As Students, They Felt Disconnected. As Leaders, They Champion Equity
The paths Leslie Torres-Rodriguez and Madeline Negrón took to lead
Connecticut’s Hartford public schools share important similarities—and the end
results seemed unlikely when they themselves were students in the state’s
schools.
Both were born in Puerto Rico and came to the U.S. mainland as children.
Torres-Rodriguez, Hartford’s superintendent, was 9 when she moved to the city,
while Negrón, the district’s chief academic officer, was 10 when her family
settled in Willimantic, roughly 20 miles away.
But their common history extends beyond geography. While their families
provided them with love and support, they struggled financially, and their
schools were often sources of significant tension.
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A school counselor once told Negrón that, at best, she should aspire to be a
secretary. An English-language learner who often felt looked down upon in
class, Negrón in turn scorned the idea of ever becoming a teacher. Meanwhile,
at one time the only reason Torres-Rodriguez—a self-described “disengaged”
student—stayed in high school was so that she could keep her job at a local
pharmacy, in a deal she made with her mother, who wanted her to keep going to
class.
“In retrospect, boy, were there some glaring inequities in the district that I
went to and that I now serve,” Torres-Rodriguez said.
The two leaders’ shared background is the source of a strong professional
bond. Those formative experiences are a major influence on their work in a
district where about 55 percent of students are Hispanic, like the district
leaders. It’s pushed Negrón, 49, and Torres-Rodriguez, 47, to prioritize
flexibility and humility when trying to help students and families and
establish firm strategies and plans that hold firm—even in the face of a huge,
unforeseen challenge as a global pandemic.
They have focused on strengthening the connections between students, families,
and schools—from improving basic attendance and keeping students on track to
graduate to providing opportunities for them to learn and grow outside
traditional school hours.
“What’s great about it is that I know that she’s genuine about her passion for
doing right by kids,” Negrón said of Torres-Rodriguez. “I know that’s where my
heart is, too. I know that her values are pretty much the same.”
Keeping students engaged and learning
The district’s focus on attendance and absenteeism predates the COVID-19
pandemic but ramped up during the health crisis when remote and hybrid
learning and out-of-school commitments increased pressures on students of
color and those experiencing poverty, leading many to disconnect or drop out
of school.
Although located in the capital of one of the wealthiest states in the
country, the district educates students amid significant financial and
political challenges. Nearly half of families with children in schools receive
federal nutrition benefits, and the median household income of the district’s
families was $36,278 in 2019, less than half the state’s.
The school system has also been at the center of a 33-year-long school
desegregation battle to offer more academically rigorous schooling options for
Black, Hispanic, and low-income students.
Torres-Rodriguez and Negrón started doubling down on absenteeism after an
eye-opening 2020 study revealed that while the district’s four-year graduation
rate for its 2016 class was 80 percent, just half those students enrolled in
postsecondary education, and only 32 percent of the class persisted into their
second year at two- and four-year institutions.
Those findings raised alarm bells among Hartford’s K-12 leaders, who
eventually created a series of early-warning metrics to identify students at
risk of falling off track.
LESSON FROM THE LEADER: LESLIE TORRES-RODRIGUEZ
Embrace Your Story: Proximity matters. Leaders should draw on their lived
experiences and challenge biases toward those who are most
marginalized—students living in poverty, new arrivals, multilingual—to avoid
perpetuating inequity. Honor and share your truth and the truth of others.
Get Comfortable With Discomfort: Don’t shy away from data and evidence. To
lead continuous improvement on a personal and team level, leaders need to use
data to continually adapt based on their context and what works.
Commit to Equity in All Things: Bring an equity lens to the development of
processes, resource allocation, inputs, and outputs. Center student needs and
stakeholder voice, bringing those who are most impacted into decisionmaking to
disrupt historic patterns of inequity.
The district found that 83 percent of students with at least one of those
early-warning signs—such as an attendance rate below 90 percent and suspension
for at least one day—veered off course, compared with just 37 percent of
students without any of those indicators.
Slashing absenteeism became a key priority for Torres-Rodriguez’s team, with
the district pledging in its current strategic plan to cut the rate to a
maximum of 12 percent.
Over the last two years, Hartford has marshaled its resources to find and
reengage students who had disengaged from school during the pandemic.
At the start of this school year, about 2,600 students—or roughly 15 percent
of the 17,700 enrolled—were considered “no shows.” They weren’t showing up to
school and weren’t accounted for. That number plummeted to 50 by the end of
2021 after an all-hands-on-deck undertaking that included more than 55,000
phone calls and 1,400 home visits, according to the district.
Statistics don’t tell the full story.
Run by the Family and Community Partnerships team, the effort included
assistance from student-engagement specialists, behavioral experts, and other
district staff.
Hartford’s leaders took nothing for granted. They scrutinized each step and
were quick to make changes when necessary. They paid attention to who was
making phone calls and visiting students’ homes; which, if any, of the
district’s external partners were working with school staff on outreach
efforts; and whether students’ families were experiencing food or housing
insecurity, and, if so, how the district could deploy resources to help.
The district hosts “attendance incentive” days to encourage students to keep
coming to school, and held virtual “Attendance, Culture, and Engagement”
learning sessions for families led by its outreach specialists.
‘All’ for me means ‘all.’ Are we creating access for English-language
learners? Are we creating access for students with disabilities?
Madeline Negrón
One might assume that Torres-Rodriguez recalls her own desire as a teenager to
focus on a job and not class as misguided, and that she wants students to shun
paid work in the name of focusing on their classes. But her attitude is quite
different.
“Some of our students were frankly saying, ‘I don’t know if I want to go back.
I don’t know if I want to give up my job,’” Torres-Rodriguez said. “We should
never put a student in a situation where they have to choose: Should I go to
school or support my family? Because I was that student.”
Negrón also understands that being disconnected from school doesn’t mean that
students lack ambition.
“I do see students that are in these very challenging economic situations,”
she said. “They have dreams and they have goals. When I look at kids that are
still struggling and still haven’t found themselves, I say, ‘That could easily
have been me.’ ”
Listening to families to meet their needs
Some of Torres-Rodriguez’s earliest work after becoming Hartford’s
superintendent in 2017 was to draft plans and oversee the closure of several
schools, a painful process that taught her the value of listening to parents
and others and showing them how what they said influenced her actions.
Leslie Torres-Rodriguez, superintendent of Hartford Public Schools, at
Hartford Public High School on Dec. 20, 2021.
Leslie Torres-Rodriguez
Christopher Capozziello for Education Week
That commitment to listen to families and deliver for them has led to, among
other things, the Saturday Academy, an initiative to help children whose lives
and ability to learn were disrupted by the pandemic and who need support
outside normal school hours.
The program is slated to run for 16 Saturdays this school year and provides a
mix of academic and enrichment classes led by Hartford educators and local
community-based organizations.
More than 400 students signed up shortly after the initiative was announced.
The academy, funded by federal COVID-19 relief aid, supports extended learning
time, one of the four priorities the district developed to guide how it will
spend the windfall. Other priorities build on years of work Torres-Rodriguez
has already done, including providing professional development to train all
K-2 teachers in the science of reading.
Those “pillars,” as Torres-Rodriguez calls them, grew from some 50 hours of
meetings with parents and other key community members about how the school
system should use federal aid to address the pandemic and accelerate work the
district already considered essential.
We should never put a student in a situation where they have to choose: Should
I go to school or support my family?
Leslie Torres-Rodriguez
Karen Hawley Miles, the president and CEO of Massachusetts-based Education
Resource Strategies who has worked with Hartford schools for several years,
said the superintendent’s approach is an example of what happens when a
district leader doesn’t just toss out a few goals and call it a plan. Instead,
her approach builds common ground with communities to meet their needs.
“It’s not like she’s building this stuff from scratch,” Hawley Miles said. “It
reinforced and helped people better understand her strategy.”
Every time a family takes part in programs like the academy, “that’s now a
family that’s a little bit closer to us,” Torres-Rodriguez said. “Oftentimes,
our families have had very negative experiences with schools.”
Aldwin Allen, the senior director of community programs at the Village for
Families and Children, a Hartford group that participates in the district’s
community schools program, said Torres-Rodriguez has also strengthened bonds
with the community through the Office of Family Engagement and by partnerships
with local groups through the 13 full-service community schools.
“She understands that the central office itself has to facilitate engagement
with families” and not just rely on teachers, principals, and individual
school leaders to do that job, Allen said. “She’s done a more strategic job of
making it the district’s responsibility.”
LESSONS FROM THE LEADER: MADELINE NEGRÓN
Lead With Your Core: A leader often has to arrive at decisions that are not
easy to make. Knowing your core values and leading with your core during
challenging times will be the reassurance that you are doing what is best.
Be Clear About the ‘Why’: Change is never easy, especially for adults. Rely on
the data, face the brutal truth, and communicate clearly about the need for
change.
Invest in People: Take time to get to know the people you serve in order to
build strong, positive relationships.
Redesigning schools to reengage students
One of Negrón’s primary responsibilities in Hartford has been to establish
Student Success Centers, which help students get back on a path to graduation.
The centers emerged from Negrón’s, Torres-Rodriguez’s, and others’ desire to
redesign the high school experience for students who were behind in credits to
get back on a graduation path.
The first center opened in the 2019-20 school year, and two centers, based at
high schools, are serving approximately 280 students this year.
Staff members invite students who may be struggling with chronic absenteeism,
course failures, or other hurdles to attend. Those who enroll have access to a
variety of supports, including a coordinator, two graduation specialists, a
social worker, and either one or two academic interventionists, who develop
individualized academic plans for them.
They attend for one period every day or every other day, with instruction in
small groups of three to four students, to help them earn the credits they
need to get their high school diploma.
Students often use online courses but have staff alongside them to provide
what’s ultimately a blended approach. They also work closely with the
graduation specialists to check their progress toward individual targets and
goals, as well as school counselors to ensure that the students remain engaged
with their work.
If a student encounters difficulties or shows signs of falling further behind,
counselors and others step in to help and contact families if needed. Students
are also publicly celebrated for meeting their targets.
Madeline Negron, chief academic officer for Hartford Public Schools at
Hartford Public High School on Dec. 20, 2021.
Madeline Negrón
Christopher Capozziello for Education Week
Negrón’s awareness that the school system had simply “lost” students and her
search for answers to urgent questions on how to expand access to
opportunities to each student were pivotal in the centers’ development and
expansion.
“ ‘All’ for me means ‘all,’ ” she said. “Are we creating access for
English-language learners? Are we creating access for students with
disabilities?”
“We did not have what I call a continuum of supports throughout high school,”
Torres-Rodriguez continued. “There was no systemic approach to that.”
In addition to providing academic support, Negrón said it’s important that the
employees at the center reflect Hartford’s diversity.
“I’m the chief of academics. But at the end of the day, I need people who can
connect with kids, who can pause and get to know a student, somebody who’s
going to be genuine,” she said.
Negrón hopes that all high school students—and even those in middle
school—will have access to a success center at some point.
It was Negrón’s and Torres-Rodriguez’s commitment to equity and inclusion that
inspired Liliana Ballestas-Cuevas, the director of the centers, to work with
them.
“They really are practitioners,” she said. “I came here because the
superintendent said, ‘I want to create safe havens in our schools.’ Her
follow-through has been impeccable.”
For her part, Negrón said the centers would have had less impact without
Torres-Rodriguez’ support, especially through a “rocky period” when the first
one opened.
“There is no secret sauce here,” Negrón said. “It’s: Let’s build a sustaining
relationship with students. It’s probably the first time in years that people
have looked at them, and seen them, and shown them with actions that they
matter. We have a plan, and yes, it’s difficult, and yes, we’re going to
continue to figure it out right alongside them.”
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