The Connecticut State Department of Education has informed Hartford Public Schools that efforts to win back students who left via open enrollment may violate the settlement from the landmark civil rights case Sheff v. O’Neill.

Hartford school board members voted in February to hire the Tennessee-based firm Caissa K12 to recruit students, including those who left for Sheff magnet schools. In a Mar. 23 letter to the district, CSDE wrote this may undermine the Sheff settlement, which is built around giving students access to those alternatives.

“The state is required [by Sheff] to ensure that Hartford-resident students have meaningful access to interdistrict choice options,” the letter stated. “Consequently, efforts to recruit students away from these programs … are inconsistent with, and run counter to, that responsibility.”

The Sheff case began in 1989, when several plaintiffs sued over the poor quality of education in Hartford Public Schools — notably poorer than the surrounding districts, which, unlike Hartford, were overwhelmingly white. The plaintiffs argued this was because Connecticut allowed districts to be separated along “racial, ethnic, and economic lines,” meaning children in Hartford did not have the same opportunities as their wealthier white peers.

In 1996, the Connecticut Supreme Court agreed, and efforts began to fix the situation. Various agreements and stipulations followed until 2022, when the parties reached what was heralded as a final agreement.

A key component of the Sheff settlement was to create a system of voluntary integration by coaxing students from both Hartford and surrounding towns into shared interdistrict schools. That system is what CSDE now contends Hartford’s actions may have undermined.

Patricia O’Rourke, executive director of the Connecticut Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, said she likes to separate the Sheff decision from the Sheff settlement.

“The Sheff plaintiffs didn’t sue to have magnet schools or open choice,” O’Rourke said. “That’s the only remedies the state has been willing to offer.”

Those remedies, and the financial toll they have taken on Hartford, are at the center of the recruitment issue. Connecticut funds schools based on how many students attend, and when students enroll out of their home district — say, to a Sheff-related interdistrict school — much of that state funding goes with them. The issue is particularly salient for Hartford, which is facing a projected $70 million deficit in the next two years.

This is where Caissa K12 came into the picture. Hartford Public Schools hired the company to institute a ground campaign involving door-to-door canvassing, texting, emails and phone calls — all in the hope of winning back students. At a Feb. 17 board meeting, Superintendent Andraé Townsel said the district would pay Caissa K12 $935 per student recruited, up to $500,000 total. 

During the meeting, Townsel said the district would make that money back, and then some, for each student recruited. For example, he said, if a Hartford resident returned from a CREC magnet school, the district would save about $4,000 in general education tuition — well over the $935 it would pay to Caissa K12. For a Hartford resident returning from an open choice school, the district would get an even bigger boost.

The board voted to approve the contract at that meeting. One month later, on Mar. 20, an attorney for the Sheff plaintiffs wrote to CSDE warning of a possible breach of the settlement. The CSDE letter went to Hartford three days after that.

O’Rourke said she found the CSDE’s reasoning unconvincing.

“What is it that you’re concerned about? Are you concerned that Hartford resident students of color are going to choose their own neighborhood schools, and therefore somehow threaten the progress on integration?” she said.

By contrast, she praised Townsel and the Hartford school board chairperson, Shontá Browdy, for putting new efforts into promoting and uplifting the district.

“I think that means a lot to students,” O’Rourke said.

Hartford board member Madi Csejka voted “no” on the Caissa K12 contract. She said no one had mentioned the possibility of a Sheff breach to her before the vote, but she had her own concerns: She worried the district wouldn’t see the savings it expected.

Csejka said CREC and open choice programs often have waitlists, meaning if one student returns to Hartford, another may leave to fill the newly-opened slot. She said she fears that could leave the district with no real savings and up to $500,000 owed to Caissa K12 — an expense it can hardly afford.

The Connecticut Mirror reached out to the chairperson of the board, Shontá Browdy, for comment but received no response. A spokesperson for Hartford Public Schools said the district is conferring with its attorneys but could not comment further.

To complicate matters, CSDE is now also calling Hartford’s $70 million deficit projection into question. At an Apr. 1 board meeting, CSDE revealed its own preliminary analysis of the district’s finances showed a small surplus — a wildly different conclusion. As a result, the department called for a “rigorous, independent financial audit of [Hartford Public Schools’] fiscal position.”

Townsel responded in a letter Apr. 2. 

“Our hypothesis is [the state’s projection] is based on our Period 8 financial reports, which show a change in the adopted versus revised special education budget. However, these changes are not indicative of a change in projected spending,” Townsel wrote.

He added that Hartford’s Municipal Accountability Review Board had raised no concerns about the accuracy of the school’s projections.

O’Rourke said she’d rather see the state focusing on ways to ensure all schools provide equitable education.

“I just hope that we can stay as cool-headed and calm as possible and focus on what is best for students,” O’Rourke said.