Good morning everyone and thank you for the opportunity to provide comments to the State Board of Education at your September 1 st Board Meeting. 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 Education at Southern Connecticut State University. AACTE-CT is an association of thirteen 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.
On behalf of the AACTE-CT, we want to say thank you to the Board of Education, acting Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker, the Department of Education, and especially to those individuals with whom many of us from AACTE-CT work with regularly. We also want to congratulate acting Commissioner Russell-Tucker on her recent nomination by Governor Lamont to be the next Commissioner of the Department of Education. Her leadership over the last six months as the acting Commissioner has been extraordinary. We look forward to continuing to work with her and the executive team in the coming months and years.
One item we would respectfully ask the Department to consider is including the AACTE-CT in expressing our support in future press releases of a similar nature that involve such an announcement regarding its leadership and/or any significant policy changes. We think our voice can add strong support along with other institutions such as CABE, CAPSS, and others. Please feel free to reach out to myself or other members of AACTE-CT in the future so that we can provide a statement or quote as necessary.
Collectively our group (4 CSCU’s, UConn, and 8 Private Universities) represent a wealth of expertise and experience on effective teaching, learning and leadership in PK-12 settings. Our faculty and staff are a resource.
As students, teachers, administrators, and school personnel are returning to school this fall, we realize the continuing impact that COVID continues to have on our students, families, and communities across the state. Our organization and individual teacher preparation programs at colleges across the state are fully engaged in working to ensure that our state’s future teachers and education leaders will be as prepared as they can be to deal with the continuing challenges of in-person teaching as well as teaching remotely.
We look forward to our ongoing collaboration with the Department, the Board and other organizations as we all continually strive to make Connecticut’s education system be the best. Through such collaboration we are collectively navigating the new landscape of how our students and faculty can safely access classrooms for clinical field work, student teaching and practicum experiences including changes to the background check procedures. Our partnerships need to be as strong as ever.
Thank you and please continue to feel free to reach out to our association on issues of mutual interest.
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