Megan Portfolio of the Yankee Institute has produced an examination of a Hartford public school paraeducator, Shellye Davis, who serves as president of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators (HFP) and secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. Her exposé draws upon time sheets obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, so all the information in her report is, as we say in the journalism business, a matter of public record.
Portfolio’s analysis, When It Comes to Attendance, Hartford Schools Hold Students Accountable — But Not Staff, should stun the shakers and movers in Connecticut’s General Assembly. Even state workers might be abashed by the disclosures because most state workers are hard and conscientious workers, as are most people who work in the private marketplace. State workers do not like work shirkers; they also are taxpayers.
There is a “but.” Majority Democrats in the General Assembly and Democrats holding office in Democrat dominant urban areas are union dependent, hard-headed in favor of unions. Those with hard heads are not easily stunned.
The union- legislative coalition is mutually beneficial. Unions rely upon legislative support when salary and benefit contracts are negotiated between the governor of the state, an affirming legislature, and union heads associated with Connecticut’s State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, SEBAC. Grateful state unions provide campaign muscle to obliging executive and legislative leaders.
Portfolio’s stunning analysis focuses upon a single union honcho, Hartford public school paraeducator, Shellye Davis. It is incisive rather than broadly discursive. There is no reason to believe that Davis is a one-off. She likely is the template for union officials who divides their time between state work and union work, in a vain attempt to serve two masters at the same time.
Portfolio’s lede is eye-opening: “In Connecticut, students who miss more than 10 percent of school days in a year are labeled “chronically absent.” That designation triggers a series of interventions: districts must notify families, monitor attendance closely, and implement support plans. Chronic absenteeism, after all, is strongly linked to lower achievement and wider opportunity gaps.
“But when it comes to adults in the building — especially those who double as union leaders — the same standards seem not to apply.
“According to time sheets obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Hartford public school paraeducator Shellye Davis — who serves as president of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators (HFP) and secretary-treasurer of the Connecticut AFL-CIO — was absent 152 times between August 26, 2021, and March 22, 2024.
“That’s nearly the equivalent of an entire school year missed in less than three.”
Portfolio provides a yearly breakdown of Davis’ work absences. In 2021-22, she missed 45 days; in 2022-2023, she was absent from work 51 days; and in 2023-2024 through March, she was absent from her assigned work duties for 56 days, “more than triple the threshold that would classify a student as chronically absent. And unlike students, Davis doesn’t face home visits, intervention plans, or mandatory attendance meetings. Her time away is treated not as a red flag but as a taxpayer-funded perk of union office.”
The work absences are a matter of contract legally enforced by judges rather than legislators: In Hartford Public Schools, time off for union-related activity isn’t just tolerated — it’s contractually sanctioned and taxpayer funded. The HFP’s collective bargaining agreement allows members to take paid leave for ‘special leadership training opportunities and for special Federation business’ with approval that ‘shall not be unreasonably denied,’ at the request of the union president and subject only to the superintendent’s signoff. This provision effectively grants union leaders broad discretion to pull employees from the classroom for political events, lobbying, and internal union functions — all on the public dime.”
The judicially enforceable multi-year collective bargaining agreements between the state of Connecticut and SEBAC, union representatives authorized to bargain with the state on salary, benefits and other issues, gives a massive step-up to unions because it removes necessary active legislative oversight on such issues from the people’s representatives to courts during the life of the contract.
In the case under discussion, personal development (PD) leave, Portfolio observes “is meant to help paraeducators strengthen skills and earn credits toward pay increases. In practice, some of these days end up as political field trips disguised as professional growth. Instead of studying or attending training, Davis uses this perk to spend time at the Capitol, pushing bills unrelated to her job or cozying up to lawmakers — far from any classroom, and even farther from the kind of learning the policy was meant to support.”
Portfolio provides numerous examples:
“March 6, 2024: Davis took a PD day but was recorded on CT-N cameras testifying at the Capitol on two bills — one on education, another on taxing the rich — and later socializing in the Legislative Office Building cafeteria with Rep. Maryam Khan (D-Windsor).
“January 10, 2023: She claimed a half–day of PD beginning at 12:05pm, but was already at the LOB by 11:00 for a press conference. Whether she was on the clock or just banking on no one checking is unclear, but either way she wasn’t with students.
“March 9, 2023: Another PD day was spent not to improve her classroom skills, but to testify in favor of a bill to eliminate the subminimum wage for restaurant workers.
“These instances raise questions about whether “professional development” is serving students — or political agendas.”
Leave days also are subject to abuse. Once again Portfolio provides examples:
“September 5, 2023: Davis missed a full day to attend a 49-minute press conference.
“September 14-15, 2023: She spent two full workdays at the AFL-CIO convention at Foxwoods Casino.
“October 12, 2023: She took leave to present Sen. Martin Looney (D–New Haven) with a labor award.
“In September 2023 alone, Davis was absent 14 of 20 scheduled school days, according to the Hartford Public School calendar.
“And these are just the dates with photographic or video evidence. For the other 140 + absences, her activities remain unclear — but what is certain is that she was not in the classroom.”
Portfolio offers a few suggestions that might prevent unions from double-dipping into what in Connecticut is regarded by both the state’s executive and legislative organs of government as an inexhaustible well of tax receipts.
School Districts should, Portfolio writes:
“End taxpayer-funded union leave. Union business should be conducted on union time, not public time.
“Professional Development should require verifiable documentation tied to actual classroom improvement, not serve as cover for political activity.
“School districts should track and report employee absenteeism the same way they do with students — and apply the same interventions to both.
“Until school districts start holding staff accountable the same way they hold families and children, students will continue paying the price for adults who treat public education as a side hustle.”
The time is approaching when serious Connecticut politicians should consider decoupling tax supported state unions and political activity. It was Franklin Roosevelt who said “It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
Roosevelt briefly explained the impossibility in a letter he wrote in 1937 to National Federation of Federal Employees President Luther C. Stewart, who had asked Roosevelt whether he favored the unionization of federal workers.
“All Government employees,” Roosevelt wrote, “should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.”
A) FDR was right. All public employee unions should be dissolved or at least disregarded.
B) Not only should Davis et al be closely scrutinized, so should those who approve the contracts that allow such abuses.