Committee advances two State Board of Education nominees after policy-focused questioning

The Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee on Feb. 11 advanced two nominees to the Connecticut State Board of Education: Dr. Gladys B. Labas of Meriden and Paula S. Gilberto of Farmington. Committee members questioned both nominees about student mental health, bilingual education, special education, teacher recruitment and partnerships with nonprofits and business.

Dr. Gladys B. Labas introduced herself as a lifelong educator who began her teaching career in Puerto Rico and later served in New Britain and Meriden, where she said she worked for 38 years. Labas described roles as a bilingual and special-education teacher, district bilingual director, assistant principal and principal. She told the committee she holds a master’s degree in special education and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Connecticut and said she helped write Connecticut’s first bilingual education law and participated in a 2015 revision.

"Anyone, any district with 20 or more of the same language, that's the law that we put through, must have bilingual education," Labas told the committee, describing the statutory threshold used to require bilingual…