ED at TR

[Anonymous]

Who is the interim ED? Why did the previous ED leave after such a short time? We left TR last year and I just wonder about what is being communicated about all of this.

[Anonymous]

I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

[Anonymous]

Lots of views but no intel. Hmmm.

[Anonymous]

If I was a prospective parent, I would definitely be wary of TR (both campuses). We have since left. The job performance of the last ED was astoundingly bad (through COVID and then after); it’s hard to imagine how or why she was deemed qualified for the job and therefore doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence in who the Board will hire as her replacement. I would have more respect for the Board if they fired her, but apparently she left on her own. The experience highlighted the risk of charter school leadership—once a leader is appointed, there is little to no oversight. So there’s no mechanism or will to remove a poor performer.

[Anonymous]

Aurora Steinle is the interim ED. She has a history of affiliation with the school, although I can’t remember how - maybe the Board?

We (a longtime TR family) were honestly thrilled when we heard the previous ED was leaving. Things are fine under the interim ED - at least at a minimum we don’t feel like we are being misled by this one.

[Anonymous]

The interim ED seems to have integrity and is making some solid, decisive moves. But she is totally interim.

The school is going through three simultaneous challenges 1) pains of transition from the founding generation of school leaders, 2) the effects of expansion - the middle school having expanded at a rate they never had before - with the Young Campus and 4th Street campus feeding into the same school, and the young campus hasn't really solidified yet in terms of a track record before the pandemic 3) the same challenges of schools everywhere in this pandemic/ post pandemic era of unprecedented burnout of educators and social and academic needs of students.

So that is a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Aurora Steinle is the interim ED. She has a history of affiliation with the school, although I can’t remember how - maybe the Board?

We (a longtime TR family) were honestly thrilled when we heard the previous ED was leaving. Things are fine under the interim ED - at least at a minimum we don’t feel like we are being misled by this one.

She was the chief of staff. She's an ed policy person, not a teacher/educator. (not that it's necessarily a bad thing, just an FYI)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

Teachers quitting mid year, hallways are chaos. Drugs (just weed, but still not ideal at a MS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

It's been a hard year at the middle school, based on the information they are sharing with elementary families. They had a not insignificant number of teacher vacancies -- that's not an issue unique to TR, but obviously that was causing issues both for students and teachers. It sounds like teachers are very unhappy, as the interim ED announced to the entire network that they are contracting with a neutral third party to initiate a query into staff complaints and perceptions into "recent workplace concerns expressed by Middle School staff." Shortly before break they announced that they were pulling one of the elementary school Spanish teachers from 4th Street to take a lead role on an initiative called the "One Crew, One Continuous Journey" designed to "rebuild the culture" in the Middle School. He's working with several other staff, and one of the things they did was decide to stagger the start of middle school after winter break (only 8th grade for the first two days, then adding 7th on the 3rd and 6th on the 4th) in order to "allow for an intensive reset of all daily routines and ways of engaging with other students and adults in the building."

We have been at TR since our kids were small, but our oldest child left for 5th this year because we didn't feel confident about the TR Middle School path -- suffice to say, reading the information being released to us has made us very relieved we made that call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

It's been a hard year at the middle school, based on the information they are sharing with elementary families. They had a not insignificant number of teacher vacancies -- that's not an issue unique to TR, but obviously that was causing issues both for students and teachers. It sounds like teachers are very unhappy, as the interim ED announced to the entire network that they are contracting with a neutral third party to initiate a query into staff complaints and perceptions into "recent workplace concerns expressed by Middle School staff." Shortly before break they announced that they were pulling one of the elementary school Spanish teachers from 4th Street to take a lead role on an initiative called the "One Crew, One Continuous Journey" designed to "rebuild the culture" in the Middle School. He's working with several other staff, and one of the things they did was decide to stagger the start of middle school after winter break (only 8th grade for the first two days, then adding 7th on the 3rd and 6th on the 4th) in order to "allow for an intensive reset of all daily routines and ways of engaging with other students and adults in the building."

We have been at TR since our kids were small, but our oldest child left for 5th this year because we didn't feel confident about the TR Middle School path -- suffice to say, reading the information being released to us has made us very relieved we made that call.

That really reads like the network doesn't have a lot of faith in the MS principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

It's been a hard year at the middle school, based on the information they are sharing with elementary families. They had a not insignificant number of teacher vacancies -- that's not an issue unique to TR, but obviously that was causing issues both for students and teachers. It sounds like teachers are very unhappy, as the interim ED announced to the entire network that they are contracting with a neutral third party to initiate a query into staff complaints and perceptions into "recent workplace concerns expressed by Middle School staff." Shortly before break they announced that they were pulling one of the elementary school Spanish teachers from 4th Street to take a lead role on an initiative called the "One Crew, One Continuous Journey" designed to "rebuild the culture" in the Middle School. He's working with several other staff, and one of the things they did was decide to stagger the start of middle school after winter break (only 8th grade for the first two days, then adding 7th on the 3rd and 6th on the 4th) in order to "allow for an intensive reset of all daily routines and ways of engaging with other students and adults in the building."

We have been at TR since our kids were small, but our oldest child left for 5th this year because we didn't feel confident about the TR Middle School path -- suffice to say, reading the information being released to us has made us very relieved we made that call.

So to clarify: did the 8th graders return from winter break early, or did the 7th and 6th graders lose out on learning days?! How infuriating for MS students to miss out on school days for this nonsensical reason, not to mention a significant burden for parents.

I also understand that a number of ES teachers quit midyear.

We left TR this year after several years of an educational experience that fell short on so many levels--from the previous ED's refusal to re-open for in-person learning (wasn't that to placate the teachers? Funny how that didn't work out) to overall mistrust of leadership. We joined with other parents to try and raise concerns about behavior (specifically bullying) and the ED's performance, but were shocked at the number of parents who expressed support but failed to do so in any meaningful way. I sure hope parents are pushing back now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

It's been a hard year at the middle school, based on the information they are sharing with elementary families. They had a not insignificant number of teacher vacancies -- that's not an issue unique to TR, but obviously that was causing issues both for students and teachers. It sounds like teachers are very unhappy, as the interim ED announced to the entire network that they are contracting with a neutral third party to initiate a query into staff complaints and perceptions into "recent workplace concerns expressed by Middle School staff." Shortly before break they announced that they were pulling one of the elementary school Spanish teachers from 4th Street to take a lead role on an initiative called the "One Crew, One Continuous Journey" designed to "rebuild the culture" in the Middle School. He's working with several other staff, and one of the things they did was decide to stagger the start of middle school after winter break (only 8th grade for the first two days, then adding 7th on the 3rd and 6th on the 4th) in order to "allow for an intensive reset of all daily routines and ways of engaging with other students and adults in the building."

We have been at TR since our kids were small, but our oldest child left for 5th this year because we didn't feel confident about the TR Middle School path -- suffice to say, reading the information being released to us has made us very relieved we made that call.

So to clarify: did the 8th graders return from winter break early, or did the 7th and 6th graders lose out on learning days?! How infuriating for MS students to miss out on school days for this nonsensical reason, not to mention a significant burden for parents.

I also understand that a number of ES teachers quit midyear.

We left TR this year after several years of an educational experience that fell short on so many levels--from the previous ED's refusal to re-open for in-person learning (wasn't that to placate the teachers? Funny how that didn't work out) to overall mistrust of leadership. We joined with other parents to try and raise concerns about behavior (specifically bullying) and the ED's performance, but were shocked at the number of parents who expressed support but failed to do so in any meaningful way. I sure hope parents are pushing back now.

6th and 7th graders got an extended break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also interested in hearing about this.

We are doing the lottery this year for MS and considering putting down TR. But I'm really concerned about what I'm hearing in terms of the lack of leadership (and abyssmal leadership under former ED) from friends who recently left TR.

TR middle school is in major, major chaos.

Can you be more specific?

It's been a hard year at the middle school, based on the information they are sharing with elementary families. They had a not insignificant number of teacher vacancies -- that's not an issue unique to TR, but obviously that was causing issues both for students and teachers. It sounds like teachers are very unhappy, as the interim ED announced to the entire network that they are contracting with a neutral third party to initiate a query into staff complaints and perceptions into "recent workplace concerns expressed by Middle School staff." Shortly before break they announced that they were pulling one of the elementary school Spanish teachers from 4th Street to take a lead role on an initiative called the "One Crew, One Continuous Journey" designed to "rebuild the culture" in the Middle School. He's working with several other staff, and one of the things they did was decide to stagger the start of middle school after winter break (only 8th grade for the first two days, then adding 7th on the 3rd and 6th on the 4th) in order to "allow for an intensive reset of all daily routines and ways of engaging with other students and adults in the building."

We have been at TR since our kids were small, but our oldest child left for 5th this year because we didn't feel confident about the TR Middle School path -- suffice to say, reading the information being released to us has made us very relieved we made that call.

So to clarify: did the 8th graders return from winter break early, or did the 7th and 6th graders lose out on learning days?! How infuriating for MS students to miss out on school days for this nonsensical reason, not to mention a significant burden for parents.

I also understand that a number of ES teachers quit midyear.

We left TR this year after several years of an educational experience that fell short on so many levels--from the previous ED's refusal to re-open for in-person learning (wasn't that to placate the teachers? Funny how that didn't work out) to overall mistrust of leadership. We joined with other parents to try and raise concerns about behavior (specifically bullying) and the ED's performance, but were shocked at the number of parents who expressed support but failed to do so in any meaningful way. I sure hope parents are pushing back now.

They were losing instruction time daily due to general chaos. This was a way to reset. I don't think they did it lightly, rather, it shows both desperation but also a commitment to do better, if you ask me.