Sheff Plaintiffs to Hartford: Stop Discouraging Integration

Hartford has been told to undo a "Choose Hartford" media campaign that discourages parents and children from seeking and choosing integrated education. Writing on behalf of the plaintiffs in the landmark Connecticut racial isolation case Sheff vs. O'Neill, the ACLU's Dennis Parker asks the city's corporation counsel for immediate steps to reverse the thrust of the campaign.

"As parties to Sheff," he writes to Corporation Counsel Saundra Kee Borges, "we must all work together to meet the goals set forth in the [2008 court approved] Agreement." Hartford, he says, as a party to that Agreement, has "a mutual interest in reducing the racial, ethnic and economic isolation of students in the Hartford Public Schools."

The letter was sparked by a school system news release that says the campaign "urges parents [to] accept the placement in the Hartford Public School of their choice and avoid the temptation to gamble with their children's future by putting them on a wait list for schools outside of the city after they have already been rejected in a lottery."

A film short aired in some movie theaters shows the kind of wheel used to select winning lottery numbers, and says to parents, "Your child's education is a right and not a game. Why risk their future on a lottery, and then a waiting list?"

Watch the movie short[Please note that by playing this clip You Tube and Google will place a long-term cookie on your computer. Please see Google’s privacy statement on its website to learn more.]

Under the Sheff agreement, children and parents apply to interdistrict magnet schools of their choice, including some run by the Hartford Public Schools and some by the Capitol Region Education Council, as well as in public schools throughout the region in a program called "Open Choice". Students are selected by a random lottery of applicants to each program; those not selected may choose to remain on waiting lists in the event new seats become available.

The Sheff plaintiffs, the ACLU's Parker wrote, request immediate steps: to

"1. Revise the ‘Choose Hartford' media campaign so that it does not suggest that participation in interdistrict programs and the Open Choice program may pose an educational risk for children.

"2. Use the ‘Choose Hartford' campaign and/or other public education campaigns to educate parents and children about all the opportune ikties available to them under the 2008 Sheff Agreement.

"3. Provide the parties with written confirmation that the aforementioned steps have been taken by the close of business on Thursday, May 5, 2011."