Megan Portfolio of the Yankee Institute has produced an examination of a Hartford public school paraeducator, Shellye Davis, who serves as president of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators (HFP) and secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. Her exposé draws upon time sheets obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, so all the information in her report is, as we say in the journalism business, a matter of public record.
Portfolio’s analysis, When It Comes to Attendance, Hartford
Schools Hold Students Accountable — But Not Staff, should stun the
shakers and movers in Connecticut’s General Assembly. Even state workers might
be abashed by the disclosures because most state workers are hard and
conscientious workers, as are most people who work in the private marketplace.
State workers do not like work shirkers; they also are taxpayers.
There is a “but.” Majority Democrats in the General Assembly
and Democrats holding office in Democrat dominant urban areas are union
dependent, hard-headed in favor of unions. Those with hard heads are not easily
stunned.
The union- legislative coalition is mutually beneficial.
Unions rely upon legislative support when salary and benefit contracts are
negotiated between the governor of the state, an affirming legislature, and
union heads associated with Connecticut’s State Employees Bargaining Agent
Coalition, SEBAC. Grateful state unions provide campaign muscle to obliging
executive and legislative leaders.
Portfolio’s stunning analysis focuses upon a single union
honcho, Hartford public school paraeducator, Shellye Davis. It is incisive
rather than broadly discursive. There is no reason to believe that Davis is a
one-off. She likely is the template for union officials who divides their time
between state work and union work, in a vain attempt to serve two masters at
the same time.
Portfolio’s lede is eye-opening: “In Connecticut, students
who miss more than 10 percent of school days in a year are labeled “chronically
absent.” That designation triggers a series of interventions: districts must
notify families, monitor attendance closely, and implement support plans.
Chronic absenteeism, after all, is strongly linked to lower achievement and
wider opportunity gaps.
“But when it comes to adults in the building — especially
those who double as union leaders — the same standards seem not to apply.
“According to time sheets obtained through a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request, Hartford public school paraeducator Shellye
Davis — who serves as president of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators
(HFP) and secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO — was absent 152 times
between August 26, 2021, and March 22, 2024.
“That’s nearly the equivalent of an entire school year
missed in less than three.”
Portfolio provides a yearly breakdown of Davis’ work
absences. In 2021-22, she missed 45 days; in 2022-2023, she was absent from
work 51 days; and in 2023-2024 through March, she was absent from her assigned
work duties for 56 days, “more than triple the threshold that would classify a
student as chronically absent. And unlike students, Davis doesn’t face home
visits, intervention plans, or mandatory attendance meetings. Her time away is
treated not as a red flag but as a taxpayer-funded perk of union office.”
The work absences are a matter of contract legally enforced
by judges rather than legislators: In Hartford Public Schools, time off for
union-related activity isn’t just tolerated — it’s contractually sanctioned and
taxpayer funded. The HFP’s collective bargaining agreement allows members to
take paid leave for ‘special leadership training opportunities and for special
Federation business’ with approval that ‘shall not be unreasonably denied,’ at
the request of the union president and subject only to the superintendent’s
signoff. This provision effectively
grants union leaders broad discretion to pull employees from the classroom for
political events, lobbying, and internal union functions — all on the public
dime.”
The judicially enforceable multi-year collective bargaining
agreements between the state of Connecticut and SEBAC, union representatives
authorized to bargain with the state on salary, benefits and other issues,
gives a massive step-up to unions because it removes necessary active
legislative oversight on such issues from the people’s representatives to
courts during the life of the contract.
In the case under discussion, personal development (PD)
leave, Portfolio observes “is meant to help paraeducators strengthen skills and
earn credits toward pay increases. In practice, some of these days end up as
political field trips disguised as professional growth. Instead of studying or
attending training, Davis uses this perk to spend time at the Capitol, pushing
bills unrelated to her job or cozying up to lawmakers — far from any classroom,
and even farther from the kind of learning the policy was meant to support.”
Portfolio provides numerous examples:
“March 6, 2024: Davis took a PD day but was recorded on CT-N
cameras testifying at the Capitol on two bills — one on education, another on
taxing the rich — and later socializing in the Legislative Office Building
cafeteria with Rep. Maryam Khan (D-Windsor).
“January 10, 2023: She claimed a half–day of PD beginning at
12:05pm, but was already at the LOB by 11:00 for a press conference. Whether
she was on the clock or just banking on no one checking is unclear, but either
way she wasn’t with students.
“March 9, 2023: Another PD day was spent not to improve her
classroom skills, but to testify in favor of a bill to eliminate the subminimum
wage for restaurant workers.
“These instances raise questions about whether “professional
development” is serving students — or political agendas.”
Leave days also are subject to abuse. Once again Portfolio
provides examples:
“September 5, 2023: Davis missed a full day to attend a
49-minute press conference.
“September 14-15, 2023: She spent two full workdays at the
AFL-CIO convention at Foxwoods Casino.
“October 12, 2023: She took leave to present Sen. Martin
Looney (D–New Haven) with a labor award.
“In September 2023 alone, Davis was absent 14 of 20 scheduled
school days, according to the Hartford Public School calendar.
“And these are just the dates with photographic or video
evidence. For the other 140 + absences, her activities remain unclear — but
what is certain is that she was not in the classroom.”
Portfolio offers a few suggestions that might prevent unions
from double-dipping into what in Connecticut is regarded by both the state’s
executive and legislative organs of government as an inexhaustible well of tax
receipts.
School Districts should, Portfolio writes:
“End taxpayer-funded union leave. Union business should be
conducted on union time, not public time.
“Professional Development should require verifiable
documentation tied to actual classroom improvement, not serve as cover for
political activity.
“School districts should track and report employee
absenteeism the same way they do with students — and apply the same
interventions to both.
“Until school districts start holding staff accountable the
same way they hold families and children, students will continue paying the
price for adults who treat public education as a side hustle.”
The time is approaching when serious Connecticut politicians
should consider decoupling tax supported state unions and political activity. It
was Franklin
Roosevelt who said “It is impossible to bargain collectively with
the government.”
Roosevelt briefly explained the impossibility in a letter he
wrote in 1937 to National Federation of Federal Employees President Luther C.
Stewart, who had asked Roosevelt whether he favored the unionization of federal
workers.
“All Government employees,” Roosevelt wrote, “should realize
that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be
transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable
limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and
purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to
represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government
employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of
laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative
officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances
restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel
matters.”
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