At the beginning of the 2022/2023 school year, school officials at H.C. Wilcox Technical High School knew that the 11th grade class lacked a geometry teacher in order to provide all of the students with an adequate instructor. In a game of bureaucratic roulette, the officials assigned approximately 100 hundred kids to a classroom without a qualified teacher. Instead, the students were given a substitute teacher who was not qualified to teach them geometry and who prevented them from seeking help from other qualified geometry teachers.
The Zandri and Herbst families demanded answers. In particular, Angela Zandri – an 11th grade honors student – repeatedly attempted to talk to school officials about the lack of a teacher and even asked to be transferred to a class that did have a proper teacher. Her efforts to fight for her future and those of her classmates found no sympathy from the school officials entrusted with her future. Her request to transfer classes was denied, and school officials repeatedly told her that she needed to be patient.
Both the Zandris and the Herbst families watched their children – honors students – struggle to complete math assignments as H.C. Wilcox officials told them to learn from YouTube or other online tutorials. When the Zandri and the Herbst families reached out to school officials, they were ignored or misled as to the situation.
The result is that their children have not received the education that they are entitled to under the Connecticut Constitution.
H.C. Wilcox Technical High School has not given the approximately 100 students adequate instruction for more than two months. It has not communicated any clear plan to give the students remedial instruction or to allow them to catch up on their grades after appropriate instruction. This failure will impact more than 100 students as they take their PSATs and their SATS. In other words, these unlucky students have truly been set up to fail by the state of Connecticut.
The Zandris and the Herbst families have retained counsel – Attorney Cameron Atkinson – and plan to fight the State for the benefit of their children and the other children impacted by this outrage. They will file a lawsuit against the state of Connecticut seeking various court orders to protect their children and others as well as money to compensate for the damages done to their children’s future. It is their goal to file a class action lawsuit so that all families impacted by this outrage can receive justice.
Litigation is expensive. This fundraiser seeks to raise enough money to pay the expenses of filing and maintaining a lawsuit as well as filing and maintaining a class action lawsuit. Any unused funds raised in this fundraiser after this lawsuit is over (win or lose) will be donated to H.C. Wilcox Technical High School’s trade shops for new equipment and further education benefits for current and future students. Should H.C. Wilcox Technical High School not accept the donations, the unused funds will be donated to a suitable Connecticut educational institution.
Connecticut’s children – indeed, America’s children – are its greatest treasure, and they deserve better than being treated like pawns in a bureaucratic chess game. We respectfully ask that you support this effort to give our children the future that they deserve and one that will make us all proud.
