Original reporting by Jessika Harkay. Compiled by Kat Struhar.
Aleysha Ortiz said she was never taught to read or write — despite attending schools in Hartford since she was 6.
Ortiz, who came to Hartford from Puerto Rico with her family when she was young, struggled with learning a language and other challenges along the way. But a confluence of circumstances, apparent apathy and institutional inertia pushed her haphazardly through the school system, according to Ortiz, her attorney and district officials.
Ortiz, 19, can’t read even most one-syllable words. The words she can read were memorized during karaoke or from subtitles at the bottom of TV screens and associating the words she saw with what she heard, she said.
Her story can’t be defined as a student who fell through the cracks — several people knew how her education was being neglected and did nothing, her lawyer, Courtney Spencer, said.
“I was pushed through. I was moved from class to class not being taught anything,” Ortiz told The Connecticut Mirror. “They stole something from me … I wanted to do more, and I didn’t have the chance to do that.”
Here’s what to know about Ortiz’s story.
District officials have acknowledged that Ortiz never received reading instruction.
Ortiz was diagnosed with a speech impediment and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in early childhood and has been classified as a student with a disability for “as long as I can remember,” she said.
Since first grade, she said, teachers, school leaders and district administrators failed her.
While other students made friends and learned basic math and reading skills, Ortiz said she was stuck tracing letter worksheets on her own from first grade well into her middle school years.
Accommodations in her Individualized Education Plans — which spell out what services students will receive each school year — allowed her to audio-record classes and meetings with school leadership because of her inability to read or write in high school.
In recordings shared with the CT Mirror, made from March through June of this year, district officials acknowledged that in 12 years, Ortiz never received reading instruction or intervention. The CT Mirror also reviewed Ortiz’s educational records, including her recent IEPs and other documents.
“In my review of Aleysha’s IEP, she was never provided reading instruction,” Noreen Trenchard, a special education administrator for the district, said at a Planning and Placement Team (PPT) meeting. “What is most concerning to me, honestly, at this time, is … with all of that information prior to today, no direct reading instruction was provided for her, and no PPT was requested to add that to an IEP. … That’s very concerning, very, very concerning.”
Despite that, she was still able to graduate high school.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit at the end of Ortiz’s eighth-grade year.
Throughout the summer, preparing for high school, Ortiz went to local libraries and tried to use picture books to teach herself how to read. When she wasn’t successful, she got through online learning during her freshman year with Google Translate, which can scan a photo and read the text out loud.
Sophomore year changed everything. It was Ortiz’s “first time doing the same work as everybody else,” she said.
Ortiz was able to graduate because she had met all her credit requirements, but she says she was only able to “survive” high school through the use of speech-to-text applications and a calculator.
Several people said her story demonstrates systemic shortfalls.
In June 2024, the district announced a looming $37 million budget deficit for the upcoming school year.
At Hartford Public High School, which Ortiz attended, there were 21 special education teachers, 19 paras and about 15 social workers, counselors and school psychologists in 2022-23. With over 109 students with disabilities enrolled at the school, social workers could be assigned dozens of cases.
Ortiz was assigned a handful of different social workers during her time at Hartford Public High School because of staffing turnover, her former social worker said, adding that she ultimately left the district because of the workload.
“[A big part of why I left] comes down to not being able to fully provide children with what they need, and becoming a part of the failure,” she said. “I was part of that team of service providers who didn’t always meet Aleysha where she needed perfectly every month. … There were times I wouldn’t see her for two weeks. … It wasn’t fair to her, but due to the system of the school and the district, we did the best we could, but that’s not the answer we should be giving, especially for students like Aleysha.”
She added that “there’s plenty of students who are kind of slipping through the cracks.”
A July report from the state Department of Education showed the problem is not just in Hartford but that school staffing shortages are occurring across the state.
As Ortiz headed to college, she filed legal action against the district.
Ortiz, who has begun attending the University of Connecticut-Hartford part-time, filed for “due process” against the district in late June — a legal procedure in special education that’s triggered when families feel their rights were violated.
Spencer, Ortiz’s lawyer, said the young woman’s story may be one of the “most shocking cases” of educational neglect she has seen in 24 years.