Hartford Public Schools

And so I was there for a little over a year, and then I came home, and I studied applied linguistics, TESOL, and got my teaching credential so that I could become an ESL teacher.

And then I embarked on my own certified teacher journey in the Hartford Public Schools.

And so I did become an educator after all, and I really, I haven't looked back.

It's a profession that I really love, and I really don't know what I was thinking that I didn't wanna do it.

So we have our main downtown library, and then we have six branches of the Hartford Public Library system.

We also work very closely with Hartford Public Schools to operate two what we call boundless libraries.

So we help support school libraries at the Rawson School as well as the West Middle Community School.

And that just, I think, is another wonderful example of the way libraries you know, different communities navigate how to develop community partnerships is our relationship with Hartford Public Schools is very close.

And it has been for, you know, well over a decade, probably about 15 years now.

And I think that's a testament to both the school's vision and leadership, as well as the libraries, that this connection between these two foundational institutions of learning and access are so close.

They're very motivated.

They just need that additional support.

And their mission was really to provide this better alternative education for students living in a historically disadvantaged area.

I mean, Hartford Public Schools were the subject of a well-known court case.

And it was basically they said that the schools did not provide the constitutional minimum education required for our young people.

And part of it had to do with segregation.