North Haven’s state senator and representative have weighed in on Superintendent Dr. Robert Cronin’s reported consideration to reduce or reshuffle special education teachers in town. On June 14, State Senator Len Fasano and State Representative David Yaccarino sent the following letter to Cronin’s office (underlining and numbering repeated):

“Dear Superintendent Cronin,

We are writing this letter as a result of a number of phone calls we recently received from a number of parents and teachers regarding your unilateral and internal decision to take specific action in response to a “special education focused monitoring visit” in North Have, (hereinafter referred to as “Visit”). In response to these phone calls, we took the liberty of investigating the events and timeframe concerning the above and determined that no one, not even the First Selectman, the Board of Education or even the State elected officials were aware of the report or of your plans to address the report. Frankly, we are astonished at the manner in which you have handled this manner.

It is our understanding that in January and February of 2011, the Visit was taking place and that a final report was issued on April 15, 2011. The site Visit came as a result of a report on or about August, 2010, when the Associate Commissioner of the Division of Family and Student Services (DFSS) notified the North Haven Public School District of certain data concerns. It is our understanding that you took office as Superintendent in February, 2011, and were aware of the April 15, 2011 report. It is also our understanding that at no time did you ever contact First Selectman Mike Freda is the undersigned State elected officials to seek our help or assistance with the State on this issue. Instead, you unilaterally initiated plans without even the benefit of the input of our local Board of Education or from the parents or from the teachers. All discussions and resolutions have been behind closed doors without even the courtesy of informing any elected official. In fact, you, without any approval from any local board or elected official, sent the following memo:

‘The 2011-2012 education budget funds thirty-five special education teaching positions.  After careful review, I believe we can meet the needs of our special education students using twenty-six of the thirty-five positions for special education without compromising services.  This will allow us to move the nine remaining teaching positions from the group of thirty-five for special education to other areas where teaching staff is needed next year using the same budgeted dollars.  In that respect there is no reduction in staff.  There are thirty-five funded positions and there will be thirty-five teachers.  What I am attempting to do is make the most of the resources we have available, and at the same time address as many of the district’s instructional needs as possible.  As long as a teacher possesses the proper certification, we will place all our current teachers in positions for which they are certified.  If a teacher does not have the appropriate certification, the North Haven Teachers’ Contract outlines the steps that must be followed.’

I know you are new to North Haven, but this is not how we operate our education system in North Haven nor is it how we operate our government, a lesson I think you may have learned in Naugatuck when you served as Superintendent.

As such, these above actions have justifiably caused an outcry from many parents and teachers regarding the concerns for those children with special education needs. Furthering the concerns of the many who called is that the author of the April report, Dana Corriveau, was recently hired by you as a staff member in charge of the very system she criticized as a consultant for the State Department of Education. Your actions raise a number of questions which need to be answered in public.

For example:

1. Who decided to hire Dana Corriveau?

2. How are the special education students going to access the care they deserve with a significant decrease in the number of special education teachers.

3. How will the State react to reduction of these services?

4. How will the State reduce money to North Haven based upon the decrease of teachers?

5. How is the Town going to handle our caseload?

6. Are any students of North Haven being transferred out of district? And if so, what is the cost?

7. Are there are other plans?

8. The report fails to contain any suggestion that our district is over-staffed, therefore, why are we decreased staffing?

9. Who decided to decrease special education teachers?

10. What is the plan in full to protect and educate the special needs children in North Haven?

11. Where is the strategic district plan which the April, 2011, report criticized as not being in place?

As a result, in order to provide the transparency that the Town of North Haven is accustomed to and in order to have the parental involvement that our town has historically believed is the root of a stable community, the undersigned urge you to cease any and all actions including any interview process of the sixteen (16) special education teachers and immediately take the following actions:

1. Make the report of the Visit available online for everyone to read and comprehend and then proceed to our local Board of Education;

2. Request a public hearing regarding the report of the Visit in order for the public to ask questions;

3. Have a second hearing on any plans which you, as Superintendent, suggest may be helpful to correct some of these concerns;

4. Let the Board of Education create a working group which will blend your comments, the report of the Visit and, then, deliver a plan which would be subject to a public hearing in order to get parents and teachers involved; and

5. The, the Board of Education produces a final potential plan which the Board can then vote on.

The above suggestions will make the process transparent and allow all those with a vested interest to have their voices heard; a general requirement of due process in North Haven. We are sending a copy of this letter to the Chairperson of the Board of Education and will be talking to her as soon as possible.”

The letter is signed by North Haven State Senator Len Fasano and State Representative David Yaccarino. It was also sent to First Selectman Michael Freda and BOE Chairman Sandra Cummings.

Cronin will hold a public forum at 6 p.m. in North Haven High School’s auditorium on Tuesday, June 21, to clarify the special education reports.