The variety of deadlines parents have to enter their children in the various school choice lotteries are among a long list of shortcomings the state still needs to fix, lawyers involved in the school desegregation lawsuit say.
On Friday, the State Department of Education decided to relieve some of that confusion and extended the deadline to Monday that Hartford-area parents have to apply to the state’s Open Choice program and inter-district magnet schools. It’s still not in line with the Hartford Public Schools’ deadline for their lottery schools, but it is a little bit closer now.
The state is up against an October 2012 deadline to comply with a state Supreme Court order to reduce the racial isolation in Hartford schools. The state is still a ways from the finish line in complying with the agreement reached to desegregate the schools, which requires that 41 percent of Hartford students be attending an integrated school or that 80 percent of those who wish to leave their neighborhood school be provided the opportunity to do so.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.
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