Deal Behavior

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is tough being a teacher in DCPS. There is no student accountability. We are constantly told to excuse student behavior for a myriad of reasons but given no support for the fallout. There is a reason for the high teacher turnover rate in DCPS despite the high salaries and Deal is no exception.

What needs to be done? What should parents do?

Vote the Mayor out, or take your kid to a better school.

One way to ease Deal overcrowding and remove some of the worse bahaving students at Deal is to end OOB feeder rights after fifth grade.

Racist much? Two of the craziest stories I've heard about behavior at Deal were caused by kids who live within walking distance of the school.

Sounds to me YOU are racist much?

PP above said nothing about race. S/he just shared an idea, based on either accurate or inaccurate data -- can you enlighten usbwith data?

So the earlier poster was alleging that the misbehaving kids at Deal are upper middle class white kids from Capital Hill & Brookland? How would the earlier poster make assumptions about what kids are OOB or does she have some magic power to determine where everyone lives?

Sorry but the earlier poster was making assumptions that the rowdy kids are AA and are OOB and the group that should be removed. I have no idea if either of those things are true but do know a couple of the craziest things that have happened at the school were caused by kids who walk to school.

And I'm pretty confident the earlier poster would be happy with a whiter Deal which he/she assumes would mean a better behaving student body.

No, no one said the misbehaving kids are OOB. They likely aren't. The point is that 1400 11-14 year olds in a building not meant to hold that many kids is a contributing factor the behavior problems and the difficulty in controlling the behavior. It is the one and only reason the hallways are chaotic and difficult to navigate and why the stairwells are flat out dangerously crowded. Address the crowding and a lot of this goes away.

This. It is too crowded. Needs to be addressed because it is creating unsafe conditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is tough being a teacher in DCPS. There is no student accountability. We are constantly told to excuse student behavior for a myriad of reasons but given no support for the fallout. There is a reason for the high teacher turnover rate in DCPS despite the high salaries and Deal is no exception.

What needs to be done? What should parents do?

Vote the Mayor out, or take your kid to a better school.

One way to ease Deal overcrowding and remove some of the worse bahaving students at Deal is to end OOB feeder rights after fifth grade.

Racist much? Two of the craziest stories I've heard about behavior at Deal were caused by kids who live within walking distance of the school.

Sounds to me YOU are racist much?

PP above said nothing about race. S/he just shared an idea, based on either accurate or inaccurate data -- can you enlighten usbwith data?

So the earlier poster was alleging that the misbehaving kids at Deal are upper middle class white kids from Capital Hill & Brookland? How would the earlier poster make assumptions about what kids are OOB or does she have some magic power to determine where everyone lives?

Sorry but the earlier poster was making assumptions that the rowdy kids are AA and are OOB and the group that should be removed. I have no idea if either of those things are true but do know a couple of the craziest things that have happened at the school were caused by kids who walk to school.

And I'm pretty confident the earlier poster would be happy with a whiter Deal which he/she assumes would mean a better behaving student body.

No, no one said the misbehaving kids are OOB. They likely aren't. The point is that 1400 11-14 year olds in a building not meant to hold that many kids is a contributing factor the behavior problems and the difficulty in controlling the behavior. It is the one and only reason the hallways are chaotic and difficult to navigate and why the stairwells are flat out dangerously crowded. Address the crowding and a lot of this goes away.

Actually yes, a PP said the following (on page 7 of this topic):

"One way to ease Deal overcrowding and remove some of the worse bahaving students at Deal is to end OOB feeder rights after fifth grade."

Setting aside the typo, this poster said that the some of the worse behaving students would be removed if DCPS ended OOB feeder rights after fifth grade. There is no other way to interpret that statement.

I agree that 1500+ 11-14 year old students is too many and part of the problem. I also think the Administration is strong and addressing the issues that will arise in any school with these characteristics.

[Anonymous]

Building Capacity is: 1200
They currently have over 1500 students enrolled

I do not care how many demountables there are -
you have 300 extra kids in the lunch room / in the halls / in the stairwells.

It is a problem and DCPS does not care. They will keep pressuring for OOB (They accepted last year)

Parents who have the means will put their children in private - when their child complains that they can't eat lunch b/c there is no place to sit and eat. The stress is real for these kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t another teacher get hit yesterday? And is there any truth to a kid setting someone else’s hair ON FIRE on purpose this week?

A different 7th grader hit a teacher yesterday. There are some out of control 7th graders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t another teacher get hit yesterday? And is there any truth to a kid setting someone else’s hair ON FIRE on purpose this week?

A different 7th grader hit a teacher yesterday. There are some out of control 7th graders.

What consequences do these kids get?

[Anonymous]

Building capacity changes by merely changing the space requirements per student. Deal isn’t overcrowded; it’s just big.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Building Capacity is: 1200
They currently have over 1500 students enrolled

I do not care how many demountables there are -
you have 300 extra kids in the lunch room / in the halls / in the stairwells.

It is a problem and DCPS does not care. They will keep pressuring for OOB (They accepted last year)

Parents who have the means will put their children in private - when their child complains that they can't eat lunch b/c there is no place to sit and eat. The stress is real for these kids.

(raises hand). Love the school, time in the classroom and ECs is fantastic, but the stress of the non-classroom time is real for some kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Building Capacity is: 1200
They currently have over 1500 students enrolled

I do not care how many demountables there are -
you have 300 extra kids in the lunch room / in the halls / in the stairwells.

It is a problem and DCPS does not care. They will keep pressuring for OOB (They accepted last year)

Parents who have the means will put their children in private - when their child complains that they can't eat lunch b/c there is no place to sit and eat. The stress is real for these kids.

300 kids too many, when the enrollment at the next largest middle school in DC is 392. The over enrollment at Deal is the equivalent of an entire middle school. Fix this DC!

[Anonymous]

It is overcrowded. DCPS does not care. Behavior will get worse unless they do something. But they won’t.

And apparently many parents do not see it as a problem. Just the way kids are and the parents survived it so how bad can it be?

Kids get the message from DCPS and from parents that they don’t care so why should the kids care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is overcrowded. DCPS does not care. Behavior will get worse unless they do something. But they won’t.

And apparently many parents do not see it as a problem. Just the way kids are and the parents survived it so how bad can it be?

Kids get the message from DCPS and from parents that they don’t care so why should the kids care?

Problem kids should be forced to enroll in an alternative school program not at Deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, 10:54 how on Earth do you even know this stuff. As far as I can tell my 6th grader almost never leaves his little hallway. None if this is on his radar at all. It's like he goes to a totally different school from what you just described.

Are you sure it’s not on his radar? Have you asked him about the stair incident? If not, ask him tonight and report back. Or ask him even general questions about behavior. If he totally oblivious to all of this you have nothing to worry about because he’s not involved or affected in the least bit. If

The stair incident: he heard a kid fell down the stairs and there was blood on the floor, but they cleaned it up. No one he knows actually saw it or the blood, so he wasn't even sure it was true. As to hallways, he says the teachers yell at kids for having their hoodies up and threaten detention if you walk too slow. He says that is kind of scary to him. That's about it.

I’d be in favor of banning hoodies altogether - not a good look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Building capacity changes by merely changing the space requirements per student. Deal isn’t overcrowded; it’s just big.

Ha. Guess you haven’t seen the cafeteria during lunch. It’s overcrwded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how many people whose kids with witnessing illegal or violent behavior are withdrawing your students.

I’m not. Most everything discussed, excluding the girl pushing the boy down the stairs—only because we didn’t have any, happened at my middle school. Pretty normal, IMHO. I think DC has a large number of pearl-clutching parents who want their kids to have some small town middle school experience. They just can’t deal with the reality that their children are attending a large urban middle school so they lash out at minorities, OOB, and poor kids. They have a chip on their shoulder that they can’t afford Sidwell or St. Albans/NCS.

Uh, no. And I’m not a Deal parent or at a feeder school so have no skin in the game. Sounds like major problems. Parents like you who don’t acknowledge it is bad for the school. Instead, parents should acknowledge it’s a problem, advocate that administration take action to address it, and have transparent consequences for these kids and follow thru.

The attitude that it’s nothing will just make the problem worst. Kids that get away with this will continue to do so and influence other kids. Worst of all, it’s distracting and disruptive to all the kids who want to learn.

Are you even a DCPS parent? Somehow I bet you are not.

You cannot have transparent consequences when there are minors involved.

No one said these incidents are minor or that anyone should get away with anything - please cut and paste where someone said that - but what I and others have said is that these incidents are not that unusual for a large and diverse middle school. I posted this last night but Deal is tame compared to what I dealt with at the same age.

Also there is no evidence that I am aware of that the school is not dealing with all of the incidents - aside from some allegations on this thread I've never heard that and we know one of the parties involved in an oft discussed incident and it was definitely dealt with though of course there are apparently other incidents and maybe some of those were not but our anecdotal experience is that the school is aggressively dealing with these issues.

Yes I have a child in DC in school.

The poster made incorrect and baseless assumptions about pearl clutching parents with chips on their shoulder whose kids did not get into private school.
They said this is normal - translate how you want but normal to most people implies expected, not of consequences. It sure is not serious or major, i.e minor.
Teacher turnover is high, and a teacher posted on here that administration is not supporting them in dealing with behavior problems.

When I say transparent consequences, I’m not talking about parents. I’m saying lay out consequences for behavior x, y, z to all staff and parents in a manual and these consequences are transparent to the staff and any teacher involved in the incident.

But carry on with eyes close and it’s all normal.

You are making a huge mistake in assuming that all of the posts on here are accurate or even from Deal parents.

There are many posts on here that echo the mostly positive (though still imperfect) experience we and other Deal parents we've spoken to have had. And there are some posts on here that to me sound like they are not even from current Deal parents and possibly not even from DCPS parents.

But whatever try to be snarky by stating that people are carrying on with their eyes closed as if you've got it all figure out from what you read on DCUM - I'm sure that makes you feel better about all the money you are spending on your kids private school in DC.

So you obviously know all the fake posts and trolls? They also happen to be the negative ones you say?
Just like you know my child is in private school.
You are wrong on both counts.
Want to do a 3rd strike out?

Ah so you are a charter school parent - I assume that is not my third strike? Those are my favorites.

And whatever my problems guessing I'm still better at it than you are at reading comprehension. There are lots of posts on here from folks who have referenced known incidents at the school who have raised fair concerns about how things are going.

And there are lots of posts on the thread from people who don't seem to know what they are talking about and are trading in generalizations.

I've already read this thread - maybe you should go back and re-read it?

Strike 3, you are out.

I make logical statements. You resort to stereotyping without knowing facts (private kid) and attacking (sure low reading comprehension from someone who got college credit for AP English and who has an advance degree). Of course you know all the posts on this thread who are from people who don’t know what they are talking about. I suggest you go back and read the thread from beginning until now.

It’s pontless to a have a logical discussion from someone who takes an emotional stance and makes baseless statements. So I won’t be wasting my time responding to your weak arguments. As least other Deal parents on here acknowledge the problem and that it’s a big issue. But let me guess, all these posts are from people who don’t know what they are talking about. You are the authority on the real and fake posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The stories are all true.

It has been a rough year for a behavior for some [i]kids at Deal. The school is overcrowded and there is a lot of energy. If your kid can tune it out and do the work, they are fine, IMO.

There have been significant admin, teacher and staff departures and "leaves of absence" by key people who keep the school running, so others have had to pick up the slack, or not. There is little internal communication to teachers and staff or external communication to parents, which creates confusion. I'm still trying to figure out if this is strategic or simply a personality quirk.

Middle school drama seems to have escalated to new levels. There are more fights this year. The girl trying to kill herself during school was scary. Girl drama/violence/cruelty in 7th grade has reached new and concerning levels. A lot of bad language, N word, homophobic slurs. Some kids are bolder, the girl who taunted the teacher and he reacted which resulted in him getting arrested during school, the girl pushing the boy down the stairs.

As always there are edibles coming into the school. A major incident this year resulted in suspensions. Selling weed and smoking in Fort Reno park (although this has always been the case) And now pills (xanax, ritalin) are available. Also, there is drinking and sex (BJ's are a thing). This is a small subset of kids.

Yes, some kids roam the hallways (they know where to avoid the cameras). Some of them slide into other classrooms to disrupt class and get attention when there are subs. The hype beast kids go to the bathroom to place orders online when there is a big drop.

Social media is awful. Group chat drama seeps into school and admin has to deal with it -- it's toxic and exhausting.

There are good and great activities if your kid will participate. The track coach is great, theater program great, wrestling good, good clubs (scrabble, geo plunge), good dance squad. The choir is great. Baseball is off to a rough start. counselors are excellent, but they need more help and people esp for 7th grade. The assistant principals seem good and responsive. Some parents do a lot to support the school.

Like every school, there are good and bad teachers. Some teachers are really not bright but admin know the weak links and create teams with a balance so no team gets four bad teachers.

I don't like the constant police presence. There seems to be uniformed police presence outside and INSIDE the school a lot. I've gone to pick up for appts and there are really large, imposing officers checking in on students. This is alarming.

My kids are fine but hope it calms down next year.

Some things never change. Anyone remember the story about what was going on in Arlington in 1999? I do. We were all shocked and that was 20 years ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/07/08/parents-are-alarmed-by-an-unsettling-new-fad-in-middle-schools-oral-sex/4130d1ef-5e0f-4078-99ec-faa75fe294c5/?utm_term=.f897efbce627

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is overcrowded. DCPS does not care. Behavior will get worse unless they do something. But they won’t.

And apparently many parents do not see it as a problem. Just the way kids are and the parents survived it so how bad can it be?

Kids get the message from DCPS and from parents that they don’t care so why should the kids care?