Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to provide some comments to the State Board of Education during the public comment period.

My name is Stephen Hegedus and I am the current President of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE-CT). I am also the Dean of the College of Education for Southern Connecticut State University. For the record, AACTE-CT is an association of fourteen public and private colleges and universities that provide Educator Preparation Programs to students interested in the education profession. We promote and strongly support high quality teaching and education in the state’s schools and are advocates for robust educational leadership.

We want to thank the Board and the Department of Education for working with our association on issues of mutual interest over the years and look forward to continuing our relationship and partnerships. We have all been impacted by the COVID-19 health crisis and have had to adjust and adapt to a wide variety of new challenges, including remote instruction for our students. We thank our superintendents and school leaders for continuing to work with us in offering clinical fieldwork experiences for our students within the schools and online.

As the association representing Educator Preparation Programs of higher educational institutions here in Connecticut, we are proud of the high-quality education that we offer to our students so they can become the future teachers and educational leaders in our schools. We are committed to excellent, evidence-based teacher preparation methods to ensure that our future teachers are ready and prepared when they enter our classrooms. We are ready to be flexible and innovative in meeting the needs of our school districts while maintaining quality programming by our excellent faculty and staff.

The AACTE-CT Chapter stands ready to continue to promote educated, well trained, and highly qualified teachers for school districts throughout Connecticut. We desire to continue to work together when possible with the various educational stakeholders such as the State Board of Education, the Department of Education, the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, and other education organizations. Thank you.

Stephen J. Hegedus, Ph.D.
President, AACTE-CT Chapter
Dean, College of Education
Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street,
New Haven, CT 06515
+1 (203) 392-5900
Hegeduss1@southernct.edu