What’s going on at Wootton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Bostic, who is a AP and just started his principal internship at Northwood, will be acting principal at Wootton starting tomorrow.

Huge loss to Northwood and the Silver Spring community. Very respected former teacher at SSIMS. There was some hope he would get Blair.

Big pickup for Wootton.

So who's going to be the acting principal at Northwood then? Bostic was supposed to be running the school for the next 2 months as principal intern, while Garrick was at Einstein supporting its principal intern.

Garrick is probably going back to Northwood and someone else will support Einstein. Strange that wasn’t made clear.

It said they will identify an "acting principal" - it didn't say that Garrick would come back.

Northwood letter says they will work with Dr. Garrick to find an acting assistant principal (not principal). I think it is implied Garrick is back at Northwood although they should have been clearer on that.

Maybe Dr. Fine who was supposed to be visiting principal at Northwood will now move over to Einstein.

Yup, this is what is happening. Just got the letter from Einstein.

Bostic: Northwood to Wootton
Garrick: Einstein to Northwood
Fine: Northwood to Einstein

Dr. Bostic is too good for Wootton. They don’t deserve him. What a horrible thing to do to put him in such a hostile racist environment not to mention he’s already a beloved member of the Gladiator community. This is a massive loss for Northwood.
-Northwood parent

A black kid putting the n word on a random desk now means the entire student body of 2200 kids and their families are now a hostile racist environment? I mean come on now.

This same thing can be played out in any high school in Montgomery county.

Back decades ago when I was in MCPS, if I knew something like that could get news of the incident written up in the Washington Post, I'd be doing it just for purposes of pranking. That would be serious bragging rights among friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

THANNNNKKK YOU!!! This is the part that matters!

The fact that people want to brush off FAILED LEADERSHIP because Doug Nelson is "nice" is precisely what is broken about MCPS. People should occupy roles and positions because they are COMPETENT and EFFECTIVE.

"Nice" is not a meaningful quality in a leader.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

I can agree that MCPS's DEI department and training are a laughing stock. But Doug left himself open for precisely this kind of thing by not complying with training requirements.

If he thought the trainings were sucky or ineffective, he should have said so out loud and lobbied to improve them. Instead, he thought he could do what he wanted without consequence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

Imagine firing a Principal with one of the higher test scores in the county because he decided not to waste his staffs time while allowing principals who's basic reading scores are garbage to persist.

Doug Nelson has VERY LITTLE to do with Wootton's high test scores and you know it. Those test scores are a reflection of the socioeconomic status and makeup of that school community. They were high before Doug Nelson got there. Cut it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

Imagine firing a Principal with one of the higher test scores in the county because he decided not to waste his staffs time while allowing principals who's basic reading scores are garbage to persist.

Doug Nelson has VERY LITTLE to do with Wootton's high test scores and you know it. Those test scores are a reflection of the socioeconomic status and makeup of that school community. They were high before Doug Nelson got there. Cut it out.

Great. So when other schools post poor test scores, we don't blame MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

Imagine firing a Principal with one of the higher test scores in the county because he decided not to waste his staffs time while allowing principals who's basic reading scores are garbage to persist.

Doug Nelson has VERY LITTLE to do with Wootton's high test scores and you know it. Those test scores are a reflection of the socioeconomic status and makeup of that school community. They were high before Doug Nelson got there. Cut it out.

Great. So when other schools post poor test scores, we don't blame MCPS.

I've never given credit or blame for a principal for a school's test scores. That's MCPS's MO. I do think you can hold the system accountable for disappointing test scores though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

No one told you to watch TikTok.

If you do not want to hear what the superintendent said at a public forum, don’t watch. Stay stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Bostic, who is a AP and just started his principal internship at Northwood, will be acting principal at Wootton starting tomorrow.

Huge loss to Northwood and the Silver Spring community. Very respected former teacher at SSIMS. There was some hope he would get Blair.

Big pickup for Wootton.

So who's going to be the acting principal at Northwood then? Bostic was supposed to be running the school for the next 2 months as principal intern, while Garrick was at Einstein supporting its principal intern.

Garrick is probably going back to Northwood and someone else will support Einstein. Strange that wasn’t made clear.

It said they will identify an "acting principal" - it didn't say that Garrick would come back.

Northwood letter says they will work with Dr. Garrick to find an acting assistant principal (not principal). I think it is implied Garrick is back at Northwood although they should have been clearer on that.

Maybe Dr. Fine who was supposed to be visiting principal at Northwood will now move over to Einstein.

Yup, this is what is happening. Just got the letter from Einstein.

Bostic: Northwood to Wootton
Garrick: Einstein to Northwood
Fine: Northwood to Einstein

Dr. Bostic is too good for Wootton. They don’t deserve him. What a horrible thing to do to put him in such a hostile racist environment not to mention he’s already a beloved member of the Gladiator community. This is a massive loss for Northwood.
-Northwood parent

🤗🤗

[Anonymous]

Very disappointing dialogue, but what do we expect on the anonymous forum that is DCUM?

We SHOULD expect more from the highly educated and affluent community of Wootton HS.

Human decency (or your parents) should move you to disgust at racism in a local high school, anywhere truly. Responding with “but what about me” is immature, insensitive, and clearly indicates why MCPS failed the DEI assessment.

Racism is wrong.
Antisemitism is wrong.

Neither are kids just being kids. They cause irreparable damage and contribute to systemic issues in our society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

THANNNNKKK YOU!!! This is the part that matters!

The fact that people want to brush off FAILED LEADERSHIP because Doug Nelson is "nice" is precisely what is broken about MCPS. People should occupy roles and positions because they are COMPETENT and EFFECTIVE.

"Nice" is not a meaningful quality in a leader.

+ 1000!
This is how you start to change a culture. If principals think they can pick and choose what policies to follow with no consequences, they'll do whatever they want. This sends a message that the superintendant means business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very disappointing dialogue, but what do we expect on the anonymous forum that is DCUM?

We SHOULD expect more from the highly educated and affluent community of Wootton HS.

Human decency (or your parents) should move you to disgust at racism in a local high school, anywhere truly. Responding with “but what about me” is immature, insensitive, and clearly indicates why MCPS failed the DEI assessment.

Racism is wrong.
Antisemitism is wrong.

Neither are kids just being kids. They cause irreparable damage and contribute to systemic issues in our society.

What are you babbling about? No one said racism is good.

Many people say that MCPS meddling makes racism worse by stoking antagonism and removing safety rules and enforcement from school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

DEI training is beyond wasteful. It only further divides teachers from one another based on race (not to mention dividing students on the basis of skin color, leading to MORE racial division and racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very disappointing dialogue, but what do we expect on the anonymous forum that is DCUM?

We SHOULD expect more from the highly educated and affluent community of Wootton HS.

Human decency (or your parents) should move you to disgust at racism in a local high school, anywhere truly. Responding with “but what about me” is immature, insensitive, and clearly indicates why MCPS failed the DEI assessment.

Racism is wrong.
Antisemitism is wrong.

Neither are kids just being kids. They cause irreparable damage and contribute to systemic issues in our society.

What are you babbling about? No one said racism is good.

Many people say that MCPS meddling makes racism worse by stoking antagonism and removing safety rules and enforcement from school.

MCPS is not "meddling." It is enforcing its rules, policies and practices. The school does not belong to Doug Nelson and his supporters. He is not the King of Wootton. He cannot do as he pleases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Why are you ass
Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

DEI training is beyond wasteful. It only further divides teachers from one another based on race (not to mention dividing students on the basis of skin color, leading to MORE racial division and racism.

Why are you assuming the training was DEI? It sounds more like the training was in MCPS policy on hate speech and how to respond according to policy. The principal can disagree with policy but he can’t go rogue and just not have his staff so required training or have his staff follow MCPS. That is nuts. Principals don’t get to pick and choose what MCPS policy they follow. If they don’t like policy they can speak out and they can quit but they can’t just ignore. I do not understand why people are defending this. If it is scores, they are down under his regime not up. He started at a 5 star ranked school on the Maryland report card that now dropped down to 4. Sounds like he was given a high performing school to run that got worse, that he didn’t follow policy, and that there were two high profile racist incidents that were poorly managed (policy not followed) under his watch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

I can agree that MCPS's DEI department and training are a laughing stock. But Doug left himself open for precisely this kind of thing by not complying with training requirements.

If he thought the trainings were sucky or ineffective, he should have said so out loud and lobbied to improve them. Instead, he thought he could do what he wanted without consequence.

It’s December. If this training was mandatory, it sounds like MCPS administration and the superintendent just realizing it wasn’t done in August is just as fault. This school was the only one in the hundreds that somehow slipped thru the cracks on mandatory training. Come on lol