MCPS Hires Nancy Navarro to Clean Up Its Messes and Fix Its Relationship Problems

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I hope county council sees what a sham this is and laughs in their faces. Why does McKnight always need to hire someone else to do her job? How much is this costing the system?

The council would laugh, except they are asked to fund this ever increasing number of high-priced central office staff. I hope the council says no to the budget increase the school district is asking for next year.

Does anyone know how many central office staff there are? There are approx 11,000 non-teacher staff. That includes everyone from lunch ladies to principals in schools. But that's a 16 to 1 student to (non-teacher) staff ratio which seems crazy.

Security, paras, bus drivers, building services, speech, OT, PT, playground aides, etc. It's a long list of non-teaching positions to make things run.

The fundamental concern with Navarro's hire is that McKnight is not interested in solving her relationship problems with council members and the county executive. She is making an expensive outsourcing through Nancy Navarro to try to solve these relationship problems, but that won't work. You can't outsource your relationship problems - you have to manage that issue yourself. That is a big part of McKnight's job, and if she is unwilling to do it, and/or is uninterested in doing it, she should leave. McKnight has also made a flawed assumption that past and present council members like each other. They do not.

Same thing McKnight did with hiring the outside public relations firm for “crisis communications”. Rather than take responsibility to fix the broken relationship between her administration and MCPS students/parents, she chose to outsource it. She clearly has no interest in investing her own time on these efforts so it can’t be a priority at all for her.

Delegating these responsibilities to capable proxies like this firm or Ms Navarro seems like responsibile to me.

What it looks like is that she’s trying to cynically buy her way out of trouble instead of really internalizing the problems and sincerely trying to address them in a forthright and transparent manner.

She’s lost a lot of respect. This Navarro hire may be smart in the short term to save her job, but at the macro level it just reinforces that she’s a weak leader that has seemingly been in way over her head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I hope county council sees what a sham this is and laughs in their faces. Why does McKnight always need to hire someone else to do her job? How much is this costing the system?

The council would laugh, except they are asked to fund this ever increasing number of high-priced central office staff. I hope the council says no to the budget increase the school district is asking for next year.

Does anyone know how many central office staff there are? There are approx 11,000 non-teacher staff. That includes everyone from lunch ladies to principals in schools. But that's a 16 to 1 student to (non-teacher) staff ratio which seems crazy.

Security, paras, bus drivers, building services, speech, OT, PT, playground aides, etc. It's a long list of non-teaching positions to make things run.

The fundamental concern with Navarro's hire is that McKnight is not interested in solving her relationship problems with council members and the county executive. She is making an expensive outsourcing through Nancy Navarro to try to solve these relationship problems, but that won't work. You can't outsource your relationship problems - you have to manage that issue yourself. That is a big part of McKnight's job, and if she is unwilling to do it, and/or is uninterested in doing it, she should leave. McKnight has also made a flawed assumption that past and present council members like each other. They do not.

Same thing McKnight did with hiring the outside public relations firm for “crisis communications”. Rather than take responsibility to fix the broken relationship between her administration and MCPS students/parents, she chose to outsource it. She clearly has no interest in investing her own time on these efforts so it can’t be a priority at all for her.

Delegating these responsibilities to capable proxies like this firm or Ms Navarro seems like responsibile to me.

What it looks like is that she’s trying to cynically buy her way out of trouble instead of really internalizing the problems and sincerely trying to address them in a forthright and transparent manner.

She’s lost a lot of respect. This Navarro hire may be smart in the short term to save her job, but at the macro level it just reinforces that she’s a weak leader that has seemingly been in way over her head.

And let's not forget how little this hire will do to help students and will probably do harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is she currently out sick?

She’s back. You can tell because there are new scandals like this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I hope county council sees what a sham this is and laughs in their faces. Why does McKnight always need to hire someone else to do her job? How much is this costing the system?

The council would laugh, except they are asked to fund this ever increasing number of high-priced central office staff. I hope the council says no to the budget increase the school district is asking for next year.

Does anyone know how many central office staff there are? There are approx 11,000 non-teacher staff. That includes everyone from lunch ladies to principals in schools. But that's a 16 to 1 student to (non-teacher) staff ratio which seems crazy.

Security, paras, bus drivers, building services, speech, OT, PT, playground aides, etc. It's a long list of non-teaching positions to make things run.

The fundamental concern with Navarro's hire is that McKnight is not interested in solving her relationship problems with council members and the county executive. She is making an expensive outsourcing through Nancy Navarro to try to solve these relationship problems, but that won't work. You can't outsource your relationship problems - you have to manage that issue yourself. That is a big part of McKnight's job, and if she is unwilling to do it, and/or is uninterested in doing it, she should leave. McKnight has also made a flawed assumption that past and present council members like each other. They do not.

Same thing McKnight did with hiring the outside public relations firm for “crisis communications”. Rather than take responsibility to fix the broken relationship between her administration and MCPS students/parents, she chose to outsource it. She clearly has no interest in investing her own time on these efforts so it can’t be a priority at all for her.

Delegating these responsibilities to capable proxies like this firm or Ms Navarro seems like responsibile to me.

What it looks like is that she’s trying to cynically buy her way out of trouble instead of really internalizing the problems and sincerely trying to address them in a forthright and transparent manner.

She’s lost a lot of respect. This Navarro hire may be smart in the short term to save her job, but at the macro level it just reinforces that she’s a weak leader that has seemingly been in way over her head.

And let's not forget how little this hire will do to help students and will probably do harm.

She's an equity crusader. If you believe that's good for students, then she's great, but if stifling the potential of high-achieving students isn't helpful to you then she will likely be bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how many friends Nancy Navarro has on the current council. I think she is a very savvy player and her name carries some influence, but she's been off the council for a year now and memories are short. To me, a lot of Dr. McKnight's problems would be better solved by going to the COB and having heart to heart conversations with councilmembers instead of relying on scripted and occasionally misleading talking points in public sessions.

They (CC) don't trust her (MM) because she hasn't done anything to gain their trust. MCPS begged for a tax increase and believe me, there's nothing politicians want to do less than a tax increase. But they did it, and now the system is crashing and burning even more. She promised great things would happen with that extra money, and what do we have? Front page washington post articles about abusive working conditions, multiple large dollar settlements for sexual assault cases, protests happening outside the BOE regularly, and then she disappears for health reasons for a month in the middle of it while half her "cabinet" is acting?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how many friends Nancy Navarro has on the current council. I think she is a very savvy player and her name carries some influence, but she's been off the council for a year now and memories are short. To me, a lot of Dr. McKnight's problems would be better solved by going to the COB and having heart to heart conversations with councilmembers instead of relying on scripted and occasionally misleading talking points in public sessions.

They (CC) don't trust her (MM) because she hasn't done anything to gain their trust. MCPS begged for a tax increase and believe me, there's nothing politicians want to do less than a tax increase. But they did it, and now the system is crashing and burning even more. She promised great things would happen with that extra money, and what do we have? Front page washington post articles about abusive working conditions, multiple large dollar settlements for sexual assault cases, protests happening outside the BOE regularly, and then she disappears for health reasons for a month in the middle of it while half her "cabinet" is acting?

+1

Shame on the pols for giving it to her.

Look McKnight is a hack but she has a near impossible wall to climb - and that’s the culture of MCPS. It’s mean. The staff is mean. To each other. Mean to children and mean to parents. It’s why we left.

Until a leader gets at the core of the meanness and selfishness no amount of money will improve outcomes. The budget will bankrupt the tax payers of MoCo before they likely find the right one, if they ever find one at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I hope county council sees what a sham this is and laughs in their faces. Why does McKnight always need to hire someone else to do her job? How much is this costing the system?

The council would laugh, except they are asked to fund this ever increasing number of high-priced central office staff. I hope the council says no to the budget increase the school district is asking for next year.

Does anyone know how many central office staff there are? There are approx 11,000 non-teacher staff. That includes everyone from lunch ladies to principals in schools. But that's a 16 to 1 student to (non-teacher) staff ratio which seems crazy.

Security, paras, bus drivers, building services, speech, OT, PT, playground aides, etc. It's a long list of non-teaching positions to make things run.

The fundamental concern with Navarro's hire is that McKnight is not interested in solving her relationship problems with council members and the county executive. She is making an expensive outsourcing through Nancy Navarro to try to solve these relationship problems, but that won't work. You can't outsource your relationship problems - you have to manage that issue yourself. That is a big part of McKnight's job, and if she is unwilling to do it, and/or is uninterested in doing it, she should leave. McKnight has also made a flawed assumption that past and present council members like each other. They do not.

Same thing McKnight did with hiring the outside public relations firm for “crisis communications”. Rather than take responsibility to fix the broken relationship between her administration and MCPS students/parents, she chose to outsource it. She clearly has no interest in investing her own time on these efforts so it can’t be a priority at all for her.

Delegating these responsibilities to capable proxies like this firm or Ms Navarro seems like responsibile to me.

What it looks like is that she’s trying to cynically buy her way out of trouble instead of really internalizing the problems and sincerely trying to address them in a forthright and transparent manner.

She’s lost a lot of respect. This Navarro hire may be smart in the short term to save her job, but at the macro level it just reinforces that she’s a weak leader that has seemingly been in way over her head.

I don't know. That seems like a stretch, but sure, there are some people here who will find fault with anything she does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how many friends Nancy Navarro has on the current council. I think she is a very savvy player and her name carries some influence, but she's been off the council for a year now and memories are short. To me, a lot of Dr. McKnight's problems would be better solved by going to the COB and having heart to heart conversations with councilmembers instead of relying on scripted and occasionally misleading talking points in public sessions.

They (CC) don't trust her (MM) because she hasn't done anything to gain their trust. MCPS begged for a tax increase and believe me, there's nothing politicians want to do less than a tax increase. But they did it, and now the system is crashing and burning even more. She promised great things would happen with that extra money, and what do we have? Front page washington post articles about abusive working conditions, multiple large dollar settlements for sexual assault cases, protests happening outside the BOE regularly, and then she disappears for health reasons for a month in the middle of it while half her "cabinet" is acting?

+1

Shame on the pols for giving it to her.

Look McKnight is a hack but she has a near impossible wall to climb - and that’s the culture of MCPS. It’s mean. The staff is mean. To each other. Mean to children and mean to parents. It’s why we left.

Until a leader gets at the core of the meanness and selfishness no amount of money will improve outcomes. The budget will bankrupt the tax payers of MoCo before they likely find the right one, if they ever find one at all.

I think this gets at the heart of so much of this. Dr. McKnight isn’t the right person for the job, and I suspect the BOE agrees at this point, but the whole MCPS culture is mean. To the core. Mean mean mean. My colleagues who have left the county still have emotional damage from the experience of working in MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I hope county council sees what a sham this is and laughs in their faces. Why does McKnight always need to hire someone else to do her job? How much is this costing the system?

The council would laugh, except they are asked to fund this ever increasing number of high-priced central office staff. I hope the council says no to the budget increase the school district is asking for next year.

Does anyone know how many central office staff there are? There are approx 11,000 non-teacher staff. That includes everyone from lunch ladies to principals in schools. But that's a 16 to 1 student to (non-teacher) staff ratio which seems crazy.

Security, paras, bus drivers, building services, speech, OT, PT, playground aides, etc. It's a long list of non-teaching positions to make things run.

The fundamental concern with Navarro's hire is that McKnight is not interested in solving her relationship problems with council members and the county executive. She is making an expensive outsourcing through Nancy Navarro to try to solve these relationship problems, but that won't work. You can't outsource your relationship problems - you have to manage that issue yourself. That is a big part of McKnight's job, and if she is unwilling to do it, and/or is uninterested in doing it, she should leave. McKnight has also made a flawed assumption that past and present council members like each other. They do not.

Same thing McKnight did with hiring the outside public relations firm for “crisis communications”. Rather than take responsibility to fix the broken relationship between her administration and MCPS students/parents, she chose to outsource it. She clearly has no interest in investing her own time on these efforts so it can’t be a priority at all for her.

Delegating these responsibilities to capable proxies like this firm or Ms Navarro seems like responsibile to me.

What it looks like is that she’s trying to cynically buy her way out of trouble instead of really internalizing the problems and sincerely trying to address them in a forthright and transparent manner.

She’s lost a lot of respect. This Navarro hire may be smart in the short term to save her job, but at the macro level it just reinforces that she’s a weak leader that has seemingly been in way over her head.

I don't know. That seems like a stretch, but sure, there are some people here who will find fault with anything she does.

Her handling of the Biedelman situation was deeply reported in the Washington Post. There isn’t the need to make up a reason to find fault with her leadership.

[Anonymous]

And yet another thread circles back to bash McKnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And yet another thread circles back to bash McKnight.

She made and announced the hire. It seems fair to comment on whether it was a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nancy Navarro spent 13 years (I think) on the County Council, where she accomplished nothing except getting re-elected. So whoever is going to do this work at MCPS, I don't think it will be her.

She was there last night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nancy Navarro spent 13 years (I think) on the County Council, where she accomplished nothing except getting re-elected. So whoever is going to do this work at MCPS, I don't think it will be her.

She was there last night.

And yet MCPS still hasn’t released her contract.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And yet another thread circles back to bash McKnight.

Spending money to hire Navarro and manage perception instead of focusing on improving academics?

You're surprised, how exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet another thread circles back to bash McKnight.

Spending money to hire Navarro and manage perception instead of focusing on improving academics?

You're surprised, how exactly?

The equity crusade is just about optics, not outcomes, so not surprised at all.