Connecticut woman sues school for failing to teach her to read and write

A 19-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against her school district in Connecticut because she can't read, write or do math problems after graduating, the publication writes. The LionThe plaintiff is seeking $3 million in compensation, the lawsuit reports. CT Mirror.

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Aleisha Ortiz and her family moved to Connecticut from Puerto Rico.

"We heard that Connecticut has the best education, and that's one of the reasons we came to Hartford," Aleisha Ortiz said.

She attended public school from the age of six and eventually graduated with honors, although she did not learn to read or write.

In addition to English not being her first language, Ortiz suffered from ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and had trouble speaking.

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Because she was not taught basic skills, she was forced to cope in school using calculators and speech-to-text technology, as well as recording and listening to classes.

“Ever since I was a junior in high school, I’d been telling my advisor that I wanted to learn how to write, and he’d say, ‘You don’t do that in college. Here, they come in, they take notes, and they leave. Everyone does what you do,’” Ortiz recalled. “Then I had to say, ‘Yeah, but I still want to learn how to write. It’s my right.’ I wanted to learn, but they’d tell me there wasn’t time and there weren’t any teachers who could sit down and explain it to me.”

A typical story

Ortiz's story is no exception, according to an anonymous teacher's assistant in Hartford.

“I think this is happening all the time in Hartford schools,” the source said. “I think a lot of students in Hartford are not getting the educational services they deserve. You can find kids in any school in the district who aren’t even classified as special needs, who can’t read or write, who are just being moved from grade to grade.”

Although Connecticut's public schools are among the best funded in the country (averaging more than $21 per student), the state fails massively to educate students with special needs and those whose native language is not English.

On average, 49 percent of students statewide are proficient in reading and 44 percent in math, while those numbers drop to 16 percent and 13 percent for students with special needs and 11 percent and 14 percent for those for whom English is a second language.

In Hartford, the situation is even worse: only 3% of students with special needs are proficient in reading and math, and among students with foreign language skills, the figures are only 5-8%.

“I wasn’t forgotten. No, people just decided they weren’t going to teach me,” Ortiz concluded. “They didn’t think it was necessary to revise my IEP. And now I’m the one who’s paying the consequences while these people continue to get paid.”

Lawsuits against school districts

Unfortunately, Ortiz's story is not unique to Connecticut.

Thousands of students with special needs across the country are left without an adequate education.

Earlier this year, a Virginia school district sued a single father for $600 after he tried to enforce his son's education obligations.

A Colorado family is suing a school district for completely refusing to honor their daughter's individualized education plan.

In Arizona, a school aide exposed the district for employing unqualified teachers.

Now, Ortiz has filed a due process lawsuit against her district, a process that allows families of special needs children to seek action if they have not been provided adequate educational services.

"I was simply moved from class to class"

However, Ortiz's future does not look completely hopeless.

A graduate of Hartford Public Schools, where she graduated with honors, she attended the University of Connecticut at Hartford part-time. But she still feels deprived of what she could have achieved.

"They just passed me by — moved me from grade to grade without teaching me anything," Ortiz concluded. "They stole something important from me. I wanted to achieve more, but I didn't have a chance."

The former student filed the lawsuit in Hartford Superior Court in December. The defendants are the city of Hartford, the local board of education and the district's special education supervisor.

In her lawsuit, 19-year-old Aleisha Ortiz alleges she was bullied, harassed and neglected by school district staff, including her special education supervisor.

The lawsuit alleges that this resulted in negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligence, said attorney Anthony Spinella.

"We're not suing for lack of educational services. We're not suing for their failure to teach her basic skills," Spinella told CT Mirror. "We're suing for the emotional damage that was done when Ortiz tried to get help from the school district and the way she was treated by some administrators and teachers."

The lawsuit was Ortiz's second, and came months after The Connecticut Mirror published an investigation that examined audio recordings of conversations with school district officials, Ortiz's school records, and other materials. In the interview, the plaintiff said she not only suffered educational neglect and was not provided with adequate services, but was also bullied by school staff.

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In the first lawsuit, filed through the Special Education Needs Process and handled by special education attorney Courtney Spencer, Ortiz sought services to learn reading, writing and other skills she was not taught in public school. Spencer said that lawsuit is still pending.

The new lawsuit centers on allegations against Tilda Santiago, Ortiz's special education supervisor from September 2022 to May 2023. Ortiz claims Santiago bullied and harassed her for months.

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