but I wanted to make sure that this is usually the most watched. So, I wanted to give you an opportunity to be able to talk about it as well. Yes, absolutely. Um, I'm Adrien Bond. I'm the president of Kesk12 and it's a pleasure to be here. We're based out of Memphis, Tennessee. And, um, Kase K12 is the nation's leading student recruitment provider for traditional public schools. We have our experience and DNA running grassroot and political and issue campaigns across Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas. Back in 2016, we were approached by Dorsey Hopson, the superintendent at Memphis Shelby County Schools. They had lost about 30,000 students over a four-year period of
104time. He wanted us to run a grassroot effort campaigns the same way we had uh won different referendums and different things in our past. The first year we recruited over,00 students back. The next year we recruited over,300 students. Um then we decided, are there other districts around the country facing these same similar problems? We quickly found out that there were. Um fast forward to today, we're in 26 states. Um we've had the ability to work with districts as large as Miami Dade. We're currently uh in Orange County where the New York Times just ran an article on us. As a matter of fact, today in the Houston Times, um we're working with eight districts in the Houston area. um this kind of work um is necessary where there's competition. There's competition here. What we do
105is we help leverage our expertise and our methodologies to engage with families and bring them back to the district. You ask how? Well, we use your messaging points that's surrounded based on the individual assets that you have at the individual schools. And we go and engage with families. We're knocking on doors. We're making phone calls. We're sending text, emails, we do digital ads. We do those same type of things that you might see in a normal political campaign. And um the good thing about it, uh you know, we created a pricing model that affords the district the opportunity to take on these services where we carry on all the risk. As superintendent mentioned, there is no dollars to start this campaign. We have to go and perform. And we're so confident in our ability to
106perform. And I can tell you that often times we do not engage with all districts because we need something to sell. We need something for parents to get excited about either returning or coming to the district for the first time. And with our research and and our work behind the scenes talking to families and meaning, you know, we go out there and we can do some soft surveys just to see public sentiment. We're confident in our ability that there is enough demand where there's families that do not know all of the great things happening at the individual schools and such um is why we approach the district about doing this kind of work and [snorts] we're excited about the opportunity and we're confident to be successful doing it. So >> go ahead. >> Thank you
107so much. Um so Mr. Bond, thank you for coming. Um, the question that I have for you is with regards to the areas that you have serviced. Um, we're Connecticut, so we get snow. Um, so it's a little different. Um, but what have you done to familiarize yourself with the with this area and um, cultural competency also? Um, if there is, you know, a language barrier, what are you doing? um with regards to that to prepare yourself should you get this contract? >> Yes. Um that's a great question. Um you know we have to be reflective of the communities that we serve. Uh as I mentioned Miami Dade is is a diverse um city. Uh Denver, Colorado has 24 different languages that they serve. We carry about five to six internally. Um and we partner
108with a firm that helps bridge that communication points through various techniques. Um having a an interpreter on the call with us as such as being able to have that interpretive services sending out the emails and texts that you all approve and and I want to make sure that everyone is, you know, clear. We only send out information that the district has provided. We're selling those individual messaging points, but oftentimes it's based around what's happening at those individual school sites. So, we do have a very diverse team because we have to be reflective of the communities we serve. Um, we do work in areas where uh we're based out of Memphis. We we had a little bit of snow that shut the city down for two weeks, but we do have uh confidence and and ability
109and expertise working in areas where it's a lot different and and snow is is part of it. We have field teams out all around the country. Um and and and I can tell you the it's a targeted approach. Um we want to make sure because it can be expensive as most of you all aware when you're sending a couple of people out to knock on doors. It's faster for me to get two people to call than it is for me to send two people out to go knock on the door. So, we want to make sure that that we're trying to penetrate um these families with as many direct phone calls, live phone calls, text to use to set up the phone calls. When they're unresponsive, that's where we send out the targeted um canvas
110and teams to go and engage. Um we we'll time it around. We we'll look at weather reports. We'll time it around um you know, when it's most optimal to reach families. But we do call and engage with families seven days a week. You know, we're calling in the in the mornings and, you know, 8:30, 9:00, and we'll call every day during the week from 8 to 8:00 p.m. Um, Saturdays and Sundays, we get going at about 10:00 and we'll go to 6:00 p.m. Our intent is to engage with families when they're most receptive to engage with. And oftentimes, we understand the challenges around trying to communicate, having traditional school hours. And so it allows us to be singular and focused on this facet. And our singular mission is to bring back as many students that
111have withdrawn to go elsewhere and as many students that aren't in your seats right now to get them to the district. >> Thank you um for that. And a follow-up question, would you be not necessarily partnering, but in addition to, you know, phone calls and and door knocking, would you be engaging in the community, for example, say with churches or community organizations um so that they they're familiar with who you are and what you're looking to do? >> Absolutely. Um we one of the things that that we have to do is we'll work with your team to find out those um you know points of interest that people have a lot of pride that support the district that are are willing to allow us the opportunity to come in and speak you know we to
112to to come and engage with um people that are in the community that might not have kids that are that are in your district and those that might have had kids that left the district. So absolutely those canvasing is, you know, we'll do the door knocking, but we take advantage of going to events, we've gone to Walmarts, we've gone um, you know, you name it, to to Chuck-e-Cheese, anywhere that we know that there are parents that have school age kids that they might not be attending, that's an opportunity for us to engage with. And so, yes, that would be very paramount in our um exper, you know, engaging with these families that are here. Thank you. Mrs. [clears throat] Strata Perez, you had a followup. >> Miss Jen, >> thank you and thank you guys
113so much for being here. Um, I didn't realize when we met earlier with the finance that texting and calling was included in this campaign. I just want to clarify. If you text and call a family and you don't speak with them on the phone and you don't receive receipt via text, but they actually do end up reenrolling in Hartford Public Schools, do we owe you for that student because you contacted them or no? Because that there wasn't two-way communication actively. >> Well, well, I can tell you I wish there was a way that I could capture everyone uh that we engage with. Um oftentimes we we miss out on those families. I mean, I wish there was a a universal net that can capture all of those families. Um but unfortunately um parents see those
114text messages, they'll see those phone calls, they'll see something that intrigues them and then they go directly to the website and they enroll and never tell us anything. And so we're unaware that they have come back. Um so you know for us that is a that's a missed opportunity there. Um, but we think that there are so many other opportunities that that, you know, is part of our, you know, part of the business plan that we know that we're going to miss out on some of those. I I wish there was a way to to be able to do it and I can tell you our team is always trying to figure out ways to uh figure out those families that have bypassed us and and and enrolled with the district without us knowing. >>
115Thank you, >> Miss Strada Perez. >> So, just to be clear, that was a no, right? So if those parent you text back and forth and >> they don't text back then. >> So if Right. So if if that situation occurs then it's a no we don't. >> Yes. But but we we've got to know when we do all our tracking we must be able to verify and demonstrate the ability for the district to be able to say that hey they came as a result of ours. Got it. If we do not have the ability to be able to capture that because they have been unresponsive, then we do not, you know, we don't know where they are. So, we just, you know, there there are parents that change phone numbers, >> you know, that
116are like me. I don't answer a lot of text messages or emails from unknown um numbers or or emails. So, what happens is, you know, companies miss me. So, if I was to go and do something, they just wouldn't know. So, >> thank you. So, I don't um see any more um folks who have questions. So the motion on the floor is that the Hartford Board of Education authorized the superintendent to execute a contract with Kesa K12 for the term outlined in the contract ending June 30th, 2027 at an amount not to exceed $500,000. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Any nays? Nay. >> Nay. >> Any abstensions? The eyes have it. And I thank you for coming because we have plenty of contracts over the years. I'm like, where
117they at? Nowhere. So, I appreciate um you thinking this is so important to show up in person. That that speaks volumes, at least to me. Um this concludes the business portion of the meeting. Thank you for joining us and have a good night.