Though several other teachers participated in what Dorsey described as improper proctoring to encourage students to change wrong answers, Dorsey concluded it was mostly because they feared reprisals from Moulthrop, whom they considered “demanding, intimidating, and vindictive.’’
Dorsey’s investigated after Waterbury school officials questioned Hopeville’s scores on the Mastery Test, one of the tools used to determine if schools are meeting federal No Child Left Behind benchmarks for progress in reading, writing, and math.
Hopeville, which serves a large number of poor minority students, had been praised as a success story in recent years for improving scores. This year’s boost was so dramatic, though, that many students appeared to be performing better than those in some of Connecticut’s most affluent Fairfield County towns.
In fifth grade, for instance, every Hopeville student met achievement goals in math, even though just one-third of the same students met that benchmark as fourth-graders in 2010.
Waterbury’s initial investigation raised enough questions that its school officials asked the state to step in, and the city placed Moulthrop and 16 other Hopeville educators on paid leave while Dorsey investigated.
Messages left this week for Moulthrop and the reading teacher, Margaret Perugini, were not returned to the Associated Press and the Republican-American of Waterbury, which reported on Dorsey’s findings Wednesday.
Moulthrop and Perugini denied wrongdoing in interviews with Dorsey.
Waterbury School Superintendent David Snead said yesterday that he is still reading the report and would meet with the Board of Education to determine who might face discipline hearings and when.
“Once we agree on the process, then we’ll act,’’ Snead said. “And that process will obviously include interviews and disciplinary hearings and appropriate sanctions.’’
