Neither Norwood nor anyone in her immediate family has been infected with COVID-19. Norwood, 46, and her husband, Jeffrey Norwood, 65, live in Cheshire with their children Jennifer, 14, and Ramon, 12, and their dog, Zeus. Since the start of the pandemic, Norwood says, they have been vigilant about wearing masks, social distancing and getting tested and vaccinated. Two beloved aunts succumbed to COVID in the Dominican Republic, where Norwood grew up, but everyone else in her family has remained healthy, including 73-year-old Sosa, who splits time between Norwood’s Cheshire home and her own home in the Dominican Republic.

By all accounts, Norwood and her loved ones appear to have dodged the most severe health outcomes of COVID. This is especially good news for the Norwoods since Black and Hispanic families have been disproportionately impacted by the virus in health outcomes and as small-business owners. According to a report by the U.S. Small Business Association, the total number of people who were self-employed and working declined by 20.2% between April 2019 and April 2020. Hispanic people experienced a more significant decline, at 26%. The biggest declines were experienced among Asian and Black people, with 37.1% for Asians and 37.6% for Blacks.

Norwood’s beauty salon was shuttered for almost six months during the pandemic. “I didn’t have an emergency plan,” Norwood says in Spanish. Some clients died of COVID, and others simply have not returned to her salon. She decided to forgo a federal PPP loan and incurred credit card debt. She estimates her business has returned to 75% of its pre-pandemic performance.

“One way or another, COVID will get you,” Norwood says about the mental fatigue her family has experienced. She says hypervigilance, anxiety and fear have crept in, replacing many of the happy feelings they had when they settled in Connecticut. The disease has taken an emotional toll on the family. They have been uninfected yet greatly affected by COVID.

Seeking Refuge From COVID

While taking a leisurely Sunday drive through Meriden in 2006, Norwood was attracted to the city’s quiet beauty and spirit. There were Black and brown people like her and Jeffrey. Spanish was spoken in bodegas. At the time, the couple was living and working in West Haven after having met in The Bronx. Norwood also liked that Meriden was far enough away from West Haven that she would not work in direct competition with her former beauty salon employer. So, she and Jeffrey, a physician at the West Haven VA Medical Center, moved to Meriden, and she opened Romy’s Beauty Salon on West Main Street. They lived in the upstairs apartment. In 2007, they were married in Jamao al Norte, Norwood’s hometown in the fertile Cibao region of the Dominican Republic.

Patrick Raycraft Photo.

Yolanda Sosa, 73, prepares a Dominican-style lunch at Romy’s Beauty Salon in Meriden. Sosa splits time between Connecticut and her home in the Dominican Republic.

In Meriden, Norwood established a loyal clientele, and the couple started their family. Business was good. They became parishioners at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church, where today Norwood serves as a eucharistic minister and a leader on the parish council. As Jennifer and Ramon grew up, the family began to vacation two or three times a year—the Bahamas, Mexico, Italy, Punta Cana. They went on cruises.

On March 21, 2020, the Norwoods flew to the Turks and Caicos Islands to seek refuge from the global pandemic. Looking over their shoulders on the flight from Bradley International Airport, they realized they were the only passengers on the plane, Norwood says. When they arrived at Providenciales, Norwood recalls, tourists were scrambling to leave the island. The last flight to the United States departed shortly after their arrival. They initially embraced the lockdown in their hotel room, thinking they would weather the hype and fly home to normalcy.

Then all flights were grounded in Turks and Caicos. A curfew was imposed. They were permitted outdoors for one hour a day. Groceries at the local supermarket were rationed. Food quickly became a scarce resource. Leftovers, Norwood says, became the dreaded meal of the day. They were stuck, marooned on a tropical island, and weren’t even allowed to swim.

Then the hotel manager demanded $10,000 a week from Jeffrey Norwood to remain in their room beyond their original reservation. So, they found an online rental, bought linens and rid the house of cockroaches. It was a mess, Norwood says. They hunkered down.

Their only outside contact was Zeus, a scroungy, flea-infested watchdog.

At first, the family didn’t have much to do with the spotted pit bull-dalmatian mix. They kept their distance. “Could he transmit the virus?” Norwood recalls thinking at the time, given the widespread uncertainty about COVID. Zeus was always hungry and thirsty. He scratched at their front door at night. Later they would learn he had been whipped with sticks and left outdoors during hurricanes.

Then one day, Zeus joined the family on a walk during their one hour outdoors. When he was grazed and injured by a passing vehicle and began yelping, recalls Norwood, they decided to allow him into the house to clean him up and help him heal. Thus began the process of adopting Zeus.

The Norwoods spent a month on the island before Jeffrey chartered a private jet from Miami to fly his family home to Connecticut on April 17, 2020. They submitted the paperwork for Zeus. A month later, Jeffrey drove to Miami, picked up Zeus and returned to Cheshire.

“I believe Zeus is an angel,” says Norwood, her eyes sparkling, as she recounts how the Turks and Caicos misadventure represents both the best and worst of their pandemic experiences. “God sent him to care for and protect us,” she says. Today, she says, “Zeus is king of the house. He has three beds, all the food he wants,” adding that he adores her mom.

‘Up To Here With COVID’

COVID has affected the Norwood family in myriad ways.

“We’re without life,” Norwood says in Spanish while taking a break between clients at her salon. No more family movie nights with popcorn, she says. No vacations. No romantic getaways. No games. No fun.

There have been a few weekend trips to New Hampshire, where they rent a house, but they take their food and sequester, Norwood says. The kids don’t want to go back to New Hampshire, she says, because they aren’t allowed to leave the house. “I’m up to here with COVID,” says Norwood. “I don’t want to hear anything else about COVID.”

She says her mom’s help at home and in the salon has been unconditional. After the debacle on Turks and Caicos, Norwood described how she would come home from the salon, strip down in a separate area and shower. Her mom’s Dominican cooking was always waiting for her. “My mother is everything to me,” she says.

Her husband is fearful of getting COVID. Norwood says her husband doesn’t talk about what he has experienced as a physician on the front lines. He still wears two masks and goggles or a shield, whether he’s getting gas or going to a Mets game, Norwood says. In 2018, the couple relocated to Cheshire for its schools. When they returned to school, Jennifer and Ramon had fallen behind. Norwood says Jennifer has become less sociable and more of a homebody. She avoids crowds lest she be exposed to the virus. She has been bullied at school, where classmates have ridiculed her hair and body type. Her children have become anxious, Norwood says.

During the spike in infections last December, Norwood decided to keep Ramon home from school until the end of February, when he turned 12 and was eligible for the adult vaccine. She felt the higher dosage would be more protective and worth the wait. However, school officials hounded Norwood about Ramon’s absence. She suspects online instruction is purposely inferior to persuade parents to return their children to school.

“Tengo temor porque el COVID es impredecible,” Norwood says in Spanish. “I’m fearful because COVID is unpredictable.” It may not affect you at all or it may send you to the hospital, she says. She fears for her children and her elderly mother. With all of her precautions, clients still sneeze while touching their hair, face and shoulders, she says. Many have later called to inform her that they’ve tested positive. Jeffrey prefers that she close the salon and not work, she says.

Patrick Raycraft Photo.

Romy Norwood puts her feet up at the end of a 10-hour day at her beauty salon. A Dominican hair stylist, she was forced to close her business during the initial 6 months of the pandemic in 2020 and says she has recovered about 75% of what her business was earning before COVID-19.

“I got the works,” says longtime customer Jeannette Solano, 53, of Meriden, about getting her hair washed, colored and beautified by Norwood on a recent Saturday afternoon. For Solano, the salon experience is a reprieve from the daily grind of the pandemic. “Estaba muy triste,” she says in Spanish, “I was very sad” about Norwood salon’s hiatus in 2020. Describing Norwood as friendly, humble and fun to be around, she says she stops in once a month. “Romy does it right,” she says, explaining how a hairdresser recently damaged her hair during a visit home to the Dominican Republic. Solano has received two doses of the Moderna vaccine, she says.

During an afternoon lull at the salon, the air conditioner quits. Norwood sits down and asks Sosa to wash her hair. A few minutes later, Norwood’s back on her feet. At the end of her 10-hour shift, the salon is quiet. Norwood sits beneath a hair dryer, elevates her bare feet and closes her eyes for 20 minutes. “I need this,” she says.

In July, Norwood, her children and her mother plan to vacation for three weeks in her “pueblo Dominicano,” Jamao al Norte. Jeffrey is not going, she says. “I miss my life before COVID. I miss the freedom. The river, the food, the people, the beach,” says Norwood during a break between clients. “I can’t wait.”

And though video remote interpreting (VRI) services are widely available at Connecticut hospitals, patients have reported mixed experiences with the technology.

The issues persist more than 30 years after passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires interpretation for patients and family members under the “effective communication” section of the law. In the last three years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has negotiated four settlements with medical facilities in Connecticut for complaints related to communication with deaf patients.

“At one point, ADA and accessibility seemed to be very good,” said Marissa Rivera, an advocate with Disability Rights Connecticut (DRCT). “And now, in 2022, it has completely collapsed.”

The reasons are multiple and complex but often attributed to an ongoing interpreter shortage, which makes it hard to consistently secure in-person interpretation, especially during unplanned emergency room visits.

About 5% of the state’s adults have a hearing disability, a rate that jumps to almost 9% among people older than 60, according to U.S. Census figures. There are currently 497 registered interpreters in the state, though not all have the required certifications to work in medical settings.

C-HIT worked with The Daily Moth, a news organization that provides daily video news updates in American Sign Language, to provide an ASL summary of the story along with video interviews with some of the sources. Click play to see the story summarized by journalist Alex Abenchuchan.

Connecticut hospitals and state lawmakers have been meeting with advocates through a work group of the legislature’s Human Services Committee, which proposed a bill to accept additional interpreter certifications and better organize state services for the Deaf.

“I would say it’s a universal issue, meaning across the state, that we’re trying to address,” said Human Services Committee Chair Rep. Catherine Abercrombie, who serves Meriden and Berlin.

Deaf residents can file complaints with a hospital or through state and federal agencies, so it’s hard to get a complete picture of how many complaints have been filed. But DRCT gets weekly calls related to medical interpreting issues, Rivera said.

DRCT helped Mary Pat Donovan, 60, of Vernon, file a federal complaint after a mental health emergency in 2016 led to a three-day stay at Hartford Hospital’s Institute of Living. Donovan wasn’t provided an interpreter and therefore couldn’t participate in group therapy sessions or understand her care, according to her complaint, which was recently settled.

Donovan said the lack of communication during her stay made an already difficult situation harder and resulted in her getting the wrong medication.

“I felt like my self-esteem was kind of crushed,” Donovan said through an interpreter. “I wasn’t able to say what I wanted to say. I wasn’t able to express myself.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Brown, the civil rights coordinator for Connecticut whose office investigates complaints, said, “We want to work collaboratively with the hospitals. I would say, most of the time, they are responsive, and they want to do the right thing.”

“In the end, the goal is to make sure the Deaf community can communicate with their medical providers just like anyone else can,” said Brown.

Though video remote interpreting (VRI) systems are becoming more common and often touted for their quick access, they can leave patients stranded if technology issues occur.

“This sometimes comes down to life or death,” Rivera said. “We’ve had cases like that, where on someone’s deathbed, not having VRI working. It’s terrible.”

Sometimes, it may be hard to understand an interpreter through a screen in a medical situation, said Connecticut Association of the Deaf President Luisa Gasco-Soboleski.

“If I’m in pain or on deep medication, there’s no way that the video would work for me,” Gasco-Soboleski said through an interpreter. “It depends on the severity.”

Still, remote services might be the only option in some cases.

“On the one hand, people are saying we shouldn’t use VRI in the hospital because of the tech issues. But on the other hand, without VRI, we sometimes have no one,” said Doreen Simons, an American Sign Language (ASL) instructor at UConn. “I would rather have VRI than no interpreter.”

Simons has seen the issues from both sides: as a deaf patient and as a certified deaf interpreter helping other patients understand their care.

Simons of Farmington had emergency heart surgery at UConn Health Center in 2015. Her interpreter for the emergency room visit was having trouble hearing and couldn’t properly explain to her what was going on. When she woke up from quintuple bypass surgery, only her sister was available to interpret.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

Hospitals should provide interpreters for patients, Simons said.

“That was not appropriate at all,” Simons said through an interpreter. “They need to provide a certified interpreter. They should not be putting my family members in that situation.”

Her two adult children ended up interpreting several of the follow-up conversations with doctors after her surgery—emotionally processing the information while also serving in the official role of informing their mother.

Though Connecticut has been known as a leader in supporting deaf residents, advocates say services have declined in the last 10 years, contributing to problems in medical settings.

The state launched the Commission for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired in 1974, the first of its kind in the country. But in 2011, the commission was converted to an advisory council.

Amid budget cuts in 2016, the Department of Rehabilitation Services cut its sign language interpreting service. That same year, the state’s Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities was eliminated, and tasks reassigned to Disability Rights Connecticut and the Department of Aging and Disability Services.

“We were the first in the country, and our services were awesome,” said Gasco-Soboleski. “And right now, we have zero. And I see more problems popping up, more problems appearing because there is no training.”

A 1998 Department of Justice consent decree, which required hospitals to provide an interpreter within an hour of notification for at least 80% of requests, expired. As part of the agreement, Connecticut Hospital Association contracted with sign language interpreters on behalf of all the hospitals. Without the decree in effect, advocates say compliance has lapsed.

A spokesperson for the Connecticut Hospital Association declined to be interviewed or answer specific questions through email but issued a statement noting hospitals’ dedication to patient care and work with advocates to address concerns.

Several hospitals, either proactively or as a result of complaints, are working on plans to improve services.

Stamford Hospital, for example, recently launched a long-term staff training on cultural considerations, working with interpreters, and basic sign language. The hospital has 30 video remote interpreting machines and a contract for translation services 24 hours a day in more than 200 languages, including ASL.  It also has a contract for in-person interpretation and relies on 211 if no interpreter is available when needed.

“We have always had the standard of needing to provide appropriate interpretation services for patients,” said Liz Longmore, the senior vice president of ambulatory services and patient experience at Stamford Hospital. “It has become more of a challenge over time.”

Of the children tested that year, 649 were new cases.

As has been the case for many years, nearly half of the 1,024 lead-poisoned children lived in the state’s cities. New Haven had the highest number of lead-poisoned children, with 171, followed by Bridgeport, 148; Waterbury, 81; Hartford, 71; and Meriden, 35. These five cities had 49% of all lead-poisoned children in Connecticut in 2020.

Following suit, health disparities also continued. Black and Hispanic children continued to have higher rates of lead poisoning than non-Hispanic white children. Non-Hispanic Black children were 2.6 times more likely to be poisoned than white children, according to a report on the 2020 lead poisoning numbers on the state’s Open Data website.

Melanie Stengel Photo.

In October 2020, Charles Tate, a Bridgeport lead inspector, scanned the peeling side of a second-floor porch and found high levels of lead in the paint.

DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, M.D., said Tuesday, “Protecting the youngest residents of our state from lead poisoning is a priority for DPH. And even though the numbers show that we are heading in the right direction, our work — including linking families to vital resources and building awareness in our inner cities — is far from done.”

But these latest numbers are based on a calculation that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the state have used since 2012. That calculation defines lead poisoning as 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood in a child’s body.

In October, the CDC lowered its definition of lead poisoning to 3.5 micrograms per deciliter.

If the state had used the CDC’s new measurement, or “reference value,” the number of Connecticut children considered lead poisoned would triple, to 3,000.

Even without the CDC’s adjustment, the pandemic complicates how to compare the numbers released to those from earlier years.

The DPH says in its report that “there was a sharp decline in screening” in April 2020, a month after the country started shutting down. A total of 61,700 children in Connecticut received lead blood tests in 2020, compared with 72,000 in 2019 and 73,000 in 2018.  In addition, less than 60% of the state’s children under 3 years old were tested twice, as required by state law.

Although lead poisoning is notoriously linked to the water crisis in Flint, Mich., in 2014, lead poisoning in the Northeast and in other older parts of the country is usually the result of deteriorating interior and exterior house paint.

For close to a century, before the federal government finally banned its use in 1978, lead was added to paint to increase its durability. Although walls may be painted over, chips from the degrading paint can be leaded. Of particular concern is leaded paint dust, created as paint breaks down and is left behind when doors and windows of older homes are opened and shut.

Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable to deteriorating paint because they are close to the ground and their breathing rates are higher than that of adults. And, as any parent knows, young children typically explore their new worlds, quite literally, through hand-to-mouth activities, turning a floor with leaded paint chips and leaded dust into dangerous terrain.

Exposure to the heavy metal, particularly during these early years when children’s brains are developing, can cause permanent cognitive damage, including an irreversible loss in IQ points. The toxin is also linked to speech and developmental delays, hearing loss and hyperactivity.

In addition to the 2020 numbers, DPH this week issued the numbers of lead-poisoned children in 2019 – 1,188; and 2018 — 1,333.

To view the 2018 and 2019 childhood lead reports go here.

Scroll below to read the 2020 childhood lead poisoning report.

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An analysis of state data in a national report by the Dartmouth Atlas Project also shows that Connecticut’s Medicare program relies heavily on brand-name drugs, versus generics, especially in wealthy towns in Fairfield County – a factor that could be contributing to the state’s ranking in the top 10 nationally in prescription drug spending per patient.

Connecticut seniors spent an average of $2,795 on medications in 2010 – 45 percent higher than the lowest-spending state, Minnesota, and the highest rate in New England.

The new report provides an in-depth look at how prescription drugs are used by Medicare beneficiaries, age 65 and older, in the program’s Part D drug benefit, which had 37 million enrollees in 2012. It shows wide variations in the use of both effective and risky drugs among the 306 regional health care markets across the U.S.

Jordan V. Harrison Graphic

While the underlying health status of populations is a factor in prescription drug use, “it really does not explain the variations in drug use intensity that we observed,” said Dr. Nancy Morden, a lead author of the study.

The geographic swings in prescription quantity and quality “suggest that there’s something in the regional practice culture, and perhaps in the patient culture, that is driving these patterns,” she said.

Data included in the report, from 2010 Medicare claims, shows that Connecticut fares better than average in prescribing “effective” drug therapy to patients with certain serious conditions, such as heart attacks and diabetes. More than 81 percent of patients hospitalized for heart attacks were continuing to receive the recommended beta-blockers seven to 12 months after a heart attack  – higher than the national average of 78.5 percent.

In the area of discretionary medications, Connecticut’s use of antidepressants for seniors was slightly higher than the national average – 19.1 percent, compared with 18.8 percent. The rates among hospital regions varied – from a low of 15.5 percent in Milford, to a high of 22.6 percent in Meriden.

Similarly, patients receiving care in Stamford and Greenwich had higher-than-average rates of prescriptions for newer sleep sedatives, such as Ambien – 11.1 percent and 10 percent, respectively, compared to 7.6 percent nationally. That was double the prescription rate for patients in Putnam and Derby.  By state, the use of so-called “sedative-hypnotic” medications by Connecticut seniors was the highest in New England, the data shows.

While the newer sedatives initially were considered safe, recent reports have shown they can cause persistent drowsiness, as well as other side effects that may be more pronounced in the elderly, Morden said.

The prescription rate for dementia drugs also varied, from a high of 9.3 percent in Meriden, to a low of 5.3 percent in New Milford. The statewide rate was lower than the national rate of 7 percent.

Generally, the use of “high-risk” medications in Connecticut also was lower than the national average.

The researchers said the regional differences in the use of discretionary and high-risk drugs, some of which have uncertain benefits, raise concerns.

“[The] regional variation highlights the absence of a ‘best practice’ consensus” for the drugs, the report says.

Overall, Connecticut patients filled a lower-than-average number of prescriptions in 2010 – 46.5 per patient, compared with 49 percent nationally. Still, the state’s costs per patient were high. By hospital area, Meriden had the highest drug spending — $3,248 per patient — while Winsted had the lowest spending– $2,354 per patient.

Morden said the research team found no correlation between higher spending and the rate of “effective” drugs being dispensed – dispelling the notion that higher spending means better care. Instead, spending is driven by the number of prescriptions – which were below average in Connecticut — and medication costs, she said.

“If you see high spending, without high quantities, it’s fair to assume that your prescribers are selectively using more expensive products,” she said.

Connecticut’s proportion of brand-name prescriptions, versus generics, was the highest in New England, at nearly 30 percent. All other neighboring states were well below the national average of 26.3 percent. By hospital area, Greenwich, Stamford and Norwalk had the highest brand-name usage rates, with Greenwich nearing 40 percent.

Branded drugs are generally more expensive than their generic alternatives, although they are therapeutically equivalent. Nationally, only a few communities, including South Miami, Fla., and Encino, Ca., had brand-name use rates as high as Greenwich.

For some illness types and severities, only brand names are available. But the Dartmouth team found that illness explained only 27 percent of brand-name use; the reasons driving the choice remain largely unknown.

Ellen Andrews, executive director of the Connecticut Health Policy Project, said differences in physician practice styles could explain some of the spike in brand-name use.

“There’s a lot of geographic variation in how doctors prescribe,” she said.

She also noted that prescription costs are just one piece of the health-care picture, which includes hospitalization rates and other measures.

While the study focuses on drugs, it shows that Connecticut’s Medicare spending on other services also is high. The state ranked ninth highest nationally in 2010 in non-prescription medical expenditures.

Morden said that generally, high use of brand-name drugs “doesn’t make any sense, clinically” and is likely driven by patient or prescriber preferences. Because the complex Part D Medicare structure leaves patients responsible for a significant portion of drug costs, income could be a factor in decision-making.

While the report did not single out states or regions, it found that higher spending in some areas was fueled by “greater use of brand-name drugs that in some cases may not provide significant additional benefits to patients.”

Nationally, the report found that seniors in the Miami region had the most prescriptions – nearly 63 per patient in 2010. Manhattan also was high, at 54 prescriptions.

Seniors in Miami also had the highest average spending on prescriptions, at $4,738; and the highest rates of at least one antidepressant prescription and dementia medication.

Manhattan held the top spot for sleep sedatives, with 15.3 percent of patients receiving a prescription.

The researchers said they hoped the report would prompt policymakers to take steps to equalize care, so that it is not a function of a patient’s zip code.

“Regional variation of the magnitude presented in this report . . . presents an opportunity for policymakers to study successful regions that provide effective care efficiently, determine what factors lead to this success, and disseminate these systems more broadly,” they said.

Both counties include a growing number of families relying on federally funded free and reduced-price school meals to feed their children during tough economic times.

Hunger among school-age children in Connecticut is on the rise and experts do not expect the trend to change soon given the state’s 9 percent unemployment rate and sluggish economy.

WebKazoo Graphic

“Children in Connecticut are hungry,” said Susan Maffe, president of the School Nutrition Association of Connecticut (SNACT) and director of Food Service for the Meriden public school system. “We know of children who come to school on Monday whose last meal was probably the lunch they ate at school on Friday.”

“Childhood hunger is impacting school districts across the board in urban, rural, even wealthy communities,” said Therese Dandeneau, an education consultant with the Connecticut Department of Education’s school nutrition programs.

Among the evidence of childhood hunger in Connecticut:

• Thirty-four percent of all students in Connecticut’s public school districts were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch during the 2010-11 school year, up from 26.4 percent during the 2004-05 school year, according to Connecticut Department of Education statistics.
• Urban areas account for a large proportion of those in need. In Bridgeport, for example, 98.8 percent of the student body is eligible for free and reduced-priced meals. But rural and suburban communities are impacted, too. The number of eligible students from affluent towns such as Glastonbury (498) and Westport (173), for instance, has more than doubled. Other towns, such as Avon (190), have seen a threefold increase, the state numbers show.
• Thirty-five new schools served breakfast to an additional 22,000 students in 2011, according to End Hunger Connecticut!, a non-profit agency in Hartford. Despite the increase, Connecticut ranks last nationwide (51st including the District of Columbia) when it comes to taking part in a federally funded breakfast program. Schools also are missing out on millions in federal funds – about $2.1 million in Hartford and $1.7 million in Waterbury, for example – by not fully participating in the breakfast program.
• The number of towns participating in a federally funded pilot program to supplement summer meals almost tripled to 48 in 2012, up from 17 in 2011, according to the state education department. Although more children are eating at summer feeding sites, only a quarter of the students who eat free or reduced-price lunch at school participate in summer food programs, reports End Hunger Connecticut!

“People are beginning to see nutrition as a piece of the education puzzle,” said Lucy Nolan, executive director of End Hunger Connecticut!, which last year launched the “Connecticut No Kid Hungry” campaign with Gov. Dannel Malloy’s office and Share Our Strength, a national organization fighting childhood hunger.

Nolan and others point to research showing the link between eating breakfast and improved standardized testing scores. Connecticut schools that provide meals report improved academic success, classroom participation and daily attendance along with decreased tardiness and bad behavior.

Long-term health improves, too, with studies showing that “girls who participate in at least one federal nutrition program have better weight outcomes than girls who don’t,” she said.

Among those lacking good nutrition are children who have access to food but remain malnourished. “This is a group of students we tend to forget about,” said Susan Fiore, nutrition education coordinator with the state education department. “We want students to successfully navigate the school system and achieve their full potential. But children who are hungry or malnourished can not function at their peak capacity.”

A total of 191,116 students were eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch during 2010-11. Free or reduced-price meals are served to students whose family income is at or below 130 percent (free meals) or at or below 185 percent (reduced-price meals). The U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Connecticut education department partially reimburses local school districts for free, reduced-price and paid meals. But some school districts have trouble getting qualifying families to register for free and reduced meals so schools can be reimbursed.

Sluggish Economy Fuels Hunger

Connecticut educators and school nutrition experts cite a depressed economy as the driving force behind the rise in childhood hunger, although 2009 criteria changes that automatically certify recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or “food stamps”) for free and reduced-priced school lunch account for some of the increase.

“One of the first things to go is the food budget,” said Donna Grant, executive director of the Thompson Ecumenical Empowerment Group (TEEG) that operates a food bank and provides summer meals and breakfast to thousands of children each year. TEEG serves communities in Windham County, considered the state’s least “food secure” county in 2011 by the Connecticut Food Bank because residents do not have consistent access to enough food.

“Two adults working full-time at $11 an hour still cannot meet the basic needs of a family of four,” said Grant. “Entry-level jobs in this area have dried up. People who are unemployed remain out of work and those with entry-level positions see little opportunity to change their status.”

Grant suspects the number of children receiving free or reduced-price school meals represents only a fraction of those in need because pride keeps some families from seeking help. “Many people in rural communities are vulnerable because they are land-rich and cash-poor,” she said. “They would never want to expose themselves as not being able to care for themselves.”

Even towns in Connecticut’s affluent counties – such as Fairfield and Litchfield – are dealing with increased childhood hunger due to the economic downturn, experts said. For example, 13.2 percent of students enrolled Greenwich public schools are eligible for free and reduced-priced meals, up from 7.5 percent since 2004. In Norwalk, 43.2 percent of all students are eligible, up from 23.1 percent. In Litchfield County, school districts serving Goshen, Warren, Washington, Roxbury and Bridgewater have seen their numbers increase.

“We’ve seen instances in wealthier school districts where both parents have lost their jobs and have no income to maintain expensive homes and high mortgages,” said Dandeneau. “They’re asking for help” to fill out forms for free and reduced-price school meals.

Programs For Those In Need

Child advocates hope initiatives underway will help reduce childhood hunger in Connecticut. In September, 85 schools in 16 school districts began participating in a program that offers students free fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the day to reinforce healthy snacks.

A variety of summer programs – from open feeding sites where youngsters can get meals to issuing families additional SNAP funds to supplement their food budget – decrease the risk of “food insecurity” among families when school is out of session, said Dandeneau.

A federal pilot program helping families in Litchfield and Windham counties as well as Waterbury and surrounding communities supplement their summer meals has proven successful. “People think of the cities as having the most need,” said Nolan. “But there’s a lot of rural hunger and eastern Connecticut has significant needs.”

Reaching rural residents poses unique difficulties because some areas lack the population density to qualify for federally funded summer feeding sites, explained Dawn Crayco, deputy director of End Hunger Connecticut!. Lack of public transportation can also hinder participation. “It’s difficult for rural towns to have a sustainable site,” she said.

Local participation in the federal breakfast program remains a challenge even though the number of schools offering breakfast increased by 14 percent from last year, said Crayco. Only 61.5 percent of Connecticut schools that offer free and reduced-price lunch also offer breakfast, according to End Hunger Connecticut! School districts are also missing out on millions of dollars from the federal government that would be available if they served breakfast.

“Breakfast is a tool, just like textbooks, to help students learn,” said Crayco.

“It’s ironic that we tell students to eat breakfast and get plenty of sleep when there’s a big test,” noted Nolan. “But what about all the other days? Offering students breakfast can make a difference each and every day.”

A top aim of the “Connecticut No Kid Hungry” campaign is expanding the federal school breakfast program by adding 84 schools and 2,025 students this school year. State funds are available to assist schools that want to offer breakfast. “So far, we’ve added 45 schools and have exceeded our goal of reaching an additional 2,025 students,” said Crayco.

Some schools hesitate to offer breakfast because of “perceived obstacles” concerning operational costs, student supervision and interference with the school day, said Dandeneau.

For Maffe, the benefits of implementing a breakfast program outweigh the challenges.  “School districts that offer breakfast report decreased absenteeism and fewer trips by students to the nurse’s office. Students are more attentive,” said Maffe, director of Food Service for Meriden, where 66.6 percent of the student body is eligible for free or reduced-price meals. This year, the district began serving free breakfast to all students at the Casimir Pulaski Elementary School, with plans to expand the program to other schools soon, she said.

Despite these gains, ending childhood hunger in Connecticut remains elusive, said Maffe.

“I don’t see a fix any time soon.”

To listen to WNPR’s Where We Live segment on this story click here.

“It really was a cesspool,” said Mary Mushinsky, a state legislator from Wallingford and former science educator for the Quinnipiac River Watershed Association.  Mushinsky remembers a river full of old tires, shopping carts and untreated sewage.  “In the old days parents would warn their children to stay away from the river,” she said. “It’s come back in a big way.”

Not far enough, though.

State environmentalists have now taken aim at phosphorous. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) released new limits on phosphorous in 2011, triggering an uproar in some towns along the river that will have to spend millions to meet the new mandates.

Phosphorous, unlike the PCBs, heavy metals and sewage that have historically contaminated the Quinnipiac, is not a public health threat, although it occasionally spurs the growth of toxin-producing blue-green algae.

So why is the state pouring so much time and energy into cleaning it up?

“It’s been an evolution,” said Betsey Wingfield, DEEP’s Bureau Chief, Water Protection and Land Re-use.  “First we got the solids out.  Then we worked on dissolved oxygen and bacteria and heavy metals.  Then it was nitrogen, and now it’s phosphorous.”

DEEP environmental analyst Mary Becker insists that the new focus on phosphorous doesn’t mean that the state is neglecting Quinnipiac’s other pollution problems.  While industrial chemicals remain an issue, tougher regulations, closing factories and remediation have reduced their levels.

Copper levels, for instance, which serve as a marker of industrial processes, have decreased from an average of 9.6 parts per billion (PPB) in 1982 to an average 3.18 PPB in 2011, according to the United States Geological Survey. Companies, such as Solvents Recovery Services of New England in Southington, which sat 500 feet from the Quinnipiac and discharged lead, mercury, PCBs and other toxic chemicals into the river, have shut down.

Toxins remain in the soil and sediment – some PCBs, especially, do not decompose easily and can linger for decades – but state and federal programs are slowly cleaning them up.

“There are still remaining remediation sites along the Quinnipiac, but we have established programs to handle the toxics,” said Becker, who says that these cleanup programs will continue as before, despite the new focus on phosphorous.  “If we want a healthy river, we have to focus on nutrients as well.”

One of the key differences between historical pollutants on the Quinnipiac and phosphorous is their source.  Historically, toxins leaked into the river from hundreds specific “point” sources and more diffuse “non-point” sources alike.  Phosphorous is different.  According to DEEP, 93.5 percent of the river’s phosphorus comes from just four sources: water treatment plants in Southington, Cheshire, Meriden and Wallingford.

While other sources, such as fertilizer runoff, likely contribute to the Quinnipiac’s phosphorous burden as well, it’s clear that the water treatment plants pack the biggest punch, so the new rules hit them hard. Each of the four facilities must reduce their daily phosphorous discharge to .2 PPM per day, except for Meriden, which must get down to .1 PPM per day.

“We want to be good stewards of the Quinnipiac,” said Southington Town Manager Garry Brumback.  “But to go from 2.8 parts per million of phosphorous to .2 parts per million is a $18 million proposition, and we don’t even know if it will fix the problem.”

DEEP scientists argue that their science is sound.  Plants need phosphorous to grow, but excess causes an overgrowth of plants and algae.  By late summer, algae blooms cover the surface of the Quinnipiac like a blanket, making it impossible to canoe or kayak through certain parts of the river. In the fall, when the algae die and sink to the bottom, they consume dissolved oxygen in the water, making it unhealthy for fish, frogs and other river species.

According to DEEP calculations, when a freshwater river reaches an “enrichment factor” of 8.4 – that’s 8.4 times the natural level of phosphorous – algae blooms are triggered.  The Quinnipiac, at about 38 miles long, is one of the worst affected rivers in the state, with an enrichment factor of 31 to 68, depending on sampling time and location.  Getting the Quinnipiac to 8.4 will require a four-to-eightfold reduction in phosphorous.

Meeting the new limits will be expensive.  Reducing phosphorous to .3 or .4 PPM can usually be done with lower-cost chemical or biological methods.  But getting it lower than that requires large, expensive filters usually housed in a separate building.  For the town of Southington, for instance, lowering phosphorous output to .7 PPM would cost about $50,000, according to town manager Brumback, but getting down to the required .2 PPM would cost an estimated $18 million, leading to a 20-23 percent rate increase for consumers.

“Below .2 is where it gets into major money,” said Frank Russo, superintendent at the Meriden Water Pollution Control Facility.  Russo noted that adding phosphorous filters will cost his town $13 million, leading to a 22 percent rate increase for customers.  This would be an especially painful financial burden for Meriden, which just completed a full plant upgrade in 2010, leading to a 27 percent rate increase for customers.

“It’s not like the phosphorous in the water is a health hazard or anything,” said Russo, who noted that their new system has already dropped phosphorous levels in the plant’s effluent by 70 percent.  “Right by the outfall pipe we have 24-inch trout swimming around, the water’s so clear.”

Russo noted that in May, the state passed a law limiting the amount of phosphorous fertilizer that homeowners can use on their lawns.  He and others argue that these new regulations, along with some water treatment control of phosphorous, might fix the river.

Scientists and advocates say this reasoning is faulty, however.

“Partway isn’t good enough,” said Mushinsky. “If the goal is to stop the algae blooms, then we need to respect the science.  And what the science says is that the blooms are triggered by an enrichment factor of 8.4.  There’s no reason to think that the science is not accurate.”

The new rules will be imposed when facilities renew their water permits, though the state will offer them extra time to comply with the new phosphorous rules.  Currently the permits for all four plants are awaiting renewal.  The affected municipalities have formed a coalition to oppose the new phosphorus limits.

DEEP’s Wingfield is sympathetic to the towns’ plight, but noted that the Connecticut limits are generally less strict than those imposed by the EPA in states like Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  She also pointed out that the sewage treatment plants could get financial assistance through the Connecticut Clean Water Fund.  In fact, the town of Cheshire dropped out of the coalition after receiving Clean Water Fund support for their upcoming $32 million treatment plant upgrade, $7 million of which will be for phosphorous reduction.

Even with the new limits, the Quinnipiac has a long way to go before it’s truly clean.

“It’s not like you get the phosphorous turned off and it’ll be perfect.  It’s a long-term project,” said Becker, who calls the Quinnipiac watershed a “challenging” one.

“Someday it would be nice to think about kids going down to the Quinnipiac for fishing and boating, and not being grossed out by algae coming after them like the blob from the deep,” she said.

Indeed, in the 1890s, tourists traveled from across the region to swim at Dossin Beach and enjoy the park at Hanover Pond.

“I’m probably being idealistic,” said Becker, “but I’d like to think that people might be able to use the river in that way again.”

Maybe too many shows, his mother now says.

That October, she received a call saying her 10-year-old son was in the principal’s office with a police officer who was preparing to arrest him for giving a younger student— a girl—a wedgie on the school bus. His parents were dumbfounded.

“It was just surreal. You’re going to arrest a little boy over this?” said his mother, who asked that her name not be used to protect her son. She said Jacob, who had special education needs that she believed were not being addressed by the school, had been punched and injured in prior incidents that had never resulted in arrests. “It still brings up such anger and even tears at this point,” she said.

Jordan Valentine Graphic

A C-HIT review of data collected by the Connecticut judicial department suggests that Jacob’s arrest, which was later dropped, is not unusual, especially in inner-city or overcrowded schools.

From March through May of this year, more than 700 arrests were made in Connecticut schools, two-thirds of them for minor offenses such as breach of peace or disorderly conduct, according to data obtained from the Court Support Services Division (CSSD).

In Hartford alone, 87 arrests were made in schools, including 54 at grade K-8 schools. One Hartford elementary school, the Latino Studies Academy at Burns, recorded 16 arrests in the 2 1/2 month period. Similarly in Waterbury, 59 arrests were reported, more than half at elementary and middle schools. Offenses run the gamut from possession of tobacco, to swearing at a teacher, to fist-fighting.

The arrest data, which provides only a preliminary snapshot since the state began collecting it last spring, “blows out the myth that kids get in trouble after school or over the summer, when they’re idle,” said Abby Anderson, director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, which has been working to reduce school-based arrests. “If you look at how kids get in trouble, it makes sense: They get in trouble as a group—especially in overcrowded, under-resourced schools.”

Connecticut is one of a handful of states trying to tackle school-based arrests, which experts say fuel recidivism in the criminal justice system and often are used in place of interventions that can lead to better outcomes for children. School arrests have become increasingly commonplace in the post-Columbine era, with many districts imposing “zero tolerance” policies on student misbehavior. Zero tolerance, originally coined in the 1980s for strict drug-seizure policies, has been expanded to include punishment for fighting, swearing, disrupting class, disobedience, truancy and other forms of misbehavior.

In Connecticut, juvenile justice advocates have begun addressing the issue one district at a time, starting this school year. Pilot programs are in place in three communities—Manchester, Willimantic and Stamford—through which the school districts have partnered with police, the courts and community groups to stem arrests by developing a formal, graduated protocol on discipline, creating alternative interventions, and re-training school-based police, known as school resource officers.

In Bridgeport and Hartford, the Center for Children’s Advocacy is working with a national group on a Disproportionate Minority Contact project that identifies schools that are heavy on arrests, then presents that data to school leaders and police, in an effort to encourage alternative interventions.

In the courts, Bill Carbone, head of the Court Support Services Division (CSSD), has directed his staff to begin screening all police summonses of juveniles and kick back those that are deemed insufficient or inappropriate for prosecution.

Carbone said he began looking closely at school-based arrests last year, after a review of juvenile court cases found that 41 percent of re-arrests were occurring during the school day. A closer look revealed that the bulk of those arrests were for minor incidents, including carrying cigarettes, refusing to take off a hat, talking back to a teacher, even wearing pants too low, Carbone recounted. Such offenses can be labeled as breach of peace or disorderly conduct.

“These are the things that happened back when we were in school, that would typically be handled by a trip to the principal’s office and some kind of school discipline—not through the courts,” Carbone said.

He said recidivism rates suggest that children who are arrested once are more likely to re-offend.

“All the research says that when you send a kid to the court system, it doesn’t act as a deterrent. It actually escalates the risk of more misconduct,” Carbone said. “By handling these incidents this way, we may be increasingly steering these kids on the wrong path. . . It caused us to step back and say, ‘OK, something different has to happen here.’”

Strategies To Stem Arrests

Nationally, Connecticut is ahead of the curve in wrestling with the school arrest issue, juvenile justice advocates say. Similar efforts have been made in counties in Georgia and Alabama, driven by juvenile court judges there, and in cities such as Denver and Baltimore, driven by parents and community leaders. In July, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education announced an initiative to address “the rising rates and disparities in discipline in our nation’s schools” by encouraging new strategies to stem the “school-to-prison pipeline.” But with many districts grappling with budget cuts and test-score pressures, the effort has been slow to gain momentum.

In Connecticut, preliminary data suggests that the pipeline runs strongest in inner-city schools and some larger suburban schools: The schools that reported the highest arrest rates from March through May were located in Waterbury, Hartford, New Haven, Manchester, Bloomfield and Meriden.

Even within districts, arrest rates swing widely from school to school, indicating that discipline is building-based, not town-wide. Hartford Public High School had 15 arrests from March to May, for example; Hartford’s Bulkeley High had only three.

One school might arrest a child for bringing a Boy Scout knife to school; another might confiscate the knife and contact parents, Anderson said. There is no statewide policy on the role of police in schools. Some towns refer youths who commit minor offenses to community Juvenile Review Boards, in order to divert them from juvenile court; others have no such boards.

Close to 75 percent of Connecticut schools had three or fewer arrests last spring, CSSD data shows, indicating that the school-to-court trend is concentrated in certain places.

A sampling of police reports collected by CSSD shows that at one Connecticut school, a boy who became “embarrassed” in a chorus class after being yelled at for not singing loudly enough threw a French fry at another boy who had made fun of him. The other boy threw a French fry back. Both boys then stood up and spit at each other. A teacher broke up the fight, but at least one boy was arrested on charges of interfering and resisting arrest.

At Middletown High School in September, 17-year-old Zahrod Jackson was Tased by a school resource officer and arrested for sixth-degree larceny, breach of peace and interfering with an officer, after he allegedly took a Jamaican patty from the school’s cafeteria without paying, then tangled with the officer.

While the arrests follow no clear pattern, data suggests that special education and minority students make up a significant portion of those who land in Connecticut’s juvenile courts. A study published in 2011 found that in a sampling of juveniles held in Connecticut detention centers, 60.2 percent were identified as either needing special education services or having learning disabilities.

“From what we see, a lot of these kids are undiagnosed special education students, or they’re in failing school systems,” said Martha Stone, executive director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, which represents juveniles in the court system, while working on systemic reforms. Why aren’t students diagnosed? “Schools don’t want to do all those evaluations,” she said.

The center—working with school, police, court and community leaders—has collected arrest data on schools in Hartford and Bridgeport, where the student body is largely minorities, and has presented those findings to school administrators in hopes of stemming arrests for minor offenses. The 10 schools with the most arrests have been receptive to finding alternatives, Stone said. Milner School in Hartford, K-8, had 17 school-based arrests from March to June; that number had dropped to two from September through early December, data shows.

“I think that by shining the light on the issue, school by school, the data is driving some alternative interventions,” Stone said.

Reforms Move Ahead

The Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance is guiding similar efforts in Manchester, Willimantic and Stamford. The three communities were chosen because they expressed a willingness to re-think school discipline, said Lara Herscovitch, the alliance’s senior policy analyst.

The alliance brought in two judges who had led juvenile reform efforts in their Georgia and Alabama counties to consult on the Connecticut efforts. Community teams in the three towns worked through the summer to develop detailed protocols on discipline, and school resource officers, teachers and school support staff received training.

The cost?

“There’s really not much money needed,” Herscovitch said. “It’s about collectively deciding to do things a different way.”

The new protocols adopted by the districts—with help from the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and others—offer detailed discipline guidelines, depending on the nature of the offense.

In Manchester, there are four disciplinary tiers, ranging from minor misbehavior that is to be handled by teachers, to chronic or more disruptive behavior that calls for social workers and guidance counselors to become involved, to serious behavior posing safety concerns that has administrators taking action. But instead of the old system of suspensions, expulsions and arrests, the schools now have a variety of alternative programs in place, including a substance abuse program, a community service program, a school safety review board and a “SAFE Center,” run by the youth services bureau, which works directly with troubled children and families.

Serious incidents—those involving injuries, threats of violence, weapons or drugs—are still referred to police, said Heidi Macchi, outreach social worker for the Manchester schools. She said staff training has been a key component.

“Our staff members work very hard now to de-escalate a situation,” she said. “Before, we could have a situation where a staff person tells a student to take off his hat, the student refuses, the staff member may get up closer, the situation could escalate. That’s the kind of thing we’re working to avoid.”

Macchi said the changes stirred some debate, with some school staff members worried that students would not face adequate consequences for bad behavior.

“It’s a huge buy-in. But there are ways, other than arrest, for students to get the message—more productive ways,” she said.

In Willimantic, a similar formal discipline policy has been put in place at Windham High School and Middle School. The addition of a full-time school resource officer at the high school, as well as staff training, has helped to reduce arrests, as the emphasis has shifted to “de-escalation,” said Alexandra Lazzari, assistant principal at the high school.

In one incident in October, Lazzari said, a group of female students was involved in a clash during class changeover time. A few of the girls were arrested, but the school resource officer defused the situation before it became a full-blown fight, she said.

“You still get the kind of behaviors where it’s appropriate to arrest or expel,” Lazzari said. “But when you have a (school resource officer) who actually knows these kids, knows the families, knows the dynamics, it plays out very differently than when you just call in the police.”

The number of Connecticut schools that have resource officers on-site has declined in recent years due to budget cuts, said South Windsor police Officer Caleb Lopez, president of the Connecticut School Resource Officer Association. He said most officers use arrests as a last resort, especially when other interventions, such as local Juvenile Review Boards, are available. But many towns lack such alternatives, he noted.

Lopez said some schools have high arrest rates for valid reasons: Officers are weeding out students who pose a threat to safety, or school administrators want to make sure that students face consequences for disruptive behavior.

“Sometimes it’s like, ‘I really don’t want to arrest this kid, but there’s no other way to hold that kid accountable,’” Lopez said.

Anderson said changing the way Connecticut handles school discipline is a “slippery slope” because it involves not just the criminal justice system, but education policy. The state, with its local school districts and police departments, has no uniform policies on training for school resource officers, disciplinary rules or diversion programs. Judges have limited authority. And there is little incentive to keep troublemakers around, when they drain school resources, crowd classrooms, and don’t help test scores, she said.

“In some schools, administrators have essentially abdicated all disciplinary actions to the police,” Anderson said. “In others, they handle all but the really serious incidents themselves…

“When you have such local control, it’s hard to make systemic change. That’s one of our challenges in Connecticut.”

To view school arrests by town and school click here.

To read agreement between Manchester public schools and police click here.

This story was underwritten by a grant from the Center for Public Integrity iWatch News. To read An epidemic of expulsions click here.