Connecticut
CT dual credit classes: A 'huge equalizer' that isn't always available
College can be a daunting prospect for some high school students, who may wonder if they can handle the coursework. For others, it may seem just out of their reach — often due to the cost.
But most high schools in Connecticut offer students an opportunity to address some of those concerns before they even graduate through dual enrollment programs. These programs offer students coursework that allows them to earn both high school and college credit in one class — saving both time and money for those in pursuit of post-secondary education.
This can be a relief for students worried about how they’ll fare academically and a lifesaver for those who would not be able to afford a college education otherwise.
These courses are “a huge equalizer for a lot of students,” said Christopher Todd, the executive director of the Office of Early College Programs at the University of Connecticut. UConn’s Early College Experience program educates over 17,000 Connecticut students across 188 schools.
UConn is the largest state provider of dual credit courses, followed by the Connecticut State University and College system, the University of Bridgeport and Goodwin University.
Unlike Advanced Placement courses, where a student has to take and pass a standardized test at the end of the year to determine whether they qualify for college credit, students in a dual enrollment program start a college transcript and are graded normally throughout the year, allowing a “true demonstration of mastery,” Todd said.
Across Connecticut high schools, dual enrollment courses are diverse — offering core classes like English or biology, but also other subjects like leadership, natural resources and environment, genocide studies, emergency medical technician training and individual and family development.
“[There’s courses] that a lot of students would be excited about and interested in and this might be that step or reach, where they might not have seen themselves sitting in a college course and then suddenly they’re sitting in a college course and they’re saying, ‘I can do this. I can be successful,’” Todd said.
Research has shown dual credit courses are particularly useful to first generation and low-income students because it familiarizes students with what a college workload looks like and gives them a head-start in their postsecondary education at a fraction of the cost. UConn ECE courses are free for students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, or $50 a credit otherwise, compared to $709 a credit for an undergraduate course if it’s taken on campus.
But, accessibility is a problem.
For thousands of Connecticut students who have access to the opportunity and can earn up to two years worth of college credit based on their school’s offerings, thousands of others aren’t as lucky.
They miss out, not because of a lack of interest or ability, but because their schools offer few or no dual credit courses.
And whether a school offers dual credit courses is often dependent on teacher recruitment, training and retainment and the resources districts’ and high schools’ leadership place into the programs, The Connecticut Mirror found in an analysis of data from UConn’s Early College Experience over the last 10 years and interviews with leaders of some traditional public high schools.
The analysis did not include magnet, charter or technical schools, because Connecticut choice schools have limited admission slots and often have targeted academic approaches or themes.
The analysis found that suburban towns generally have averaged more course offerings compared to rural and urban districts, which often struggle with high staffing turnover. Because most high school teachers have to undergo additional training or higher education coursework when they want to teach ECE classes, the expertise and course goes with the teacher, unless there are multiple teachers approved to teach the same course.
“Once an instructor is approved by UConn, they, as the instructor, are now an official affiliate of the University’s department. So if they were to move schools, it doesn’t change their ability to offer the UConn ECE course, it would change their site that they would be designated,” Todd said. “For some of our districts, it’s the turnover of teachers that creates challenges for sustainability of the program or course offerings.”
Educators used to be required to have a master’s degree in a subject, but UConn has since developed more pathways to open ECE certification up to more applicants, especially if they only have general education degrees.
Veteran teachers are more likely to pursue the certification because through their teaching experience, they’ve developed an “expertise in a subject matter,” and now wish to expand the scope of their teaching matter, said Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state.
“If you have a high turnover in your district, you’ll have fewer people that you can tap into, and you might find yourself in a space where you’re just trying to get the basics met. With high turnover, there’s always new people and never getting to the point where you can develop them so they can offer college-level courses,” Dias said. “There’s multiple ways that this plays out, and that’s where you are talking about equity of opportunity.”
Staff stability can widen opportunity gaps
Even within similarly-sized districts that face some of the same issues or have similar demographics, the CT Mirror found that teacher certifications and the leadership of a school or district can make all the difference.
Major urban districts like Hartford and Waterbury are home to three traditional public high schools each.
Hartford Public Schools, which educates nearly 17,000 students across the district, teaches just over 2,000 students across its three traditional high schools because of its high number of choice-school programs. Of those 2,000 students, 84% qualify for free or reduced lunch and the majority of students of color, with less than 3% of students’ identifying as white.
Waterbury educates a total of almost 19,000 students, with about 4,000 of those spread across the district’s three public high schools. Around 83% qualify for free or reduced lunch and less than 8% of students’ identify as white.
In Hartford, two high schools didn’t offer any ECE courses in the 2023-24 school year. One campus offered three classes. In Waterbury, meanwhile, the lowest number of courses offered at one of its campuses that school year was three, but at its other two schools they ranged between 10 and 14.
Leadership stability is a major factor in why some schools’ programs are more successful than others, educators said.
“It’s really important to recognize that some district leadership have preferences to engage in partnerships with other higher ed institutions. Some of it is just building leadership preference, … a building principal could come in and totally rearrange what the pathway is for students in terms of dual credit opportunities. They could say, ‘We’re going to double down on AP and AP is going to be the primary thing we add in,’” Todd said. “The problem starts to become if you have a lot of leadership transitions, you’re sort of ping pong back and forth between those things.”
For example, Bulkeley High School in Hartford had five principal changes between 2014-15 and 2023-24. The school once offered seven dual enrollment opportunities with UConn but now has zero.
In contrast John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury only had one principal in the same timeframe and saw their UConn ECE courses grow from three to 10.
The vision of the people in these positions also impacts long-term planning and school climate.
Once certified, the workload generally increases for ECE educators, Dias said, adding that it makes a difference when the teacher feels valued at their school. Feeling like an asset in the building is what drives an educator to undergo additional training, but also stay in a district long-term, Dias said.
“Teachers tend to leave when they feel not valued and they feel like their voice is lost. … There are spaces and there are people who never leave some of the most difficult teaching environments, [because of] building level leadership and the idea of ‘We’re all in this together,’ and when there’s opportunities for teachers to be leaders from their classrooms,” Dias said.
Data from UConn shows districts like Southington, East Lyme and Waterbury have built up the number of ECE-certified staff considerably over the last decade.
Southington saw an increase from six to 19 certified ECE educators. East Lyme increased its lineup from three to 16, and Waterbury had 31 certified ECE staff across its three high schools in 2023-24, with 15 at Crosby High School.
Southington High School educates nearly 2,000 students, with less than 20% students of color and about 20% qualifying for free or reduced lunch. Wallingford Public Schools, shares similar demographics, except spread among two campuses: Lyman Hall and Mark Sheehan.
While Southington has seen an increase of 10 courses in the last 10 years (from seven to 17), Wallingford’s high schools have netted a four course decrease between the two campuses.
Similarly, rural districts East Lyme and New Milford have high school student bodies between 950 and 1,300, a majority of whom are white (over 70%) and with about 20% to 30% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch.
East Lyme however offers 15 UConn ECE courses, up from four in 2014-15. New Milford has remained at zero for the last decade.
And even when staff is certified to teach dual credit courses, it doesn’t mean their skills are being utilized.
For example, only three of eight certified staff across Bulkeley, Hartford Public and Weaver high schools in Hartford actually taught ECE courses in 2023-24.
“It’s been a really interesting conversation because [some districts] want to add all these new courses, but then at the same time, you have to have that conversation with them and to say, ‘Look, you’ve got five or six certified instructors at your school that currently aren’t teaching the course that they’re certified to teach,’” Todd said. “Part of that growth conversation also has to be ‘You already have a pool of instructors ready to go. So how do we get their classes going?’”
The underutilization of teachers with these certifications can lead to retention issues.
“It is disincentivizing [for a district to say] ‘We want you to get certified to teach these courses,’ and then don’t offer them,” Dias said, noting that those teachers may seek an opportunity to use those skills they’ve learned elsewhere.
“That’s where you start to build a whole cadre of haves and have nots. If we’re not able to offer these courses, and my teachers, who are skilled to offer them leave, then you end up in a vicious cycle,” Dias added.
“I think that there’s an incredible opportunity to talk about how we’re certifying people to take on these roles, how we’re supporting them, how we’re incentivizing them to do this work, recognizing that it is, in fact, more work and how are we following through to make sure the courses happen,” Dias said.
Staff turnover was likely the case at a school like Bulkeley in Hartford, that had offered seven courses in 2014-15, but 10 years later, didn’t have a single section, Todd said.
“A lot of [offerings depend on] teachers. A lot of it is that if certified instructors leave, [leadership] may or may not be pushing to get somebody in the department to get certified to replace that person, or there wasn’t an intentional long-term approach,” Todd said.
Where districts would historically only send one or two teachers to receive their ECE certification, long-term planning now means certifying multiple educators in the same discipline to maintain offerings regardless of attrition.
“We have schools that are getting more strategic about having multiple instructors certified so that they can ensure continuity of course offering just given the turnover that’s happening in a lot of our partner schools,” Todd said.
In a district like Southington, Amy Zappone, the director of teaching and learning, said they’re often looking at their existing staff and trying to find if there’s multiple people who can apply “to have them on backup.”
“Sometimes there may be two teachers teaching a course, so even if one left, we can still maintain it,” Zappone said.
Challenges unique to certain districts
Some staffing challenges, however, are more unique to the type of district and region the town is in.
Urban districts are more prone to high turnover and low retention, because of growing student populations (particularly students with high needs), limited staff, extensive workloads and funding challenges.
“If you have a more transient staffing community like Hartford, then you have to start all over from scratch the next year or wait until we get another staff member,” said Tracy Avicolli, the director of secondary teaching and learning at Hartford Public Schools.
Without stability in staffing, the focus of these schools becomes rooted in providing equitable core classes across campuses before opening new sections.
“Our kids just want the same experiences that all kids have. At the end of the day, they just want what the kids in Glastonbury have, what the kids in Simsbury have, and in many cases we just aren’t there. … While we have University High School of Science and Engineering and Classical High School Magnet School — some that do offer more of our ECE courses — some of our comprehensives are still possibly not able to offer as many because of staffing issues that we have. We have to make sure that we get our kids credited and offering our core courses takes priority,” Avicolli said. “We’re focused on what exactly the core curriculum is to make sure that it’s rigorous, it’s consistent and that teachers are feeling confident and supported in that core content.”
“When you have a school that is stressed staffing wise, those are the programs that are the first to go because we have to have our basic needs met,” Dias said.
In some rural districts, outreach and information about different or new opportunities can be a challenge both in and out of their schools.
At a school like New Milford High School, that hasn’t offered ECE courses in at least 10 years, building up a dual credit program starts with staff, said Principal Raymond Manka said, who joined the district from Stamford in 2021.
New Milford High School used to partner largely with Western Connecticut State University, but those classes fizzled out with retirements, Manka said.
“Some of the challenges that existed previously had to do with having too few staff members holding the keys to the opportunities, and then when those teachers leave, and you don’t have anybody behind them who are certified then to take over the reins,” Manka said, adding that he plans to build up more dual credit opportunities.
“We’ve been moving slowly but responsibly, to inform and develop our staff about what ECE programming is,” Manka said. “Whenever you’re talking about introducing something new, you have to go slow to go fast and you have to look at an effective and clear communication plan. All stakeholders need to know what’s going on, that means that my teachers have to know what ECE is, what it stands for and even if you’re one of the 20 teachers who are teaching ECE, I still have 80 other teachers and I need them to know what ECE is. ‘This is what our school is doing. This is what our school believes.’”
For both urban and rural schools, course expansion may also be a budget issue.
A district like Hartford is home to 11 high schools when choice-schools like magnet and charters are counted, which means the district can have small populations spread across each of their buildings. At the three traditional high schools, the student body ranges between 550 to 700 students.
Rural districts generally have smaller schools as well.
Without established dual credit courses, these small schools may struggle with class enrollment, especially if it’s a first-time offering and may be intimidating.
“Just because you offer [the courses], if the kids don’t know what it is, or if they’re bewildered, or if they’re scared, they’re not going to sign up for the course,” Manka said.
Sometimes only a handful of students sign up to take a new class offering. In districts with already limited staffing, it’s hard to justify running a course with small interest, even if it could pay off later down the road.
“It’s a big ask and it’s a big expense to take full time educators and run a class with only five or six students, but at a certain point, you have to start to build the momentum. It’s hard to recruit students to a class that they’d never seen or don’t have siblings or don’t have older peer group friends that have taken the class,” Todd said. “A lot of the courses that we chose to take with certain teachers were because we had a friend that told us that it was a great class. And so getting our partner schools to say, ‘Look, this is a long term investment, you may have a couple of years where you have low enrollment, but that low enrollment is going to build momentum.’”
Even in schools with high student interest, already stretched funding or staffing can be a deterrent for any additional certification a teacher may need.
“We’ve increased our number of courses because of the number of students who want to take them,” said Nyree Toucet, the director of college and career readiness in Waterbury. “[A problem is] the number of sections of dual enrollment courses, because we have so many students who want to take them, but do we have the number of certified teachers to be able to teach them?”
Last year, the state Department of Education started a grant program for dual credit expansion that schools could apply for and receive additional funds to get staff trained. UConn also provides reduced fees for educators who may need to go back and take more classes to have the equivalent credentials to teach college level courses at a high school. These initiatives have eased the financial burden, but Dias also said there’s a “barrier of time.”
Some teachers are “already under the gun,” and working multiple jobs, Dias said, adding that the likelihood for them of them taking more courses is “just not happening.”
“It begs the question of how do we incentivize people to take on these roles and how do we encourage them to stay to do them? It’s a really powerful conversation that I’m just not sure a whole lot of people are really having at this point,” Dias said.
Similar approaches
Even with districts’ differing approaches to dual credit offerings, there’s a general consensus about working toward providing opportunities that will open more doors for success post-high school.
“When you’re talking with students, you help them to be able to dream bigger than what they’ve ever imagined, and to also believe in the power of being themselves…. Perseverance is very important. I think it takes everybody working towards that, the school counselors, individual teachers to be able to tap into students talents that they may not even recognize,” said former Waterbury Superintendent Verna Ruffin. “There’s an increase in the number of students that are interested in post secondary ed because they see an opportunity and they see an open door that they can walk into with support.”
“It’s really important to give kids the opportunity while they’re young to experience different content. I think it’s very hard for kids to choose a career at such a young age, and so being able to provide opportunities in a variety of different areas helps students to focus and narrow what they feel is a strong interest that they’re going to want to pursue outside of high school,” said Wallingford Superintendent Carrie LaTorre.
How that looks is similar among districts, with a strong emphasis on student feedback for course offerings and using similar methods, like staff recommendations, course fairs and easily-accessible programs of studies, to target students for more rigorous course work.
“We try to be really mindful, as we’ve added classes, that we choose things that are as accessible to as many kids as possible,” said East Lyme High School Principal Deborah Kelly. “With collaborative work with the counseling department, we’re understanding what kids need, that we’re offering it in a way that supports them, and that we’re using the same language when we have those conversations so we’re not guiding kids into classes where they don’t necessarily need to be or want to be. But by expanding those offerings and having those conversations, it makes kids aware of what we have, then when they sign up for it, it’s not just ticking a box for them. I think it’s meaningful for them to take these classes.”
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
– The News 12 Storm Watch Team is tracking a snowstorm that continues to be mainly to the south of Connecticut.
– There is a chance for Fairfield and southernmost New Haven to see some light flurries.
– This is a quick moving system because south of Connecticut will get the northernmost part.
– Timing is mid-morning and clears by late afternoon. Amounts will likely be under a quarter of an inch.
– Windy weather will be behind the snow, which will bring gusts in the 20 to 30 mph range or even higher from Tuesday to Thursday. It will make already cold temperatures feel frigid.
– Precipitation wise, Monday’s snow is the main event for the work week which will not be a lot. Expect combinations of sun and clouds and wind for the rest of the work week. It’s far out, but there are some snow chances for next weekend that the News 12 Storm Watch Team will continue to monitor.
– Temperatures will feel extremely cold throughout the rest of the week, mainly highs in the 30s and 20s and lows in the teens and 20s. Wind chill will be a big factor over the next week.
FORECAST
OVERNIGHT: Mostly cloudy. Feeling very cold. Low of 22.
MONDAY: Mostly cloudy with a few flurries for some. High of 32, low of 18.
TUESDAY: Sun, clouds and windy. High of 31, low of 19.
WEDNESDAY TO FRIDAY: Breezy and gusty conditions remain. Highs in the 30s with Friday and the weekend getting into the upper-30s.
A reported shooting on Interstate 91 in Hartford left one person injured over the weekend.
Troopers responded to I-91 near the exit 27 on ramp for a reported shooting on Saturday around 10 p.m.
According to state police, one person was taken to the hospital. The extent of their injuries are unknown at this time.
Authorities did not release any additional details about the shooting.
The investigation is active and ongoing.
REPORTING HIGHLIGHTS
An Outlier: Connecticut allows towing companies to sell some people’s cars in just 15 days, one of the shortest windows in the country.
Towed From Home: Many cars are towed not for violating the law but instead for breaking a rule like parking the wrong way or failing to display a parking pass at their apartment complex.
Far-Reaching Consequences: The sales have particularly affected low-income people, who have lost jobs after they were unable to get their cars back.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica through its Local Reporting Network. Sign up for our newsletter to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
Melissa Anderson was trying to wrestle her squirmy 2-year-old daughter into a winter coat in December 2021 when she heard the neighbors yelling outside, “She’s coming right now!”
Anderson immediately knew what was happening. The tow truck company that regularly roamed her Hamden, Connecticut, apartment complex was back, and it had zeroed in on her recently purchased 1998 Dodge Neon.
She rushed downstairs only to see a MyHoopty.com tow truck driving away with her car.
Her temporary parking pass from the apartment complex had expired. She’d tried to get an extension because her Department of Motor Vehicles appointment to register the car was two days away. But she said the management wouldn’t give her one.
“I only came upstairs to put the baby’s jacket on,” Anderson said. “It was within like five minutes, my car was gone.”
She never saw her car again.
Exactly 15 days later, as Anderson realized she didn’t have the money to pay the mounting bill, MyHoopty took advantage of a little-known state law available to towing companies: It submitted a form to the Connecticut DMV to sell Anderson’s car.
On the form, MyHoopty typed that the Dodge was worth $600, half of what Anderson had paid for it less than three months earlier. And, DMV records show, the agency quickly approved MyHoopty’s application to sell the car.
What happened to Anderson exemplifies how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of low-income residents. Connecticut’s window allowing towers to sell people’s cars is one of the shortest in the country — just 15 days if they deem the value to be $1,500 or less. Only two states — Iowa and North Carolina — have shorter time spans. Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island require at least 60 days, giving owners more time to reclaim their vehicles.
The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica reviewed thousands of the forms that towers submit requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s cars. Many cases didn’t start with parking tickets, accidents or police involvement. Instead, people were towed for breaking parking rules at their apartment complexes.
Towing and storage charges can quickly add up to several hundred dollars. And once cars are hauled away, some tow companies make it harder for people to get their cars back. Some only take cash. Others refuse to release cars unless they’re registered in the person’s name — even if that person had recently bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet.
In some cases, the 15-day window can be shorter than the time it takes to get a registration appointment at the DMV. And it’s far shorter than it takes for a complaint to be heard challenging the legitimacy of a tow.
When cars are sold, the owners are again at a disadvantage. Under Connecticut law, tow companies are required to hold on to the proceeds for one year so owners can claim the money. After that, tow companies are supposed to subtract their storage fees and turn over any remaining funds to the state. But the DMV has never established a process for towers to submit the money, and the state treasurer’s office said it has no record of receiving any money from the sale of a towed car.
How to lose a car in 15 days
Credit: Anuj Shrestha / Special to ProPublica
That’s the system Anderson faced as she fought with MyHoopty and sought the DMV’s help.
“We live paycheck to paycheck and Christmas was coming, and we just couldn’t afford to try and get the car back,” Anderson said.
Michael Festa, the owner of MyHoopty, said he is simply following the law, which allows property owners to remove cars that break rules. In an emailed response to written questions, Festa said he’s never turned over money to the state because the proceeds have never satisfied the towing and storage bill.
The majority of the cars are “in severe mechanical and structural disrepair,” he said. “Any vehicle of any value is either redeemed by its registered owner or lending institution.”
Exactly how many Connecticut residents this system affects has been hard to pin down because the DMV has been slow to provide information. The CT Mirror requested the DMV forms 2 1/2 years ago under the state Freedom of Information Act. Agency officials initially said the request would cost $47,000 but lowered the cost after the CT Mirror’s attorney intervened. Yet the DMV still hasn’t produced all the forms.
The DMV is supposed to review each form and record the car’s book value in the top right corner, which ensures tow companies don’t undervalue cars and sell them faster. If a car is worth more than $1,500, towers have to wait 45 days. The book values regularly exceed the towers’ estimates.
Still, more than half of the roughly 4,200 forms the CT Mirror and ProPublica have received so far show the tow company requested to sell the vehicle citing the 15-day rule. In nearly 700 of those cases, the company asked to sell a car within three weeks.
DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said in a written statement that he believes the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers,” protecting drivers’ rights while ensuring vehicles don’t “remain on a tow company’s property for months, amassing large storage charges.”
The DMV said it rigorously reviews the towers’ forms and requests additional documentation from them when their estimate differs greatly from the book value. Officials also said that the initial $47,000 records fee was “an error” and that the request has taken time because they have to manually redact thousands of documents.
State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, who co-chairs the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said lawmakers need to look at the 15-day threshold and other towing practices in the upcoming legislative session.
“There are obvious abuses happening to residents across Connecticut, and those impacted are folks with lower economic means who can’t possibly be expected to access that amount of cash in such a quick time frame,” said Lemar, who will chair the General Law Committee, which oversees consumer protection, next session. “There needs to be reform within the DMV, but I think there’s also clear and obvious consumer protection issues.”
“Somebody Is Going to Get Hurt”
Connecticut’s towing law initially passed in 1921 with good intentions: As more people owned cars, more were abandoned, and municipalities needed a way to get them off the streets.
As car ownership grew with the development of highways and suburbs, state lawmakers in the 1960s increased penalties for abandoning vehicles and made it easier for towing companies to sell them.
Before those adjustments, towers had to store a vehicle for 90 days. If no one claimed it, they were required to notify the owner of the intended sale via registered mail and advertise it three times in the newspaper. In 1963, the legislature decided to allow sales within 30 days if the vehicle was worth $35 or less, about $360 today.
Lawmakers cut that time in half to 15 days in 1987 for vehicles worth less than $500 at the time. Local police officials said in public hearings that there were so many junk cars that even local scrapyards didn’t want them and that the shorter time frame would help towns dispose of abandoned vehicles more quickly.
How Connecticut’s Towing Laws Compare to Nearby States
The state has the shortest time before sale among northeastern states.
Note: In Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York, the time varies based on the age or value of the vehicle. Maryland has a different time period for Baltimore. (Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)
The measure did face some pushback, though. State Sen. Thomas Upson, R-Waterbury, questioned whether the new law would violate due process because it did not offer a sufficient way for drivers to challenge a tow. Still, the measure passed easily.
Lawmakers continued to crack down on abandoned cars through the 1990s. They expanded the ability of tow companies to remove vehicles from private lots, where residents and owners complained people were parking without permission, and lowered to 45 days the time after which more expensive vehicles could be sold.
But by the late 1990s, lawmakers started to recognize the effects that towing policies had on people with low incomes.
“I’ve seen a car towed overnight and people not able to pay one and two days of charges, and every day they try to hustle the money to put it together, they can’t do it because the choice now is whether I pay rent, pay the food, pay the doctor or redeem my car,” Rep. Richard Tulisano, D-Rocky Hill, said during a 1998 debate in the House. “Somebody is going to get hurt.”
Yet instead of heeding Tulisano’s warning, the next year, following concerns about parking from property owners, lawmakers expanded the number of cars that could be sold within 15 days by raising the threshold from $500 to $1,500.
Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, defended the industry, noting that in many cases, vehicles are towed because owners have been skirting the law by driving without registration and insurance. So they don’t try to get their towed cars back because they can’t afford the towing fees or the cost of owning a car.
“I’m not stealing cars,” he said. “I am removing cars that are either illegally parked, whether they be law or condominium rules.”
Most of the complaints, he said, relate to what’s known in the industry as “trespass towing,” when companies tow from private lots rather than in response to police stops and accidents. Some companies have contracts with apartment and public housing complexes to search their lots for cars that don’t belong to residents or violate other rules like not being backed into their parking spaces.
One large trespass tow company in Connecticut that has faced scrutiny is MyHoopty, which is based in Watertown, a small town northwest of New Haven. Since 2022, Watertown police have responded to 87 complaints from people who had gone to MyHoopty. Most said they either couldn’t get their cars back or were being overcharged.
In an incident last January, the police threatened to charge Festa with larceny when he wouldn’t release a car to its owner. Body-camera footage shows that the woman presented Festa with the title and bill of sale and asked him to let her have it towed out of his lot. Festa told the police he couldn’t release her car until she showed proof it was registered in her name.
The department did not follow through with its threat. Festa said MyHoopty “goes above and beyond” to help customers get their cars back. “We understand that having a vehicle towed without consent can leave a person feeling violated, and some may even perceive it as theft,” he wrote in an email. The company provides several resources, he said, “ensuring a smooth and efficient process for vehicle recovery.”
Festa, who wears his own body camera as an “extra measure of security,” has sued the police twice in state court in the past few years after the complaints prompted the department to take the rare action of removing MyHoopty from a list of tow companies they call after accidents and police stops. One lawsuit was dismissed. The other accuses Watertown officers of launching a “campaign of persecution” against Festa.
Watertown police Chief Joshua Bernegger declined to comment on MyHoopty, citing the pending litigation, and the town has asked the judge to dismiss the suit. But Bernegger said, generally, while “many standup towing companies” perform “crucial public services” in a dangerous environment, “there are, however, some tow companies that are operating on the fringe of a very ambiguous law.”
Festa has also faced criticism at the state level. In late 2022, Festa led an effort with other towers and the towing association to get the DMV to increase towing rates, arguing at a DMV hearing that expenses on everything from truck insurance to workers’ compensation had gone up. The DMV approved a modest increase, but the hearing also offered an opportunity for several people, including Anderson, to complain about MyHoopty refusing to give their cars back.
In response to those concerns, Lemar proposed a bill to require tow companies to give drivers 24 hours’ notice before a tow and to take multiple payment methods, including credit cards. The bill passed the committee, but facing fierce opposition from towers and property managers, it wasn’t called on the House floor. The 15-day rule was not part of that legislation.
Complaints to the DMV Go Nowhere
In some cases, Connecticut’s laws and the DMV’s processes make it harder for people to get their cars back once they’re towed. And for low-income people, the consequences of having their car sold can extend far beyond the cost of the car.
After her Dodge Neon was towed, Anderson pleaded with MyHoopty to release her car. She told them she had the bill of sale, title and proof of insurance and was going to the DMV in two days. But Anderson said Festa told her it wasn’t his problem; he wouldn’t release the car until it was registered.
This is where low-income people can get trapped. The law says that tow companies shall release vehicles to their owners once the fees have been paid and they present proof of registration. But there’s another law that seems to conflict with that: The DMV allows up to three months for drivers to register vehicles purchased out of state. And for private sales in Connecticut, the DMV says there is no deadline. So people can still run into problems even if they follow DMV rules.
Because Anderson bought her car in a private sale, she didn’t receive the temporary license plates usually provided by car dealers. She instead had to make an appointment at the DMV, which at the time took weeks to get, or go to an authorized dealer, which costs extra.
Plus, it was difficult for Anderson to get to MyHoopty’s lot, which was a 40-minute drive from her apartment. She said, one day, a person who answered the phone told her, “You’re wasting your time coming down here anyway, with all the fees and everything, you ain’t getting your car back, sweetheart.”
Anderson said her husband lost his job shortly after the car was towed because he couldn’t always get rides and it took more than an hour on multiple buses to get from Hamden to the restaurant he worked at in Milford.
To make matters worse, Anderson said, in the car were all of her husband’s chef tools, including knives he had been given in culinary school, which he estimates were worth more than $1,000.
After learning her rights from a tenants union, Anderson filed a complaint with the DMV in early 2023. In a three-page letter, she wrote, “It may be just a car to some, but for my family it was sanity, peace of mind stolen from us by MyHoopty.”
DMV records show MyHoopty sold her car to a Waterbury auto salvage facility for $800 within two months of towing it from her apartment complex. Anderson said her husband’s chef tools were never returned.
Festa declined to comment about specific cases, including Anderson’s. But he said MyHoopty employees “take the handling and return of personal property very seriously” by documenting every step of the towing process and “allowing customers to retrieve all personal belongings from their vehicles.”
The CT Mirror and ProPublica interviewed dozens of people across the state who had their cars sold after being towed. Like Anderson, they said their complaints to the DMV went nowhere.
This does not seem to be unusual. From 2021-23, the DMV conducted 17 investigations into complaints from drivers accusing MyHoopty of exorbitant bills and questionable reasons for towing their cars, according to records obtained by CT Mirror and ProPublica.
But most of the cases ended with no action being taken, records show. The law allows tow companies to sell people’s cars and doesn’t give owners a quick process to challenge a tow. The DMV has the power to issue fines of up to $1,000 or suspend or revoke companies’ licenses, and in a few cases, the department issued an infraction for overcharging on a towing bill — the legal equivalent of a speeding ticket.
Guerrera said the agency wants to make sure that everybody is held to the same standard. “If we receive complaints, we investigate and we adhere to the statutes that allow us to do things in regards to penalties or whatever it may be,” he said. “If it’s a formal complaint, we look into it, and if we find there’s something wrong, then we hold them to the letter of the law.”
Guerrera and other DMV officials said that tow companies could be charged with filing a false statement for lying on the forms, although they acknowledged they don’t remember a case when that happened.
Rachel Massaro filed a complaint against MyHoopty after the company towed her 2004 Honda Civic from her townhouse at Seramonte Estates in Hamden in 2021. But the DMV didn’t find any violations.
Massaro had just bought the car for $3,000 two days earlier. She brought it home that weekend and said she was told by the property manager that she couldn’t get a temporary pass until Monday.
“She told me, if I park, I had to park where the visitors” parked, Massaro said. “I did that and I was still towed.”
Massaro said MyHoopty told her it would cost more than $700 to get her car back. State regulations permit companies to charge $125, plus $5.65 per mile, for a tow, and daily storage fees range from $23 to $37.
“I told them I just bought the car, and I can’t spend another — he wanted $740,” Massaro said, “and he was like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, honey.’”
MyHoopty submitted the form, seeking permission to sell the car, to the DMV 17 days after towing Massaro’s vehicle. On the form the company listed the car’s value as only $600.
The reason: There was no key to see how well the vehicle ran. It was the same explanation MyHoopty gave the DMV for the price of Anderson’s car.
Massaro said the car was worth a lot more and that MyHoopty knew she had the key. “I told them to let me go in and at least get my stuff out of there,” she said. “He told me that until I paid that fee, I couldn’t.”
Massaro never got back the shoes and clothes she had just bought at TJ Maxx. And the Honda was also sold to a salvage dealer in Waterbury for $800, according to DMV records.
Massaro cried when she saw a copy of the DMV form showing her car had been junked.
“It’s just an abuse of power that they hold over people they know can’t afford to pay the fees,” Massaro said.
Under the statute, when a towing company removes a vehicle from private property, it must inform the local police within two hours. The law is designed to ensure that police don’t mistake stolen cars for ones that were towed.
Hamden is a town of 60,000 people. But call logs from the police department show that from January 2022 to June 2024, more than half of the agency’s 1,082 tows were from Seramonte Estates, where MyHoopty had a contract to tow vehicles.
The law requires tow companies to send a certified letter to the car’s registered owner informing them it’s going to be sold. Several people, however, said they were never notified.
Abdul-Basit Ajia was studying business and playing basketball at Post University in Waterbury in April 2023 when someone broke into his Toyota Avalon in his apartment complex parking garage, shattering the window and damaging the steering wheel and gear shift. He reported the break-in to police and left it parked until he could afford to make the repairs necessary to take it home to Rhode Island.
Ajia said he didn’t know it had been sold until a reporter called him to ask what had happened. He said he never got any notification from the state or the towing company, Durable Radiator & Autobody, about the request to sell the car.
DMV records list Ajia’s mother’s address in Rhode Island, but he said no notice arrived there either.
Durable Radiator declined to comment and referred questions to the Waterbury towing association, which didn’t return calls and emails.
Ajia said the lack of transportation as he finished college made it more financially difficult to get started. He still hasn’t been able to purchase another car and rents one from his uncle.
“You need a car for almost anything,” he said. “So I was really out there just struggling, even to find a job.”
Shahrzad Rasekh, José Luis Martinez and Andrew Brown of The Connecticut Mirror and Asia Fields and Ryanne Mena of ProPublica contributed reporting.
You can help
We’re investigating towing practices in Connecticut, where companies can sell people’s cars after just 15 days. If you’ve been affected, we want to hear from you.
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