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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
A quarter of the teachers at Lakewood Elementary are leaving.
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Anonymous
She also mentioned she liked data, That is so ironic! Didn't she compare the attrition rate over the years at Lakewood? She is not honest at all. |
Anonymous
We can only judge based on actions and the principal has been dismissive and hostile towards the previously harmonious school community. It is weird to harp on antiracist ideology in a majority minority community. |
Anonymous
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Her catchphrase she loves to sign off with is “One band, one sound.”
It’s more like “Her band, her sound.” |
Anonymous
Weird that she loves that analogy so much, when what she has done is basically fire the first chair of every section of the orchestra, reassigned the violin section to play cello instead and made the clarinetists switch to oboe. And then she tells us it was because they've been in leadership positions too long and it's time to let other people have a turn. That band is not going to sound so good when each section is now led by people previously in the second/third chair, half are playing new instruments, and the new musicians coming in have no performance experience. I am sure this will end well. /sarcasm |
Anonymous
Weird that she loves that analogy so much, when what she has done is basically fire the first chair of every section of the orchestra, reassigned the violin section to play cello instead and made the clarinetists switch to oboe. And then she tells us it was because they've been in leadership positions too long and it's time to let other people have a turn. That band is not going to sound so good when each section is now led by people previously in the second/third chair, half are playing new instruments, and the new musicians coming in have no performance experience. I am sure this will end well. /sarcasm |
Anonymous
Or "My way or the highway" |
Anonymous
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Maybe it is considered a good thing for "equity"
Where are the Latinx and Asian players in last night NBA Final? in 2023 Women's College World Series title?
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Anonymous
There was a teacher earlier in the chain who said this was not entirely uncommon, and as a long-time MCPS parent, it doesn't shock me that much either. I know this is all scary as a parent, but teachers moving between grades is pretty normal in my experience. Sometimes a grade level team is very strong, and another team needs to be bolstered. If you have four fantastic teachers at one grade level, you might need several of them to change grades to serve as team lead on another grade level. Teachers changing schools is also pretty normal in my experience, either to get a new experience, go from full-time to part-time, or just to reduce their commute. I don't know. I've read this whole thread, and as an outsider this kind of feels like a ESH situation. The principal seems to be communicating poorly. Parents have gotten themselves whipped up, and I've seen Jeff delete several racially charged posts from this thread that appeared to be from LES parents. Everyone is acting badly, and hopefully the summer break will be a much-needed chance to turn down the temperature and start fresh in the fall. |
Anonymous
This is what I had hoped to feel after the meeting. However, the Principal confirmed that in Feb, zero teachers wanted to leave the school. After the placement survey, and interviews with the principal, 25% of the teachers are leaving. You're right, the principal is not communicating. Important matters such as this has been hidden from parents and when confronted, she just added more gas to the fire. |
Anonymous
A quarter of the teachers should rotate every year as a matter of policy to keep the staffs balanced across schools. |
Anonymous
A quarter of teachers should move to different schools every year? What kind of wacky policy is that? Nobody cares about kids and community in terms of diversity now. |
Anonymous
Oh, this is fun. She's not the only one who likes data. Does she really think in an affluent school, where parents are (on the whole) highly educated and VERY FOCUSED on achievement are not going to dig into the data as well? Many of these parents have technical backgrounds and are not afraid to ask questions. Here's a link to an MCPS-published report, "Study of Teacher Workforce in Montgomery County Public Schools: Attrition and Mobility": https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2019/2nd%20Teacher%20Workforce%20Report%20Final.pdf Posting the link here for full transparency, but the gist of the data is that MoCo schools generally have low attrition/mobility; teachers who are LESS likely to move are teachers who have had many years of MCPS experience, have Masters degrees, have been at a school for a long time, live in the county, and work at schools with lower FARMS rate. Based on what I know about the teachers at Lakewood who are leaving, Lakewood teachers have more of the "less likely to move" characteristics. Worth noting: the report says "teachers in schools that had a change of principal were more likely to move than their peers who did not experience a change of principal." This is consistent with what Principal Kelly has said; what parents have issue with is the 25% rate, especially of teachers who are well-respected and beloved by the community. Page 12 of the report notes that in only one of the years of analysis (they covered 8, from 2010 to 2017) that principal change was a significant factor in teacher mobility and attrition. Page 19 says "final factor of interest is the principal’s gender, from a study of teacher turnover at all grade levels in New York State over 38 years (Husain, Matsa, & Miller, 2018). Specifically, male teachers were significantly more likely to move from a female principal and to request transfer to a male principal, based on multivariate logistic regression." The majority of the teachers leaving Lakewood this year are female, so this is not likely a factor. Page 33 of the report shows that change in principal/school leadership increases odds ratio (OR) of teachers leaving, in a range from 0.91 (less likely to leave, in 2014) to 2.34 (more likely to leave, in 2012). It's presented in table that compares other factors affecting teacher retention, and change in principal in general has less effect than whether or not the teacher has a masters degree or higher. Summary: yes, teachers are more likely to move when a new principal comes in, but not 25% of them. And why would 25% leave when she claimed "95%" of the teachers leaving are doing so on good terms? She has insisted multiple times that there was no animosity between teachers and admin. Yet, at the same time, she says teachers who talk about leaving and their reasons why are being "unprofessional" and that they are the ones causing issues in the community by talking about it. So, which is it? The teachers (95%, allegedly) are all wonderfully happy under her leadership but have to leave for personal reasons, or these teachers (I guess that 5% that are unhappy - making it, what, 2 teachers out of 40? Still a far cry from 10 teachers leaving) are unprofessional and speaking out about it is causing "dissension" in the community? So much dissension that nearly a quarter of all Lakewood guardianss made time to attend a Monday night Zoom meeting on short notice? (And those are just the parents that managed to log in.) Also, can we talk about how problematic it is to call it "dissent"? Dissent is defined as "the expression or holding of opinions at variance with those previously, commonly or officially held." As Principal, she is the head of the school, but not of our community. If the community disagrees with her policies, it's not her place to tell us our reactions are wrong. Even more insulting is the idea that the changes that she is implementing are to the benefit of students, changes that she made while overruling teachers and parents. Are you really going to tell a parent that they don't know what's good for their children? I'm sure someone is going to argue with me that these are pre-pandemic numbers, so I went ahead and did some more research. MCPS hasn't released another report on teacher mobility and attrition since 2019, which is what I just cited, so I am now referring to another report from the Maryland State Department Education, the MSDE Updates and Maryland's Teacher Workforce: Supply, Demand and Diversity (2022), which has the latest statistics. Link: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/meeting_material/2022/aib%20-%20133059203701707978%20-%20AIB%20Presentation%208.25.22.pdf Just some insights frpm this report that people might find interesting: page 8:
Editorializing here: $9-$21k times 10 is $90,000 to $210,000 that is now being spent on separation, recruitment, hiring and training that could be spent elsewhere. Page 12: a chart showing Maryland teacher attrition by LEA. Montgomery County is one of the areas with lowest teacher attrition, at 8%. Page 13: discusses teacher attrition by years of experience. "New teachers are the most likely to leave, with 13.6% leaving at less than 3 years." Nationally, the statistic is 17% of beginning teachers leaving in the first five years. That's interesting; many of the teachers leaving Lakewood have been there a long time. Decades. So if we're bringing in new/inexperienced teachers to replace them, it's nice to know that on average 13.6% of them will leave in the next 3 years, which means more time and resources ($9-$21k per teacher) will be spent hiring new ones. Really looking forward to a school full of new, inexperienced teachers when my other child is old enough to attend Lakewood. |
Anonymous
I think when most people leave a job,they do their best to not burn bridges. They may need references and if they stay in the same organization they don't things to come back and get them. So it may very well be that the reasons Dr. Kelly gave were the reasons given to her. I also think it's common that when new leadership comes, they do shake things up and surround themselves with people that they bring in. If you look at it, Dr. Kelly kind of did what you're supposed to. Come in, observe, initially not shake things up and after her first year start implementing her changes. One concern I have is if the changes she's doing is for the benefit of the students or for her own agenda. What some people aren't mentioning is that some members of the community are supposedly talking to the teachers and have the "inside scoop". There were signs during the meeting that supports this and was kind of funny. And I think Dr. Kelly knows this and is why she made the comment about how it's unprofessional for teachers to talk about this kind of thing to the community and wanted to talk to her team after the meeting. Some parents might disagree but some of the teachers leaving are beloved in the community and members of the community know them on a personal level. This goes back to if Dr. Kelly really has a pulse on the community and school or if she really cares. One can argue that it's just a disgruntled employee(s) slandering their soon to be former employer. And maybe Dr. Kelly knew they were that kind of person and is why she doesn't want them on her staff and tried to push them out. But I think when some people who say, "This is normal...", they don't understand is that some of these things are coming straight out of the teachers mouths, which is why there is so much concern from the community. |
Anonymous
Lakewood changed Principal 6-7 years ago and couple times before that in the last 10-15 years and no significant attrition. It’s not normal at all to suddenly lose 25% for a stable school. |
Anonymous
Whoever said that lack of comment sense and sympathy, he/she might need to talk to his/her boss to rotate his job responsibility and offices every year to experience how it feels |