New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Ex-Trumbull school board chairman remembered as champion for students
TRUMBULL — A generation of local school children owe a debt of gratitude to Stephen Wright, according town officials.
The former Board of Education chairman, who served from 2004 to 2013, died over the weekend at age 65, according to West Haven police. Details of his death have not yet been released.
“When he was on his game, there was no better advocate for the schools,” said Police Commission Chairman Raymond Baldwin, who was friends with Wright.
Baldwin was first selectman when Wright first joined the Trumbull school board. Baldwin credited Wright with steering the Trumbull Early Childhood Education Center to completion. “I think that preschool was the one thing he was most proud of,” Baldwin said. “It was really important to him that children with special needs had a place to go and have their needs met.”
Although TECEC opened in 2005, the concept of a dedicated special needs preschool in town had been on Wright’s mind since he toured the town’s previous preschool with Baldwin in 2003.
“At the time, we had a very small preschool located at Madison Middle School, and there was the alternate school (for older children with behavior problems) located right next door, actually in the adjacent classroom,” Baldwin said. “And while we were looking at it, he said, ‘You know, if we fix this side of the room, we won’t need the other side.’”
Those who served with him on the school board said Wright was a tireless and outspoken proponent of the public schools in town. An active and loyal Democrat who was a fixture at party functions around election time, Wright was always willing to work with Republicans for the benefit of the schools, according to Democratic Town Chairman Tom Kelly.
“I got elected as a Republican, but with Steve, you could just check your party affiliation at the door,” said Kelly, who served on the school board with Wright for four years. “His focus was always on the schools and how we could make them better.”
Kelly said Wright understood that programs and school improvements cost taxpayer money, and had a knack for prioritizing projects to bring the greatest value out of the schools’ budget allocation.
“Once we sat down to work on the budget, we all worked together,” he said.
Republican Loretta Chory, who won election to the board during one of Wright’s two stints as its chairman and later chaired the board herself, said Wright was a formidable force for education. “He was a strong leader, but also a gentleman, and very organized,” she said. “We were working on instituting full-day kindergarten then, and even with all the points that were being put forth, he was keeping us on track.”
Wright’s dedication to education caught the attention of state officials, and he was named by former Gov. Dannel Malloy to the state Department of Education school board in 2010.
Over the next seven years, he chaired the Academic Standards and Assessment Committee, and also joined the National Association of State Boards of Education, where he worked on the Government Affairs Committee and was a participant in the Common Core Implementation Workshop.
But Wright’s career and personal life appeared to unravel in 2017 with a string of drunken driving arrests.
On Feb. 22, he was arrested in Norwalk and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol. Five days later, he was arrested in Shelton and charged with DUI again. State police arrested Wright on March 17, and he was arrested again by Stratford police on April 10.
On April 20, he failed to appear in court for a hearing on the Norwalk arrest and the court issued another warrant, and he was later re-arrested in New Haven on the failure to appear charge.
Wright eventually pleaded guilty to four counts of DUI and driving with a suspended license and served a 120day sentence.
After completing his term on Sept. 8, 2017, Wright was arrested again after he failed to show up for his first meeting with his probation officer. Probation officials said they tried to contact him, but discovered the Monroe address he had provided was a vacant lot, and the telephone number he gave was the hotline for the state Department of Children and Families. A resident also notified probation officials that Wright had been seen inebriated at the Stamford Hilton’s bar and the citizen was concerned Wright was driving, which would have been a violation of his probation.
Wright later pleaded guilty to violating his probation and was sentenced in December 2017 to seven months in jail. Since then, friends said he had drifted in and out of contact with them. “He did so much for the children in this town,” former town council chairman Mary Beth Thornton said. “He had his demons, and I guess he fought them for as long as he could. It’s just very sad.”
First Selectman Vicki Tesoro agreed, calling Wright’s death “a very sad ending to someone’s life, who did many wonderful things” for Trumbull students. “He was a champion for education, and his influence will continue to be felt for years to come,” she said.