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News 12 Staff

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I'm Mark Sudall. Welcome back to Power and Politics. Doctor Rebecca Hammond with the Stanford Board of Education is here. Welcome. Thank you. We have a lot to talk about, a lot of moving parts as we've been talking about here off camera in the school system right now. The superintendent is leaving at the end of this school year. That's when her 3 year contract is gonna expire. Is this becoming a distraction early in the school year already? No, I mean, we will continue to move forward as best we can. Yes, I mean, knowing this, um, you know, the teachers in the community have requested that the board not start, uh, some of the new initiatives, but the superintendent has gone ahead with this anyway, correct? And you talk about that and the board of ed and so what has happened, so we have spoken about this quite a bit. This last spring, so we have a flexible schedule but it's now famously known as the inflexible schedule because what has happened, students are getting schedules and we really needed to watch, wait until school started and teachers are receiving their schedules and of course in classes full time. Many of the teachers who may have taught an algebra class are now teaching geometry. They're professionals, they can flex with it, um, but what's happening with the students, many didn't get the requests that they asked for, so they maybe once. Semester is going to be study halls and art and the other semester then is they have a lift with courses now that's not the case for all students, but what has happened, it has created quite a stir because is Stanford about. Graduating to educate or what is happening here? So behind the scenes, you know what is the board thinking? And as a board member we tried to raise an alarm to this to say here's what's happening, meaning parents now are waking up 5000 students coming home with schedules, they're seeing what's happening. So when you move from 10 months to 5 months in a schedule you can still manage it but you know we're not winning the track race here and what's happening the process time for students is being sped sped up you have the um learning gaps happening so if there's a class. Junior year fall semester and then math and then you don't have it until your senior year spring semester there's gonna be a learning gap there so parents are seeing what's happening students may want they need to have required courses PE, um, uh, math classes, but what's happening they're not able to get them into the schedule, so will they graduate. We have teachers that math science and special ed that aren't in positions so here you have students showing up to class and what happens you have a substitute there so then it becomes a pass fail situation and there's not learning happening. And then on top of it you've got a perfect storm so many of these teachers who are teaching um 6 periods, not 5 periods, the English and social studies only teach 5 periods with those 6 period classes times 30 you have up to 180 students. And then it becomes an issue with the content. So what are they doing? So if you have a literature class, an English class, English language arts, you have to read 4 literature books. So rather than doing it over a 2 month period with presentations, now you're doing it over a 1 month. So imagine reading 4 books in one semester. And then the teachers are having to grade this so it's becoming quite an issue for the community because now there's it it seems that um you know to support these kids are we getting effective teaching are we getting effective learning and so you look at test scores, um. It's, it, it's, it's something that we're kind of watching very carefully. I had a chance to go into the three high schools to see what was happening. The larger high schools have, um, you know, uh, larger, uh, volume of courses so they can plug students into places. AITE, which is our magnet school, is not able to do that as easily. So it's becoming there's a lot of tension in the community right now and so, so like in Norwalk, for example, it was more of a budget issue you're saying in this case it's, it's more of a political thing and and these kids aren't learning or no, they, so we have 90 administrators in the Stanford public schools and that's about 20 million of our budget. Part of what the schedule change was was to bring in more special ed administrators. So in that sense it was financial but now the fallout becomes we did math, science, and special ed teachers so if a child is in special ed and they're not getting the service, it's going to become an issue. Um, so I mean I think it can be looked from a variety of angles, but as an educator now on a board of ed, I look at that. Are we getting effective learning? Are we graduating to educate or are we not at this point we're just pushing kids through. The graduation rates will go up. In, in, in the lesson minute we have left here, uh, this is an election year for the mayor of Stanford. Is this gonna be an issue in in the. In the election, well, she, she's a 10th member of the board of ed. um, she's not consistently at the meetings. I don't think so, but again it does play into where she would have a say and you know all of this could have been stopped. I think a lot of the parents who were concerned and teachers really wanted to alert the community earlier, but the schedule's happening and we're moving forward as best we can. The PR from central office and of course the board of ed is that everything is working fine and there are some glitches they'll try to work them out but at this point we're not, uh, my personal opinion, we're not leading an effective program. Doctor Hammon, thank you so much for the time. Thank you. Well, next, Connecticut's minimum wage is going up. We'll let you know by how much.

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Well, 59 cents won't buy you much these days, but that's how much Connecticut's minimum wage is going up next year, making it the highest state in the nation. News 12 Connecticut's John Craven shows us what it means for workers and businesses. At Norwalk's Silver Star Diner. Alexandro Savidas has been cooking up tasty dishes for decades, but running a restaurant is getting a lot more expensive. everything. There is one thing you don't pay more. Everything that you get your hands and soon it will cost a little bit more. Next year. Connecticut's minimum wage will go up a modest 59 cents to 1,694 cents an hour. Up to 200,000 workers will see a raise. Protecting workers is part of maintaining. A solid economy, one that attracts new workers and focuses on making Connecticut more affordable for young people. But getting to this point was not easy. When Connecticut passed its new minimum wage law six years ago, it was a nasty fight. After a 14 hour debate. Lawmakers gradually raised the minimum wage from $10 to $15 then tied it to inflation. Critics offered dire warnings that low wage jobs would disappear. There's not one of us who hasn't been into a newly renovated McDonald's and walk in and don't have to order from anybody and have to hit a bunch of buttons to see what they're ordering. But since then Zavvidas is actually added workers. He thinks the extra money is worth it. How are the people going to live? They have to pay their bills. They have to make a living balancing the cost of business and the cost of everything else in Norwalk, John Craven, News 12, Connecticut. Now the new minimum wage does not impact servers or bartenders. They get a tipped wage. Congresswoman Johanna Hayes is pushing Congress to change that. Well, early voting is underway in Norwalk. It's the Democratic primary for the mayoral race. Democrats can cast their ballots through Sunday at City Hall. Hours are 10 to 6. The actual primary is Tuesday this November. There will be races for mayor in Stanford, Milford, and Stratford. Well, that's all our time. I'm Mark Suddall. Thanks for watching.

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Attorney General William Tong and Dr. Rebecca Hamman, a member of the Stamford Board of Education, join the show.

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