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Garth Harries

The city official who is in the middle of reviewing the city’s special education programs will leave New York at the end of the month to take a top job at a Connecticut school system.

Garth Harries, a former McKinsey consultant who has worked with Chancellor Joel Klein since 2003, is scheduled to be appointed assistant superintendent by the New Haven Board of Education at a meeting tonight. The mayor of New Haven, John DeStefano, has said he wants to improve the city’s public schools in similar ways to Mayor Bloomberg in New York City. Harries’ job is to flesh out the specific of how to transform the schools — and implement them, according to the New Haven Register.

Harries’s new position appears to be similar to the one he held in New York before he took over a review of special education, down to its title, “assistant superintendent for portfolio and performance management.” Until January, he headed the DOE’s Office of Portfolio Development, where he led efforts to create new schools.

Harries called the news “bittersweet” in an e-mail message he sent to special education advocates this morning. He said that New Haven began recruiting him just six weeks ago and said his decision was based in part on the proximity of the job to his wife’s farm in Connecticut.

Harries has been preparing for some time to take on added responsibilities in school leadership. (more…)

The head of the city’s special education division has announced that she is stepping down at the end of the school year, a surprise move that comes at a time when a top-to-bottom review of special education is underway.

Linda Wernikoff said her decision to retire is not related to the review or the changes its conclusion could bring to her department. “I think I’ve had a wonderful 35-year career here and I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done,” she told me. “Now I think it’s time that I need to try new things.”

Under Wernikoff’s leadership, the Department of Education has focused on reducing the proportion of children who are in special education-only classes, and the graduation rate for students with special needs has inched up, although it still remains quite low. Wernikoff, who began her career in 1974 as a speech teacher, told me she had no specific plans yet for her future, but she said, “Whatever I do will continue to be advocating for students with special needs.”

People that I spoke to today said Wernikoff’s departure will be a blow for the special education community. (more…)