A University of Connecticut student is suing the city of Hartford, the Hartford Board of Education and her special education case manager, claiming they neglected her learning disabilities and inflicted emotional distress.
Aleysha Ortiz, a freshman at UConn, graduated from Hartford Public High School in 2024 while functionally illiterate, according to an interview with CNN. In December 2024, Ortiz filed a complaint in court. The case is scheduled to appear in court today, according to the Connecticut judicial website.
Ortiz is suing for one count of negligent infliction of emotional distress against her special education case manager, one count of negligence against the Hartford Board of Education and one count of negligence against the City of Hartford. The lawsuit claims that the school and board of education did not address Ortiz’s learning disability while “she continued to struggle academically and began exhibiting maladaptive behaviors in the classroom.”
The claim against her case manager, Tilda Santiago, alleges Santiago would “yell at, belittle, ridicule, and humiliate the Plaintiff in front of other students and teachers” and exhibit “controlling and possessive behaviors when it came to other teachers that would speak to or help the Plaintiff.”
According to the complaint, Ortiz and some of her teachers advocated for learning impairment accommodations throughout her education, but no significant changes to her schooling were made.
“Despite the Plaintiff’s education file being replete with opinions, testing, and evaluations that indicated major learning impairments, these impairments were never adequately addressed,” the suit claims.
The complaint says Ortiz “suffered physical abuse and seclusion in school at a young age by school employees responding to her maladaptive behaviors stemming from her inability to communicate.”
Legal representation for Santiago and the Hartford Board of Education declined to comment on ongoing litigation. Legal representation for the City of Hartford also declined to comment.
In her interview with CNN, Ortiz said she got through classes by recording and replaying lectures and using text-to-speech and speech-to-text technology for homework. She also said in the interview that because of the extra time it took for her to learn material and do assignments, her sleep and social schedules suffered.
Anthony Spinella, a lawyer for Ortiz, explained why Ortiz is suing for negligence and infliction of emotional distress instead of suing for failure to educate her.
“Lawyers and doctors can be sued for malpractice. The school system and teachers cannot, because the court does not recognize that as something you can sue for, for various reasons,” Spinella said, “Number one, there’s no real standard that you can say somebody violated. There’s no standard of care like a lawyer or a doctor would have. Number two, the court has said that for public policy reasons, they’re not going to allow these lawsuits because it would cost too much money for the municipalities to defend.”
Spinella also said that although the Connecticut Constitution entitles children to a free public education, there is no penalty for violating that section of the Constitution, so even if Ortiz had won a case proving the school failed to educate her, she would “get nothing out of it” in terms of compensation.
According to Spinella, school faculty reported Ortiz’s struggles, but “nobody ever took any action.”
“Everybody had a lot of excuses, but nobody actually did anything about it,” Spinella said. “And teachers within a school advocated for her. You know, they stuck up for her and advocated and recognized that things were wrong, and social workers would point this out to special education coordinators and the administrators, but nobody seemed to want to do anything about it.”
Spinella said that while schools have immunity for discretionary acts, which are actions committed by school employees based on their personal judgment, Ortiz’s lawsuit claims the school’s failure to help Ortiz was a ministerial act, which means it was the responsibility of the school system instead of individuals within it.
“When people learned of these things, the way she was being treated, they had to follow the law as to what you do once those things are pointed out or become obvious,” Spinella said. “And they did not follow the law. They did not report it; they did not do anything. They did not stop it.”
This article was updated on April 15 to include a response from legal representation for the City of Hartford declining to comment.
This is becoming rampant as Billionaires, Businesses and Politian’s pressure principals to graduate students instead of educating students. It’s a numbers game and Ortiz is one of thousands of students graduating HS with an elementary school literacy level and going to college only to realize they should have never graduated high school. NYC is approaching 85 percent graduation yet less than 50 percent of graduates will earn a college diploma. The catchy phrase being thrown around by billionaires and Mayors is “College and Careers”. Who cares if you waste time in college since most entry level/poverty level jobs only require a HS diploma (careers). How else can a gig economy flourish. Every one must graduate high school who cares if they can read, write and do basic arithmetic. Think at all the careers you can have after high school including working for UBER, LYFT, DoorDash, Amazon, Fed Ex, UPS, ETC.