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Something Fishy at Annie Fisher

By Kerri Provost

April 30, 2012

When the Annie Fisher STEM Magnet School community signed appearance waivers for a camera crew a few months ago, they did so under the impression that the footage was going to be used by CPTV and would show the evolution of the school.

As it turns out, the film created was not for CPTV at all.

The Connecticut Council for Education Reform — an organization that has protested the revised version of SB 24 because it “lacks urgency” — inserted images from the film, produced by the CBIA, into ads promoting SB 24.

Last Thursday, the Hartford Federation of Teachers, in a message to David Medina (Director of External Communications for the Hartford Public Schools), Jill Cutler-Hodgman (Chief Labor and Legal Officer for the Hartford Board of Education), and several others, demanded that “these commercials cease and desist immediately,” saying that the teachers are upset for having their images used without their permission and that the means of obtaining these images were “unethical and disingenuous.”

That same day, Medina assured the HFT that the commercials would be pulled immediately; however, a representative of the CBIA stated that commercials stopped running on Sunday.

The film crew spent several weeks at Annie Fisher filming meetings, classes, and students.