Principals fired recently - what do parents think?

[Anonymous]

Would welcome any feedback from parents who've been through having a principal fired before.

Is it really as arbitrary as the Post article on Oyster makes it out to be? (I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but it seemed contradictory to the priority of fixing the failing schools to fire the one at a good school.)

Parents of all schools, what do you feel about the school reform process? Good, bad, indifferent? Seems like the media coverage is more about headlines and drama than what's happening on a day to day basis.

And what do your kids think? I've heard that actual students seem to have more confidence in Rhee than a lot of grown ups. What's the buzz on the playground?

Sorry for the laundry list of questions, but I'm new to DCPS and totally clueless about what to expect or how DC is different from other cities.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Rhee is doing what no one before her has had the courage to do -- fire incompetent personnel. Not just reprimand. Not just demote. But FIRE people who aren't doing their jobs.

For the sake of DC public schools, I hope that Ms. Rhee survives in these very tricky and dangerous political waters.

[Anonymous]

I am hoping with all hope that she actually is competent and is simply being courageous - the alternative being she's inept and making decisions that will negatively impact the entire system for decades. Before, I though - well, it can't gt much worse - but it CAN get worse.

I am getting nervous. My child is slated to start Oyster in fall 2009 as a kindergartner. I had, in the past, heard nothing but good things about Guzman. Now she's fired. Of course, I am not on the inside, but this is a very drastic change - when you include the merging of 2 schools and an expansion through 8th grade. I am not happy about these changes. WHy change a very successful school? There are so many other schools that would benefit from moving/expanding. I think Oyster was the wrong choice for this experiment. I have a bad feeling about Rhee now.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see a list of the principals who were fired before making any judgments. Even then, unless it's at a school I know well, I'm not an insider so it's hard to tell for sure what is going on.

No question there are people who should be fired. However, I don't know whether Rhee is firing the right people and/or doing it the most effective way. It may be that she has no other choice than to do it this way but the mayor and Rhee and Reinoso have not done enough to convince me that they know what they are doing -- especially Reinoso and his plagiarism of a school plan from another city that hadn't even been tested in that city.

I'm uneasy but I'm waiting to hear more before I make up my mind.

[Anonymous]

Rhee is doing what no one before her has had the courage to do -- fire incompetent personnel. Not just reprimand. Not just demote. But FIRE people who aren't doing their jobs. For the sake of DC public schools, I hope that Ms. Rhee survives in these very tricky and dangerous political waters.

Courage is not enough IMHO. How change is communicated is just as important as why. The shoot-from-the-hip, 'because I said so' impression she is giving to many people heightens the political risk of her being ousted and DC going back to less than square one. The similarity of her style with Fenty increases their political vulnerability.

Rhee was not an outsider to the DC school system, so I'm puzzled as to the apparent naivete of the communication strategy.

The Oyster issue is the type of thing that can prompt a major, distracting lawsuit. As a parent and administrator, she had a very clear conflict of interest. Although she recused herself (apparently) from the decision, it was probably not a smart idea politically to meet more or less in secret with the group of parents.

Again, she's not new to DC schools and the politics involved at Oyster and elsewhere. While I doubt she's incompetent, the lack of maturity seems reckless.

There better be a really good reason one of the few schools that weren't "broke" got "fixed" in such a drastic way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Again, she's not new to DC schools and the politics involved at Oyster and elsewhere. While I doubt she's incompetent, the lack of maturity seems reckless.

One troubling story -- after the fight at Wilson High that garnered all the public attention, Rhee's response was to have students eat lunch in their classrooms. Box lunches were to be delivered. Apparently some of the lunches were spoiled and some where not delivered at all. Also there were issues with just who was going to supervise the students while they were eating lunch in the classrooms -- suddenly you need a lot more staff to watch the students. Apparently this system fell apart after a couple of days. I also heard that a group of students proposed some kind of student/faculty/staff conflict intervention team to Rhee, which she disregarded in favor of her failed lunch lockdown plan.

Now I did get this story third hand, from folks who are quite critical of Rhee to begin with. It's possible that it didn't go as disastrously as I heard. Yet, even if it's a distorted account, it still suggests rushed judgment on the part of someone who lacks genuine experience with large school systems.

[Anonymous]

As an Oyster parent, I'll have to say that I agree with Rhee's decision. Marta Guzman is an articulate woman who certainly worked hard for Oyster, but the result was a disorganized school with a certain culture of unprofessionalism tolerated from some teachers. I do think there has been a leadership problem.

Firing is harsh, and Guzman is certainly not incompetent, but a school with Oyster's advantages could be run so much better. Rhee had ample opportunity as an Oyster parent to come to this conclusion herself. In fact, I'm amazed that Guzman didn't see to it that Oyster's act was more organized this year under Rhee's spotlight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would welcome any feedback from parents who've been through having a principal fired before.

Is it really as arbitrary as the Post article on Oyster makes it out to be? (I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but it seemed contradictory to the priority of fixing the failing schools to fire the one at a good school.)

Parents of all schools, what do you feel about the school reform process? Good, bad, indifferent? Seems like the media coverage is more about headlines and drama than what's happening on a day to day basis.

And what do your kids think? I've heard that actual students seem to have more confidence in Rhee than a lot of grown ups. What's the buzz on the playground?

Sorry for the laundry list of questions, but I'm new to DCPS and totally clueless about what to expect or how DC is different from other cities.

Thoughts?



I was wondering if the principal of Janney --Scott Cartland--was he fired? His leaving seems so sudden and weird that he says he doesn't know where his next "post" will be.

[Anonymous]

I heard from Janney parents that he has been asked to become principal of a restructuring school instead since he has performed well. Don't know the details but certainly does not sound like he was fired.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else's principal get fired besides Oyster's? I heard thru the grapevine that maybe Ross's principal was on that list?

One thing I hope is that Rhee changes the lottery system so that all schools participate at the same time! Oyster held their lottery through an entirely different method, weeks later than DCPS.

I think all DC public and charter schools should change to lottery systems to take place at the same time. It it just so drawn out!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an Oyster parent, I'll have to say that I agree with Rhee's decision. Marta Guzman is an articulate woman who certainly worked hard for Oyster, but the result was a disorganized school with a certain culture of unprofessionalism tolerated from some teachers. I do think there has been a leadership problem.

Firing is harsh, and Guzman is certainly not incompetent, but a school with Oyster's advantages could be run so much better. Rhee had ample opportunity as an Oyster parent to come to this conclusion herself. In fact, I'm amazed that Guzman didn't see to it that Oyster's act was more organized this year under Rhee's spotlight.

But still, WHY on EARTH would you fire someone with a record of good results who was "working hard"?!? If she was so "disorganized" and "unprofessional", how exactly did they get that Blue Ribbon? Were the kids in danger somehow? Were the test results bogus? If so, that should be [b]public record. And Rhee's presence should not have had any more weight than any other parent. Otherwise, what's the frickin' point of a PUBLIC school?

This runs TOTALLY CONTRARY to what Rhee et al said they were going to do fix the PROBLEM schools. I've lost ALL confidence in Rhee and the reform movement. She has ZERO credibility in my book.

Guzman may be a b-tch on wheels and unpopular with non-Spanish parents (grapevine), but I'd take disorganized and high performing over complete nightmare I've seen at other schools. She's a principal - not a homecoming queen.

We're now looking harder at private schools. Seriously, why bother.

[Anonymous]

I'm the 5/9 17:40 poster. Just want to quickly make the point that Oyster is a strong school because of the sound educational reasoning behind the bilingual program, the fact that this special program attracts a high proportion of affluent, educated in-boundary families, the fact that the out-of-boundary Spanish-speaking families are also often educated and affluent (and those who aren't have demonstrated that they're willing to jump through all kinds of hoops to support their children's education), and also because DCPS funds two teachers per classroom. Ideally, students should work in groups of 12-ish according to this model. That's a great teacher-student ratio for a public school.

The principal's reputation benefited from all these things, although she is not personally responsible for any of them. But organization and leadership skills do matter. We've succeeded in spite of the administration, not because of it. The school is one of DCPS's best assets, but can be managed so much more successfully.

[Anonymous]

One more thing: We don't just want Chanc. Rhee to fix the badly broken schools, right? Don't we also want her to raise the pretty good ones to a level that competes with suburban schools? Oyster has that potential if some very wrong-headed problems and people are swept out.

[Anonymous]

This may not be a matter of competency - Rhee apparently fired all but 1 principal at DC's bilingual schools (5 out 0f 6 and the one not fired is due to retire in a year) - so the bigger question it seems is what is her plan for bilingual education? Oyster is a wonderful school and Guzman has done a good job with many challenges. Why fire her now when she has worked so hard to get the new middle school up and running? It would be a shame if she plans to get rid of DC's bilingual schools.

[Anonymous]

Re: bilinguals, why would she send her kids if she wanted to get rid of the model? Sounds like it would take a lot to change Oyster back to one-language.

Does anyone know roughly how long it might take to fill slots? Is it usually transfers like Janney or is there some pipeline from Teach for America or something?

And who typically runs a school while search is on in past experience? Just looking for parental advice before we start DCPS.