“Does that mean that I don’t have a chance of continuing at this district?” The human-relations associate from central office quickly adjusted her seat and smiled nervously. “At this time, I am not allowed to say. I can only read you the contents of this letter.”
Five minutes prior, I had finished teaching my last period of economics. I had watched my ninth-graders head to lunch excitedly, and despite the news of planned staff layoffs, I lived in the moment, feeling proud about how my lesson generated curiosity among my students for budgeting strategies.
Now, after security briskly escorted me to an empty conference room without warning or explanation, I listened to a human-relations associate read my termination letter. My only silver lining? “The statutory basis for this determination relates to a reduction in force and is not reflective of your teaching performance.”
I left that meeting with the certainty that I would not have a job at Hartford Public Schools for the next school year. I left without any certainty about the remaining months I had for both pay and healthcare coverage. I walked the hallways, trying to get my mind off what seemed like a final, crushing pronouncement. But each step only further rendered obvious the irreversibility of the situation, and every passing minute intensified a simmering rage toward Superintendent Andrae Townsel.
“There’s nothing else to cut. At this point you’re cutting bone,” I recalled him telling reporters. And yet during Teacher Appreciation Week, the only words from the same superintendent were those comparing himself to President Obama’s leadership in the choice to don a tan suit. And no less on Teacher Appreciation Day, Townsel, in contradiction to his own opposition to job cuts, sent out his subordinates in central office to systematically notify teachers of their forthcoming termination.
True, Superintendent Townsel was not to blame for state Democrats’ inability to ultimately offer more than a paltry $170 million toward emergency funding for all Connecticut school districts. Gov. Ned Lamont had anchored the debate to a shameful $100-million proposal, even as Republicans announced a plan of $335 million.
For context, Hartford Public Schools’ deficit alone amounts to $89 million. Relatedly, Townsel was not responsible for Mayor Arunan Arulampalam’s several-months-long refusal to dedicate any part of Hartford’s sizable $48 million reserve toward local public schools. Only in late May did the mayor finally release the miniscule amount of $4.1 million. And yet the gutless conduct of state and city officials, rather than absolving Townsel of culpability for the latest round of teacher layoffs in Hartford, only demonstrates the primacy of a cancerous consensus killing Hartford’s public schools shared among so-called leaders.
I waited for the kids to leave school to thank my colleagues for their advocacy against job cuts. I cried when I realized that my coworkers and I who received lay-off notices were the victims of the indifference of powerful people who do not consider education a priority.
Against the harmful stereotypes of Hartford, teachers here knew better. What we viewed was a diamond in the rough —school communities that persistently strove for academic excellence while constantly deprived of adequate resources. Whether my colleagues quit lucrative legal careers or moved from hundreds of miles abroad to teach kids in Hartford, we felt it an honor to improve the lives of children every day. But our elected leaders did not care about teachers’ dedication and rewarded us accordingly.
The last words of the human-relations associate still occupy my thoughts. “It is always my favorite part of the job when I can call teachers and tell them that we do have a position for them elsewhere in our district.” It is now the last week of July. I have not received a call from Hartford Public Schools, and I do not expect to receive any.
Nevertheless, in remaining passionate about the future of public education in Connecticut’s capital, I offer this call to local voters: demand answers from the glaringly indifferent, and vote to save public education in Hartford. Demand that any candidate seeking your vote pledge to prevent the job cuts that leave Hartford’s kids suffering in increasingly oversized classrooms
No district leader, no city official, no state lawmaker will restore educators to a job in Hartford or adequately support the interests of young learners. But on primary day, August 11, the voters can.
Christopher Sung lives in Hartford.
