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BOE Candidate Focus: Lori Hudson

By Steve Goode

October 16, 2009

Here's the third of our BOE Candidate Focus series.

Lori Hudson, a Democrat.

Click below to read more.

Age: 46

Neighborhood: South End

Profession: Senior customer service representative for the MDC. Ordained minister at Phillips Metropolitan C.M.E. Church

Family: Single parent with two children in Hartford school system.

Years in Hartford: 31

What is the most pressing education issue affecting city students and how do you plan to address it?

The inability of the schools to sufficiently manage the disparity within the classroom as it relates to special needs students and those with learning disabilities within the classroom.

The school district is showing overall improvement wiith regard to reform, but the question is how will it be sustained? The measure for this success has been district test scores. Because of this we are seeing our classrooms become test prep centers and our teachers having to spend much of their time preparing for tests rather than being able to creatively engage our children in the educational process. Within the classroom you have children that may not be able to perform on a level that is equal with that of their peers. When teachers are having to stick to such rigid guidelinesand timelines, the tendency to quickly dismiss children who may exhibit behvioral problems or require special services becomes inevitable. The concern is that these children don't get left even further behind in our drive to push test scores up.