New Haven Love Couldn’t Keep Teacher Here

Roberto Clemente art teacher Carina Ruotolo wanted to keep teaching in New Haven’s public schools.

But a lack of support during Covid, rapid turnover at the top ranks of her school, and higher pay elsewhere in the state led her to part ways with the district after a decade on the job — reflecting some of the factors fueling a citywide teacher shortage that has the district scrambling to fill classroom spots and keep kids learning.

Ruotolo had worked as an elementary school art teacher at Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy on Columbus Avenue in the Hill for over 10 years, until she left the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) district in June 2021. 

She now works as a teacher in the East Hartford Public Schools district. 

She makes $38,000 more there than she made in her final salary in New Haven.

The Independent spoke with Ruotolo about why she resigned from her longtime New Haven teaching job and chose instead to pursue a career in public school education elsewhere in Connecticut.

She stressed during her interview with the Independent that she did not leave NHPS because of the money.

Instead, she said, she felt compelled to leave because of a lack of respect and support she felt from school administrators and district leaders, particularly during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic when schools were fully remote and then moved to hybrid in-person and online instruction.

“I love New Haven. I never thought I’d leave there,” Ruotolo said. ​“I thought I’d retire from there.”

Aftet more than a decade working in NHPS and after a year and a half of online and then hybrid teaching at a school she felt did not adequately support her and her colleagues, she decided she’d had enough.

“New Haven’s culture is running out teachers who care,” she said. ​“And it hurts the kids when consistency is lost.”

Ruotolo’s resignation comes at a time when New Haven is struggling with a citywide teacher shortage. Some educators have spoken openly about feeling disrespected and under-supported in their jobs. The district recently recommended that 7th and 8th graders at Brennan-Rogers School transfer out of their classes and to another school entirely because there are too many vacancies among core teaching positions where they currently study.

The Independent’s interview with Ruotolo took place roughly a week before the Board of Education approved a new teachers union contract that has been called ​“life-changing” by some local educators. If approved by the Board of Alders, that new contract would provide New Haven public school teachers with a nearly 15 percent pay hike over the next three years.

When reached for a comment regarding teacher retention and Ruotolo’s specific experience citing a lack of support and respect from administrators school’s spokesperson Justin Harmon stated via email:

“Staff leave New Haven Public Schools for a variety of reasons — higher pay, concerns over working conditions, and moving closer to home. Of recent, it has been higher pay in neighboring towns. We feel a loss anytime we lose staff. Maintaining a supportive atmosphere for all our staff is a high priority for us. They are at the heart of our educational mission. They work hard, often under very difficult circumstances.”

Asked about the district’s efforts to retain educators in New Haven, Harmon replied: ​“At a district level, we are working to address the circumstances that have led to teacher turnover, such as negotiating a contract that would provide a meaningful boost to teacher salaries. We are paying retention bonuses, first over the summer and then again next spring. We are aggressively recruiting new teachers. By deploying additional mental health resources, emphasizing social and emotional learning, and establishing restorative approaches to disciplinary matters, we are working to reduce disruptive behavior and improve the climate in our schools. We are grateful to all our staff for the essential work they do. We will continue to do our best, day by day, to demonstrate that gratitude.”

And asked about how many teacher vacancies there currently are at NHPS, Harmon said that the district is currently looking to hire for 127 teacher positions out of a total local teacher workforce of around 1,900.

"No Sympathy Or Empathy For Teachers"

Ruotolo began her career in NHPS in 2010 at L.W. Beecher School. In 2011, she was promoted to the role of full-time teacher at Clemente, where she remained for the rest of her NHPS career.

Ruotolo was hired at Clemente when the school entered its first year of being a ​“turnaround” school. (Click here to read a 2012 Independent article about one of Ruotolo’s art classes on photorealism that so captivated a 4th grade student that she refused to leave an after-school program before it ended, even though her parents arrived to pick her up 40 minutes early.) 

For the majority of Ruotolo’s career, she worked full-time under the leadership of Pam Franco of the New Jersey-based for-profit private company, Renaissance School Services, LLC, who stepped in to manage the pre‑K‑8 school in 2011. 

When new leadership stepped in at Clemente in 2019 and again in 2020, Ruotolo said, ​“I knew I couldn’t work in New Haven anymore” due to the impacts of Covid, the disorienting staff turnover, and a feeling of disrespect.

Ruotolo currently works in East Hartford as an eighth-grade art teacher.

In her new East Hartford role, Ruotolo said, she gets paid more to teach the same amount of classes, but with a fewer number of students per class. She now works with her school’s 300 eighth graders, who are split in half for art classes in the first and second halves of the year.

She added that because her school is not severely short-staffed, she does not have to pick up understaffed lunch duties. 

After resigning from NHPS in 2021, Ruotolo worked briefly as a teacher in North Haven before leaving for her current job in East Hartford. She said that public schools in both North Haven and East Hartford offer a ​“whole different climate and culture” of more respect, support, and appreciation.

Ruotolo said that she was offered little to no support during the pandemic’s peaks as her teaching responsibilities transitioned from online to hybrid. 

When students and staff returned in-person, Ruotolo said she felt specialists like herself who teach art, gym, and other electives weren’t considered. ​“The exposure we’d be facing by working with every student in the building wasn’t considered at all,” she said. 

Upon returning to her school building Ruotolo said she was seeing hundreds of students on a daily basis and was no longer afforded a classroom and was required to work out of a traveling cart. 

“No consideration was really given to people who would be servicing the whole building,” she said. 

She said while classroom teachers had fewer students and plexiglass safety barriers, she had no permanent classroom space and just as many students as before.

“It was a very big stressor because I had to go home every day to my family after being exposed to so many kids,” she said. 

At time, Ruotolo’s kids were aged one and two years old. She also has an immunocompromised husband. 

“They took away the safety of a classroom,” she said about her school.

Ruotolo described hybrid teaching as a ​“nightmare” because of the lack of administrative support she received about how to effectively instruct two different class cohorts at the same time, all through a technology she had also received no training in. 

At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Ruotolo said, she made hundreds of Ziploc bags so that her students could have art supplies at home. She said she paid out of her own pocket for those supplies and used DonorsChoose to provide her students with basic resources to continue their art education from home. 

“Administrators were telling us to have grace for the kids when admin and district had no sympathy or empathy for teachers,” she said. 

Due to the lack of support, Ruotolo said she referred to teacher Facebook groups to learn how to use Google Classroom and come up with hybrid-friendly class assignments. 

“Like everything else New Haven throws a million things at you, then the next week it’s completely different,” she said. 

She recalled attempting to bounce back and forth between the computer and the students in-person and struggling to get adequate instruction done. ​“It was demoralizing and stressful to do the policing of the six feet rule and keeping masks on,” Ruotolo said. 

$38K Pay Bump

Ruotolo finished out the 2020 – 21 school year before leaving and seeking out another urban district to work in, she said.

By Spring 2021, Ruotolo said, she knew she had to leave because she could no longer function within NHPS. 

Before her resignation, she had two job offers. One came from the New Britain School District, which offered her a $30,000 raise, and a second from North Haven, which offered a $12,000 raise. 

She went with the North Haven offer because of its shorter commute. Ultimately, she decided against teaching in the suburbs. ​“They were so much more supportive, but it just wasn’t the right fit,” she said.

During the 2021 – 2022 school year, Ruotolo said, New Haven offered her a job back with a re-hire offer that would result in a $4,000 pay increase, bringing her annual salary from $55,000 to $59,000, but she was not convinced the district’s support or respect for teachers had improved. 

“I didn’t care that I wasn’t getting paid competitively, because I loved my job so much,” she said.

She added that she feels New Haven does not put teachers on their correct salary steps, which dictate their pay level. 

The Board of Education’s June 28, 2021, personnel report listed Ruotolo’s resignation along with two other Clemente educators. 

This year, Ruotolo began work at East Hartford Public Schools. She said she received a $38,000 pay increase from her previous New Haven salary. 

“Other places pay you what you’re worth and don’t try to nickel and dime you,” she said. ​“If you want experienced teachers like places like New Haven needs, you have to pay.”

Ruotolo said she felt ​“totally beat down” by her administrators.

Teachers: Pay = Top Concern

Ruotolo isn’t the only teacher to leave NHPS with concerns about pay and workplace support.

Earlier this fall, the city’s teachers union provided the Independent with the results of a recent teacher retention survey. More than 1,080 members of the teachers union, or 61 percent, filled out the survey. 

When describing teachers’ ​“Top 5 Challenges” working in NHPS, 69 percent of responding educators stated that pay was their main concern. The second most popular response, which 26 percent of educators pointed to, was ​“stressful or hostile environment/culture.” Other top concerns included ​“unsupportive administration,” ​“workload,” and ​“not on correct salary step.”

The survey also had educators list their ​“Top 5 Asks:” 79 percent called for ​“increased pay,” 32 percent pointed to salary step correction, 25 percent to fully funded classrooms, 25 percent to healthy school culture, and 19 percent to competent administrations. 

See the full results of that survey below, as provided by city teachers union President Leslie Blatteau. Blatteau noted that 1,084 teachers union members participated in the teacher retention survey. And she noted that the survey allowed the teachers to pick more than one option for each question rather than just their top one, which is why the percentages for some of the questions add up to more than 100. 

Top 5 Challenges:

#1 Pay: 69 %
#2 Stressful or hostile environment/culture: 26%
#3 Unsupportive administration: 23%
#4 Workload: 22%
#5 Not on correct salary step: 21%

Top 5 Asks:

#1 Increased pay: 79%
#2 Salary step correction: 32%
#3 Fully funded classrooms: 25%
#4 Healthy school culture: 25%
#5 Competent administrators: 19%

Top 5 Reasons for Remaining:

#1 Commitment to urban education: 47%
#2 Students and families: 47%
#3 Colleagues: 43%
#4 Familiarity with my current role: 36%
#5 Commitment to serving the New Haven community: 33%

Forward Planning:

68% do not plan to resign/retire this year
22% plan to seek a teaching position in another district
4% plan to leave the teaching profession
2% plan to retire