Employees ID’D in student fund scandal
In wake of audit, city source points to Hartford school principal, former administrative assistant
A former administrative assistant at Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy has been identified by a city source as the person under fire for alleged mismanagement of a student activity fund and her boss, principal Julie Goldstein as the one on the hot seat for allegedly not adequately overseeing the fund.
The source said the administrative assistant who ran the fund daily resigned in early January under pressure from school officials as a result of an audit.
Goldstein, who was supposed to be overseeing the fund’s management is on family leave, also under pressure from school officials, the source said. The source within the city said Goldstein was told by officials to take the voluntary leave.
Hartford Public Schools spokesman Jesse Sugarman confirmed last week the “individuals” who ran the fund are, “no longer active employees with Hartford Public Schools,” but he declined to give names or other details. Sugarman said Friday that Richard Quinn is now the acting principal at Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy. Goldstein remains on the school’s website as the named principal.
This week, when told the Courant had obtained the names of the employees, the Hartford Public Schools released an updated statement through Sugarman that for the first time addressed the depth of their concern.
“While we continue to respect the privacy and confidentiality of individuals involved in the SAF (Student Activity Fund) matter, please know that HPS takes these matters very seriously,” the statement said.
The statement went on to say, “The district acted swiftly in response to this incident and after an exhaustive and comprehensive review of the situation concluded that action was required to both control the funds intended for student activities and to ensure accountability where appropriate and consistent with due process.”
For Goldstein’s part, the audit concluded that the school’s principal “has not provided adequate attention to the school’s financial processes to establish and implement effective financial controls,” and that “substantial financial risks currently exist at HMTCA in the absence of an effective management oversight.”
Neither woman could be reached for comment.
The police department doesn’t
boisterous Seven Angels in Waterbury, which knows its audiences well and makes sure they have a good time. Some judicious cuts have been made in the script to condense some of the student’s backstories and speed the spelling bee action. The energy is high, the voices are clear, the comedy ranges from corny to cutting to clever. There are word games, confessions, victories and defeats. On a small scale, this show delivers a lot.
It’s possible to do “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” without it being as constantly loud and shouty as it is here, though such a grand, take-no-prisoners approach actually works quite well for Seven Angels. It’s also not necessary for the show’s co-director, Marissa Follo Perry, to sit in the audience shrieking in laughter at jokes she’s heard dozens of times in a transparent attempt to goose the audience’s reactions — but that’s what she was doing Saturday night.
The other co-director, Jimmy Donohue doubles as a cast member, setting the furious pace as William Barfée, the outwardly overconfident (yet inwardly insecure) champion who spells with his feet. Donohue is joined by five other obstreperous youth types who complement each other well: Katie Brunetto as Logainne, the politically active teen with two nagging daddies; Michael Newman as Chip, the good scout who’s subject to some fresh distractions now that he’s maturing; Rosalie Corry Peña as Olive the fragile flower child whose mother is in India on a self-discovery journey; Jonathan Zalaski as Leaf, the self-styled wild
child who makes his own clothes and spells perfectly when he’s in a trance; and Holly Lorusso as the overachieving, overwhelmed Marcy.
The students are played here by young adults who are clearly beyond their high school years, which gives the show a sort of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” edge. Most of them stomp around petulantly, proclaiming their prowess at spelling.
There are two main adults in the piece who run the bee. As Vice Principal Douglas Panch, John Ozerhoski has the ideal deadpan manner for the role, a sober demeanor at odds with just about everyone else onstage. He also transitions neatly into brief stints as one of Logainne’s dads. As local Realtor and long-ago local spelling champ Rona Lisa Peretti, Alyssa Bunuel is as bubbly as the kids are hyperactive. Another grown-up who’s onstage for virtually the whole show is Moses Beck as Mitch, an ex-convict doing community service by handing out kind words and juice boxes to the losing contestants.
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” has its roots in a full-length improv piece devised by the theater collective The Farm, whose founder Rebecca Feldman gets a “conceived by” credit for the show. The script is by Rachel Sheinkin with additional material by original cast member Jay Weiss.
A fun, risky improv element remains in the scripted musical. Several of the spelling contestants in the first act of the show are chosen from the audience, and Seven Angels has amped up that element by having a local celebrity be one of the chosen. On Saturday it was Waterbury Republican-american theater columnist
Nancy Sasso Janis. Among the upcoming celebs are Carmen Romeo from Fascia’s Chocolates on Feb. 3 and Seven Angels artistic director Semina Delaurentis on Feb. 5. The participating audience members have genuine roles in the proceeding, asked to spell and cheer and dance.
Some of the jokes (many of which emerge in the word definitions) can be coarse or corny or even racist, and one student’s horniness becomes an important plot point, but generally, this is a mainstream family-friendly show about how tough it can be to be a kid and how adults aren’t all that better off.
The humor is all over the place, but the songs are grounded and gorgeous. The music and lyrics by William Finn, whose other wellknown show is “Falsettos,” are catchy and memorable in the way show tunes are supposed to be. Finn knows how to repeat a lyric or a melody so it firmly takes hold, but his work is rich and complex. The full-cast harmony-filled numbers come off as powerful as oratorios. As with most musicals at Seven Angels, the band kicks as hard as a small club rock combo, in part due to drummer Mark Ryan.
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” has a rough charm, a touch of classroom chic and some unexpectedly beautiful songs that rise from all the wordy din. This unassuming musical will introduce you to words you’ve never heard before, and even tell you what they mean. It will make you root for underdogs and even overdogs. It will remind you of the anxieties but also the glories of school competitions. It will amuse you for a spell.