Become part of the movement for unbiased, accessible election information. Donate today.
Violet Sims
Ballotpedia provides comprehensive election coverage of the 100 largest cities in America by population as well as mayoral, city council, and district attorney election coverage in state capitals outside of the 100 largest cities. This board member is outside of that coverage scope and does not receive scheduled updates.
Violet Sims is a Democratic at-large representative on the New Britain Public Schools Board of Education in Connecticut. Sims won a first term in the at-large general election on November 7, 2017.
Biography
In 2014, Sims became a teacher in the Manchester Public Schools district. She previously worked in the New Britain district as a Spanish teacher.[1] As of 2015, she was pursuing a doctorate degree in educational leadership from Bridgeport University.[2]
Sims graduated from the E.C. Goodwin Vocational Technical High School, located in New Britain. She earned a B.A. in theater studies and an M.A. in educational leadership from the University of Connecticut in 2002 and 2005, respectively. She worked at the University of Connecticut and Central Connecticut State University and went on to become a teacher through the Alternate Route to Certification (ARC) in 2007. In 2008, Sims received the Alma Exley Memorial Scholarship for diversity in teaching.[3]
Elections
2017
Five of 10 seats on the New Britain Public Schools Board of Education in Connecticut were up for at-large election on November 7, 2017. Two incumbents, Daisy Sanchez (D) and Nick Mercier (R), were re-elected. Challengers Violet Sims (D), Annie Parker (D), and Nancy Rodriguez (R) edged out Mallory Deprey (R) for the other three seats.[4]
| New Britain Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 4-year terms, 2017 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
| Democratic |  Daisy Sanchez Incumbent |
18.40% | 4,427 | |
| Democratic | Annie Parker |
17.85% | 4,294 | |
| Democratic | Violet Sims |
17.18% | 4,132 | |
| Republican | Nancy Rodriguez |
16.03% | 3,855 | |
| Republican | Nick Mercier Incumbent |
15.65% | 3,764 | |
| Republican | Mallory Deprey | 14.89% | 3,582 | |
| Total Votes | 24,054 | |||
| Source: Connecticut Secretary of State, "Election Center: 2017 November Municipal Election," accessed November 8, 2017 These election results are unofficial and will be updated after official vote totals are made available. | ||||
2015
Opposition
Five seats on the New Britain Public Schools Board of Education were up for general election on November 3, 2015. Five at-large incumbents' seats were up for election in 2015: Carlos Piña (D), Nicole Rodriguez (D), James E. Sanders Sr. (R), Merrill Gay (D) and Stacey Rosado (R).
The three newcomers nominated by the New Britain Republican Town Committee—Elaine Perzan Zottola, Grisselle Aponte and Gayle Sanders-Connolly—were the top three highest vote recipients in the election.[5] The town's Democratic committee, meanwhile, nominated sitting incumbents Gay, Piña and Rodriguez for re-election.[6] While the incumbents survived a primary challenge from Agnes Kurzyna and Violet Sims, only Rodriguez and Gay succeeded on the general election ballot. Piña placed last overall.
Results
Democratic primary
| New Britain Public Schools, At-Large, Democratic Primary, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
| Merrill Gay Incumbent |
23.4% | 673 |
| Nicole Rodriguez Incumbent |
23.0% | 661 |
| Carlos Piña Incumbent |
21.8% | 627 |
| Violet Sims | 17.1% | 491 |
| Agnes Kurzyna | 14.6% | 420 |
| Total Votes | 2,872 | |
| Source: City of New Britain, Connecticut, "2015 Board of Ed Primary," January 11, 2016 | ||
Funding
The New Britain Town and City Clerk's office does not publish and freely disclose school board candidate campaign finance reports. If you have any information regarding the campaign finance disclosures in this race, please contact the school board elections team at editor@ballotpedia.org.
Endorsements
Sims received no official endorsements in this election.
Campaign themes
2015
An opinion piece by Sims was published in The CT Mirror on March 13, 2015, detailing her concerns about bilingual education programs in the state and New Britain, specifically. The text of her article is below:
| “ | Central Connecticut State University has taken the lead in speaking up for a marginalized sector of our population with the recent conference (Feb. 27 - 28, 2015) titled “Dos Días para Transforming Bilingual Education in Connecticut.”
This topic is especially important to the children, parents, and educators across Connecticut, as a recent Hartford Courant article pointed out the shameful fact that our state leads the nation with the largest achievement gap between English Language Learners (ELL) and their peers who are English fluent. According to the article, the gap in Connecticut is 54 percent larger than the national average. Why is this happening? Several reasons. First, Connecticut state statute limits bilingual education (defined as a program where students receive academic support in their native language) to a maximum of 30 months, even though well-established research shows that students need a minimum of five years to attain grade level proficiency in a second language. Second, Connecticut does not fully embrace dual language models, the best way for children to reach fluency bilingually. There are only six dual-language schools in the entire state and cities such as New Britain have closed down these research-based programs that are thriving internationally and throughout the rest of the country. For example, New York currently has hundreds of dual language schools and is expanding by as many as 40 new dual language schools this year. These models are superior because they allow both ELLs and monolingual English speakers to become fully bilingual. Third, bilingual education in Connecticut is not equitable. For example, affluent suburban communities, such as Avon and West Hartford, offer world language instruction kindergarten through high school. Meanwhile, most ELLs attending Connecticut’s urban districts are at risk of losing their native language as their schools focus on pushing ELLs to acquire English with methods that sacrifice their first language, but do not lead to grade level proficiency; a process known in language acquisition theory as fossilization. Therefore, suburban children have the privilege of becoming bilingual, while our urban students lose their home languages and half-learn English. Local districts in Connecticut have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on “get proficient quick” schemes, like Kevin Clark’s ELD program, which have failed elsewhere and have been challenged by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. Proponents of such programs claim that their data shows sharp improvements in English proficiency, but these results are skewed as they use assessments created by the same people that sell the programs and teachers are trained to "teach to the test." The validity of these programs is highly undermined by assumptions and a lack of alignment to empirical research, or strong theory. Additionally, ELLs are segregated from their English-fluent peers for several hours a day, where they miss the other important academic subjects like Social Studies and Science. These corrupt practices must stop. Properly educating our youth is beneficial to the entire population. Thank you to CCSU for taking the lead in Connecticut by hosting a much-needed conversation on how to change bilingual education in our state. Over 200 professionals participated. Our children and society depend on this continued valor.[7] |
” |
| —Violet Sims, (March 13, 2015)[8] | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Violet Sims New Britain Public Schools school board. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- New Britain Public Schools, Connecticut
- New Britain Public Schools elections (2017)
- New Britain Public Schools elections (2015)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Hartford Courant, "Two Face Party-Backed Candidates In New Britain School Race," July 29, 2015
- ↑ Hartford Courant, "Five Candidates Seek Three Seats In New Britain Primary," September 7, 2015
- ↑ Hartford Courant, "Yale Student, New Britain High Teacher Named Exley Scholars," May 18, 2008
- ↑ Connection State Elections Enforcement Commission, "Campaign Reporting Information System: New Britain Board of Education Candidates, 2017," accessed August 18, 2017
- ↑ Hartford Courant, "New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart Gets GOP Nod To Run For Second Term," July 27, 2015
- ↑ Hartford Courant, "New Britain's Democratic Chairman Will Oppose Mayor Stewart," July 23, 2015
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The CT Mirror, "Op-Ed: Connecticut bilingual education programs need reform," March 13, 2015
| New Britain Public Schools elections in 2017 | |
| Hartford County, Connecticut | |
| Election date: | November 7, 2017 |
| Candidates: | At-large: Incumbent, Daisy Sanchez • Incumbent, Nick Mercier • Violet Sims • Annie Parker • Mallory Deprey • Nancy Rodriguez |
| Important information: | What was at stake? |
| 2015 New Britain Public Schools Elections | |
| Hartford County, Connecticut | |
| Election date: | Primary Election: September 16, 2015 General Election: November 3, 2015 |
| Candidates: | Democratic Party endorsed:  Merrill Gay Carlos Piña Nicole RodriguezRepublican Party endorsed: |
| Important information: | What was at stake? • Key deadlines • Additional elections on the ballot |
