On The Record: Leslie Blatteau

School fights and lockdowns. Teacher flight. Staff shortages. Fights for funding. Calls for more elected school board members — and a school board willing to meet in public in person. A search for a new superintendent at a crucial juncture for public education.

Fourteen months into her presidency of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, Leslie Blatteau has found herself in the middle of these and other pressing public controversies. As a public school parent, as a New Haven teacher with 16 years in the classroom, and now as a labor leader, she has thought long and hard about these issues.

She addressed them during a wide-ranging conversation Tuesday on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.”

Edited excerpts of her remarks follow; a video of the full conversation appears at the bottom of this article.

On the Monday morning lockdown of 10 schools amid reports of drive-by gunfire in the East Rock neighborhood: If there’s an abundance of caution, I think that’s OK.

We know that [Monday’s incident] got a lot of attention because it happened at East Rock. And it’s terrible that it happened in East Rock. But it happens all over our city all the time. My daughter goes to Hill Central. I was on pickup, four or five months ago, and there were gunshots. I literally heard it. We were just about to leave … and the principal says, ​“OK, call lockdown. Call lockdown.” We all just go back into the school and sit in the library. There are some students who are fine. There are some students who are crying.

That wasn’t in the news. That was just another day at Hill Central. The leadership team there did an extraordinary job of taking care of students, family members, teachers.

The people who are committed to stay in the city deserve at least some peace of mind that pickup and drop off at school [are] sacred. 

On the current search for a new schools superintendent; on reports that former New Haven principal and current Hartford Deputy Superintendent Madeline Negrón is the frontrunner; and the desire among some to name the first Hispanic system leader at a time now that Hispanics represent a plurality, soon to be majority, of public school students: If it’s a done deal, and she does get the job, I am going to feel for her, because she’s going to come in with the baggage that it wasn’t a transparent, fair process.

It would be great if we had a Latino superintendent. It’s also great if we don’t and that person is right for the job, because I know they would have somebody on their executive team who is Latino. I don’t think the the top person has to check a specific box on language or ethnicity to fulfill the job. I think it would be historic, and it would be awesome, and it would signal to our Spanish-speaking Latino community and students and families that they are seen heard and can be communicated with. But that could also happen if the superintendent is not Spanish-speaking.

On whether the Board of Education should return to in-person rather than remote meetings: They should absolutely be in person.

We need that time. Not only to interact with our elected and appointed leaders. But to build community, build coalition with our fellow city residents, fellow educators, parents, students, and just get a sense of who’s there. ​“What are you working on?” ​“Hey, can you go to Hartford tomorrow?” Last night, I couldn’t do any organizing for public hearings in Hartford at the [online-only] Board of Ed meeting, save for my public comment, which was, ​“Hey, this coalition is doing good work, let’s keep it up.” But if we were in person, I would argue there would be 15 to 20 people there, maybe more … It’s those organic conversations.

They’re currently arguing that they are accountable. They are online, having their meetings, you know, doing the order of business that is on their agenda. We need more from a Board of Education than just working through an agenda. We need to be able to build those relationships. And I recognize that some people have some health concerns, and I of course honor those. [But] teachers with health concerns still come to work every day. They mask up and they push on …

There were some concerns two weeks ago about whether we have the tech for [hybrid streaming-in person meetings]. I’m sorry, we have the tech for doing this. And if we don’t have the tech for it, then let’s get the tech for it as soon as possible, because it is time.

On state proposals enabling charter schools to win approvals faster and extra inflation- and recession-adjusted budget increases: If we’re at this point where charter schools are going to be getting increased public funding from the state of Connecticut, then we should start having more conversations and have more policies where charter schools are going to be held accountable. They’re going to [need to] live by the transparency rules that public schools live by.

Eleven students arrived from Central America two weeks ago and joined the ranks at Wilbur Cross; a schedule had to be made for them. There are charter schools in the city that will not accept new students until the start of the next school year. It becomes harder and harder to really do a fair comparison of these two models, when some are able to create rules that allow them to have that stability and have that sense of community. We are open to all; we are true public schools.

On the teachers union call for the current charter revision commission to increase the number of elected school board members from two to four out of seven and to remove the mayor’s Board of Ed voting privileges; and on the paucity of candidates for existing two elected seats: When people see that they have a chance to have a seat at the table, I think that there is going to be more involvement.

The mayor is the only member of the board of ed with a [child] in New Haven public schools. That’s alarming.

If we split into four [smaller voting districts], people could be more connected to their constituents. Let’s build a pipeline of potentially engaged parents to get a sense of who might want to run and give them some tools and training to [run for board seats].

On efforts to increase state funding for schools, and to address the proliferation of fights in school buildings: What’s going to reduce the the behavior incidents and the violence that we’re seeing in our schools is increasing staffing: A certified teacher and paraprofessionals in the classrooms that require them. Special ed staffing, robust, to meet the needs of our students with IEPs [Individualized Education Programs]. Restorative practices, counselors, so they can do the mediations with students. We often know when students are going to fight. Students will let us know, either themselves or their friends, that ​“so and so” and ​“so and so” are not OK. They’ll send the smoke signals of what might be happening 20 minutes from now, when lunch happens. But oftentimes — because we’ve got three vacancies, and we’ve got half a school nurse, and we’ve got half a security guard — there just isn’t the capacity to grab those two or three individuals and say, ​“Come on, sit down. I’m not gonna let you fight. Let’s work this out right now. “

And if we had [dedicated] restorative practices folks in each building, working with the school security guard, working with the dropout prevention person, working with the assistant principal, we would be able to really call those kids in and say, ​“Let’s work this out. Because I don’t want you going on suspension. I don’t want you getting arrested, I don’t want you missing the SATs next week. Because for good or for ill, we know you need them to get into UConn.”

On the need for a federal ​“GI Bill” for teachers: If someone is graduating high school and entering college or graduating college and entering a master’s program, they should not take on a penny of debt to become a public school teacher. When will the federal government prioritize this? Because why would someone with prospects take on that debt to potentially become a certified educator in the state of Connecticut, when they could go through the same amount of training, spend the same amount of money, and take a job where they would make 75 percent more, or possibly double?

The United States of America spends an extraordinary amount of discretionary funding on military. We could take a small part of that and provide grants to people who will commit to majoring in education, or majoring in a content area and getting their teacher certificate, and then moving on to work in schools for X amount of years. I know that would then take an investment in the teacher retention piece to actually hold them.

On efforts to stem the wave of teacher resignations: I think [the new union contract, with automatic annual step increases and 15 percent raises over three years] is going to keep [some] teachers.

[But] it’s not just about the pay, it’s about the working conditions too. 

I think teachers will be more likely to stay if we are able to retain and recruit more so that the vacancies are filled. This is where people begin to lose hope. When they’re facing their students and saying, ​“It’s third period. I’m the first teacher you had today.” That gets demoralizing in a very real way, not to mention the social, emotional, mental health supports that we know our students need. I want to remain hopeful that the raises are going to help meet that need [to hire more teachers]. But we’re not funding our schools.

It’s frustrating to see Gov. Lamont’s decision to flat-fund public education, to take away money from public higher ed, to not fully fund child care. There are 12 billionaires in the state of Connecticut who collectively have $75 billion. Among them, their wealth has increased by $15 billion since the start of the pandemic, and they pay a 5 percent tax rate. Middle class folks pay 15 percent; working-class folks, 25 percent. We have an upside down tax structure in the state. It needs to be turned around.

I would think that when we have things like this happening yesterday in the East Rock neighborhood, where our community is in crisis, I would think more and more of us could come together and really galvanize on this issue of funding.

Click on the video to watch the full conversation with Leslie Blatteau on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. Click here to subscribe to ​“Dateline New Haven” and here to subscribe to other WNHH FM podcasts.