On May 2, 2018, Parents for Batchelder attended the CT State Board of Education meeting. Here is what parent leader, Lesley Martinez had to say to the Commissioner Wentzell about keeping Hartford’s Batchelder School open to the students currently there.

Good Morning Commissioner Wentzell and State Board of Education

My name is Lesley Martinez. I have a child in 2nd Grade at Batchelder School. We want Batchelder School to remain open.

Parents and students of Batchelder have not been treated fairly. On December 19, 2017, we found out that the school was closing on the 6 o’clock news. The parents did not receive any letter from the district before finding out on the news.

To this day, we haven’t gotten explaination on why Batchelder is closing. On January 22, 2018, the last Board of Education meetting was held at Batchelder School. Many parents and students at Batchelder requested that they hold off the decision of the school closure. But instead of listening to our request, they made a decision the next day.

On February 20, 2018, at a budget meeting, parents requested a meeting with Dr. Torres-Rodriguez. We never heard back with an answer.

On March 9, 2018, we got a paper sent to us through our children telling us the options on which school they must attend. We had 3 options:

1. Moylan School
2. Sanchez School
3. Kennelly School

All this chaos has brought to me anxiety about finding the right school for my child. We want Batchelder School to remain open for many years to come.

We ask you, Commissioner, to investigate our complaint and stop the Board from illegally closing Batchelder.

Thank you for listening!!