The fate of Hartford Public Schools Superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez is uncertain after a flood of opposition and a tied vote on whether to extend her contract.
The question before the Board of Education this week was whether to extend Torres-Rodriguez’s contract for an additional year through June 30, 2026. After a failed attempt to table the motion and a lengthy discussion, the vote ultimately fell 3-3 with Chair Philip Rigueur, Secretary Francoise Deristel-Leger and Tyrone Walker voting nay.
As five newly appointed members prepare to take their seats and Rigueur, Vice Chair AJ Johnson and Jim Shmerling prepare to step down, the matter now rests in the hands of a new board — an outcome met with both relief and trepidation from a split school community.
In a statement to the Courant Wednesday, Torres-Rodriguez said she is “confident that the new and remaining board members will recognize the tremendous efforts being made across the district and will ultimately decide to continue on our current path towards academic recovery and excellence. “
“I look forward to working with this new board to serve Hartford Public School students, families, and staff next year and into the future,” Torres-Rodriguez said.
At the meeting, board members marveled at the level of discourse surrounding the proposed extension. Many said they had never seen so much engagement or received so many calls or texts about an issue.
During public comment, Torres-Rodriguez received numerous messages of support from community members, but the extension of her contract was notably opposed by nine unions representing teachers, administrators, paraeducators, early childhood educators, security officers, school health professionals, support staff and other district employees.
With a fresh slate of board members expected to start next month, the unions argued that the new Board of Education should ultimately rule on the superintendent’s contract. In a statement, the unions said the motion, presented in “the eleventh hour of half the board’s tenure,” gave off an “appearance of favoring personality over process.”
The unions warned that a premature renewal could put “the city, the HPS budget, and Hartford taxpayers at financial risk” in a scenario where the district is forced “to pay two superintendent salaries concurrently,” if the new board chooses to pursue new leadership while Torres-Rodriguez is still under contract.
The opposition comes at a time of financial crisis for the district. After facing a $77 million deficit , Hartford Public Schools now must slash $31.5 million in spending and layoff as many as 387 employees across the district. Many of those positions are already unfilled. The city and state are expected to provide $10.5 million.
With so many cuts, Shellye Davis, the president of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators said extending Torres-Rodriguez’s contract is not in the best interest of Hartford or its students.
“We don’t even know how we are going to start the school year. We have caregivers in my union who have layoff notices, and they work with the most fragile students,” Davis said. “This isn’t a time to extend a contract, especially when the one that is in effect isn’t even up yet.”
Davis said the district needs to “make sure that we can see past where we are,” before moving forward.
“I’d like to take it off the table where this is against the superintendent and all the things she’s done, this is business,” Davis said. “It’s about the money, which we are short of.”
Rigueur said that the current board was always supposed to vote on Torres-Rodriguez’s contract extension. He said the vote Tuesday was not “out of sequence” but an attempt to “get back into compliance,” after the vote, which should have taken place in December, was “delayed for a number of reasons.”
Rigueur said Torres-Rodriguez will make another extension request to the board on March 30, 2025.
“(The new board) they’re going to have to make that decision within three months which means within three months … you have to find a new superintendent if this board vote does not go the way that some of us want tonight,” Rigueur said.
Rigueur said that regardless of the vote, the district will continue to face challenges with budgeting, school consolidation, violence and stagnant academic achievement.
“The new board — they’re going to have a pretty tough road ahead of them,” Rigueur said.
Shmerling said that he is concerned that the new board will not have enough experience to decide whether to renew the contract after just nine months on the job.
“We need continuity, we need a structure to keep the progress that we have going. There are certainly still challenges, but to start all over with five new board members and the potential of having to recruit a new superintendent I think is not fair to the kids, to the students and to the school district,” Shmerling said.
Deristel-Leger said the new members are coming on “ready to do the work.”
Before voting no on the contract extension, Deristel-Leger praised Torres-Rodriguez and the work she has done to guide the district through the pandemic, improve attendance, bolster recruitment and emphasize social-emotional learning.
However, Deristel-Leger said she wanted to table the motion because she wants to “give the new board members who are coming on an opportunity to get to know Torres-Rodriguez for themselves.
“She is doing the work. She’s here. She’s present,” Deristel-Leger said. “I understand that it’s less than a year (for the board to decide) however … I feel that they need to have the opportunity to make that decision.”
Shontá Browdy said that she feels adult interests had too much sway in the conversation about Torres-Rodriguez’s contract.
“Now, when we’re finally at a place where we are trying to move the needle and I feel that we are not thinking of students first,” Browdy said. “I am not making a choice for any adult, my choice will be for students and to not have the rug snatched up from under them on both sides of the table.”
During a point of personal privilege earlier in the meeting, Johnson, the vice chair of the board, described Torres-Rodriguez as “one of the best and brightest.”
Johnson said that before Torres-Rodriguez became superintendent in 2017, he told her the district needed “someone who was going to die on the hill of education in the city of Hartford and not see this as an opportunity for transition and upward mobility but someone who is willing to stay.”
Student representative Khiara Hill told board members that when students talk, Torres-Rodriguez listens — something that Hill said “has been very hard to find in leadership as of lately.”
“I have seen the work that she’s put in to make this place a better place for us,” Hill said. “She’s backed us up when every other adult in the room has stood over. … She really tries to see us as individuals who have needs that need to be met rather than heard and ignored. And we see the outcome of the efforts that she puts in. It’s not just empty promises, we see it and we experience it day in and day out.”
In the statement to the Courant, Torres-Rodriguez said she will use Hill’s “thoughtful and eloquent words to guide me through the school year and beyond.”
“When I first arrived in Hartford from Puerto Rico as a 9-year-old monolingual student, I never imagined that I would one day lead a school district filled with so many dedicated staff and talented students — students like Khiara Hill,” Torres-Rodriguez said. “Her words last night energized my spirit, furthered my resolve, and confirmed that we are on the right path towards ensuring all our students get what they deserve.”
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