This Hartford Public High School grad can’t read. Here's how it happened
Connecticut Public Radio | By Jessika Harkay / CT MirrorPublished October 1, 2024 at 3:35 PM EDT
When 19-year-old Aleysha Ortiz told Hartford City Council members in May that the public school system stole her education, she had to memorize her speech.
Ortiz, who was a senior at Hartford Public High School at the time, wrote the speech using the talk-to-text function on her phone. She listened to it repeatedly to memorize it.
That’s because she was never taught to read or write — despite attending schools in Hartford since she was 6.
Ortiz, who came to Hartford from Puerto Rico with her family when she was young, struggled with language and other challenges along the way. But a confluence of circumstances, apparent apathy and institutional inertia pushed her haphazardly through the school system, according to Ortiz, her attorney and district officials.
Those officials, in statements that her attorney says display “shocking” educational neglect, have acknowledged that Ortiz never received instruction in reading.
Despite this, she received her diploma this spring after improving her grades in high school — with help from the speech-to-text function — and getting on the honor roll. She began her studies at the University of Connecticut this summer.
Ortiz can’t read even most one-syllable words. The words she can read were memorized during karaoke or from subtitles at the bottom of TV screens and associating the words she saw with what she heard, she said.
“I was pushed through. I was moved from class to class not being taught anything,” Ortiz told The Connecticut Mirror during a series of interviews. “They stole something from me … I wanted to do more, and I didn’t have the chance to do that.”
Ortiz was diagnosed with a speech impediment and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in early childhood and has been classified as a student with a disability for “as long as I can remember,” she said.
Ortiz also wasn’t taught how to tell time or how to count money. She can barely hold a pencil because of unaddressed issues with hand fatigue and disputes about school-based occupational therapy, she and her attorney said. She learned basic math, like addition, but has no other math skills.
Accommodations in her Individualized Education Plan, which spell out what services students will receive that school year, allowed her to audio-record classes and meetings with school leadership because of her inability to read or write in high school.
In recordings shared with the CT Mirror, made from March through June of this year, district officials acknowledged that in 12 years, Ortiz never received reading instruction or intervention. The CT Mirror also reviewed Ortiz’s educational records, including her recent IEPs and other documents.
“In my review of Aleysha’s IEP, she was never provided reading instruction,” Noreen Trenchard, a special education administrator for the district, said at a May 29 Planning and Placement Team (PPT) meeting. “What is most concerning to me, honestly, at this time, is … with all of that information prior to today, no direct reading instruction was provided for her, and no PPT was requested to add that to an IEP. … That’s very concerning, very, very concerning.”
Trenchard did not respond to a request for comment.
Ortiz said her mother’s ability to advocate for her was limited because of language barriers, insufficient translation services, and because the family didn’t know their legal rights to challenge district decisions.
Ortiz filed for “due process” against the district in late June, which is a legal procedure in special education that’s triggered when families feel their rights were violated.
Ortiz’s lawyer, Courtney Spencer, said the young woman’s story may be one of the “most shocking cases” of educational neglect she has seen in 24 years.
“It is really shocking, and it should never have happened and shouldn’t be happening,” Spencer said. “Her whole future is going to be impacted.”
Ortiz repeatedly described her special education experience with one word: traumatic.
She said she was unlawfully restrained, spent months in classrooms without a special education teacher or paraeducators, and was ridiculed by untrained staff who would laugh at her.
Her time in Hartford Public Schools was defined by feelings of isolation and loneliness as she sat in the back of classrooms for years and wished she would be able to do what the other kids were doing, she said.
While other students made friends and learned basic math and reading skills, Ortiz said she was stuck tracing letter worksheets on her own from first grade well into her middle school years.
Since first grade, she said, teachers, school leaders and district administrators failed her.
In a recording of a June 6 meeting with Trenchard, the district’s special education administrator, Ortiz can be heard saying she was denied the right to a fair education when teachers didn’t teach her how to write, when disability testing wasn’t done accurately and when she felt shamed by educators after she brought up how her IEP wasn’t being followed correctly.
“People didn’t forget about me — no — people chose not to [educate me]. People chose not to [change] my IEP. People chose not to do this and that and this and that,” Ortiz said at the meeting. “I’m the one paying the consequences, while those people are still getting their checks.”
Ortiz tried to teach herself and make up for the areas her formal education lacked, but through those efforts, the 19-year-old said, she also lost the chance to just be a kid.
“Basically [in high school], I would go to class. I would record and try to memorize everything the teacher said and what I wanted to write. Then, when I went home, I would stay and hear the recordings. I basically went to school two times in one day,” Ortiz said.
“I wanted to join clubs, but I couldn’t do that because I didn’t have the time. … To this day, I’ve never been out to the movie theater with friends, ever,” Ortiz said. “I didn’t have time to have fun. It was either enjoy myself or fail my classes, and maybe if I was more ahead in reading or writing, I would’ve had time [to make friends].”
Ortiz’s story can’t be defined as a student who fell through the cracks — several people knew how her education was being neglected and did nothing, Spencer said.
“She’s had so many teachers. I don’t know how everybody failed her,” Spencer said. “I don’t know how the district could have passed her through. I don’t understand how this happened. It’s negligence, in my opinion.”
The district declined to “speak specifically to student matters,” because of “state and federal legal obligations,” after requests for comment by the CT Mirror, particularly in regards to why it took so long to find a problem with Ortiz’s academic progress and whether officials were aware of similar situations happening with other students in Hartford.
But in a meeting on June 6, Trenchard acknowledged that educators may have violated Ortiz’s IEP, which is a legally binding document under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and outlines the services and accommodations that will make a student with a disability successful in a classroom.
“And truthfully, from what I’ve seen, I see that you didn’t even have an appropriate IEP,” Trenchard said.
“People got to you too late, which has been the story of your life here,” a Hartford Public High School administrator can be heard telling Ortiz in the recording from the meeting on June 6, despite Ortiz saying she had raised concerns for several years and they were never formally addressed.
Ortiz was able to graduate because she had met all her credit requirements, but she says she was only able to “survive” high school through the use of speech-to-text applications and a calculator.
And though limited, the accommodations helped Ortiz become an honor-roll student and led to her acceptance to several colleges, including the University of Connecticut-Hartford, which she began attending part-time in August.
Ortiz’s success may be unique, but her challenges in the district are not, several current and former staff members from the school district told the CT Mirror.
“I think this happens a lot through Hartford schools,” said a Hartford paraeducator who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I don’t think a lot of kids in Hartford get their services. She’s not the only one. … Any school [in the district], you’ll find kids, even that are not in special ed, that don’t even know how to read and write — they just pass them over.”
“Unfortunately, the way the district runs, it’s short-staffed. It’s fast-paced,” said a social worker who worked with Ortiz in high school and also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “While Aleysha is a very sad and touching story, it is one of many in the district that get overlooked.”
Ortiz and her attorney think so too.
“One of the reasons I didn’t drop out was from anger — and knowing that I might not be the only one, but you don’t hear it around,” Ortiz said. “With me, people knew about it and didn’t want to do their job, and knowing this — it must be happening in other places.”
“It’s happening all the time, and it’s not just Hartford,” Spencer said.
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