Recommend Hardy-feeding elementary for family new (again) to DC

[Anonymous]

Hardy is terrible vaping and drugs .
Kids fighting and many teachers absent. Terrible place and the bad behavior don't have any consequences for some reason????!

[Anonymous]

Hardy was better pre-Covid, new principal, and this year's budget cuts. Hopefully things will improve next year.

The no-consequences 'discipline' policy is the fault of the DC Council. (David Grosso is a bozo.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton was amazing for both of my kids.
Hardy has been less than good.

The shift from what Eaton is to what Hardy is, is not to be underestimated.

Same experience. Hardy has been terrible this year. It’s jarring how bad it is compared to our experience at Eaton, where my first child went from PK-5th with the exception of the full pandemic year.

I will never understand why DC switched to marking kids start middle school in sixth rather than seventh. I went through sixth at Eaton and am glad I had the chance to stay a kid for a year later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hardy is terrible vaping and drugs .
Kids fighting and many teachers absent. Terrible place and the bad behavior don't have any consequences for some reason????!

Ah you again

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton was amazing for both of my kids.
Hardy has been less than good.

The shift from what Eaton is to what Hardy is, is not to be underestimated.

Same experience. Hardy has been terrible this year. It’s jarring how bad it is compared to our experience at Eaton, where my first child went from PK-5th with the exception of the full pandemic year.

Can you elaborate on the issues at Hardy, PP's?

Their children have to be around more students of color which scares them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton was amazing for both of my kids.
Hardy has been less than good.

The shift from what Eaton is to what Hardy is, is not to be underestimated.

Same experience. Hardy has been terrible this year. It’s jarring how bad it is compared to our experience at Eaton, where my first child went from PK-5th with the exception of the full pandemic year.

Can you elaborate on the issues at Hardy, PP's?

Their children have to be around more students of color which scares them

Oh for goodness sake. Coming from Eaton, this is an absolutely false statement.

1.) Cut of all specials due to budget cuts.

2.) Cut of other staff positions resulting in little to no supervision in the hallways or around the bathrooms leading to fights, vandalism, and locked bathrooms.

3.) An utterly bizarre situation in which PE virtually did not happen for the first half of the year because for whatever reason the PE teacher kept locking the girl’s locker room and saying they therefore couldn’t have gym. On the days they did have it, the gym teacher was utterly dismissive and misogynistic towards the girls.

4.) A band and orchestra that can only meet one time a week for 30 minutes either during your lunch or advisory.

5.) An inexperienced and ineffective principal.

6.) Baffling rambling communications that bury important information unless you want to wade through what amounts to a roughly 6 page email pleading with us to provide supplies and tell our students to stop destroying the bathrooms.

7.) And yes, despite another poster’s obvious repeating of this fact in repetitive language, vaping in the bathrooms.

8.) Due to the cut of specials, extremely long academic blocks of the actual subjects.

9.) Bizarrely uneven class sizes- say science has 17 kids somehow, followed by geography at 36 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton was amazing for both of my kids.
Hardy has been less than good.

The shift from what Eaton is to what Hardy is, is not to be underestimated.

Same experience. Hardy has been terrible this year. It’s jarring how bad it is compared to our experience at Eaton, where my first child went from PK-5th with the exception of the full pandemic year.

Can you elaborate on the issues at Hardy, PP's?

Their children have to be around more students of color which scares them

Oh for goodness sake. Coming from Eaton, this is an absolutely false statement.

1.) Cut of all specials due to budget cuts.

2.) Cut of other staff positions resulting in little to no supervision in the hallways or around the bathrooms leading to fights, vandalism, and locked bathrooms.

3.) An utterly bizarre situation in which PE virtually did not happen for the first half of the year because for whatever reason the PE teacher kept locking the girl’s locker room and saying they therefore couldn’t have gym. On the days they did have it, the gym teacher was utterly dismissive and misogynistic towards the girls.

4.) A band and orchestra that can only meet one time a week for 30 minutes either during your lunch or advisory.

5.) An inexperienced and ineffective principal.

6.) Baffling rambling communications that bury important information unless you want to wade through what amounts to a roughly 6 page email pleading with us to provide supplies and tell our students to stop destroying the bathrooms.

7.) And yes, despite another poster’s obvious repeating of this fact in repetitive language, vaping in the bathrooms.

8.) Due to the cut of specials, extremely long academic blocks of the actual subjects.

9.) Bizarrely uneven class sizes- say science has 17 kids somehow, followed by geography at 36 kids.

This is a good summary. I'm hoping for budget improvements. I don't have hope for much improvement in administration skill, as I expect that by DCPS's liw standards, things are fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton was amazing for both of my kids.
Hardy has been less than good.

The shift from what Eaton is to what Hardy is, is not to be underestimated.

Same experience. Hardy has been terrible this year. It’s jarring how bad it is compared to our experience at Eaton, where my first child went from PK-5th with the exception of the full pandemic year.

Can you elaborate on the issues at Hardy, PP's?

Their children have to be around more students of color which scares them

Oh for goodness sake. Coming from Eaton, this is an absolutely false statement.

1.) Cut of all specials due to budget cuts.

2.) Cut of other staff positions resulting in little to no supervision in the hallways or around the bathrooms leading to fights, vandalism, and locked bathrooms.

3.) An utterly bizarre situation in which PE virtually did not happen for the first half of the year because for whatever reason the PE teacher kept locking the girl’s locker room and saying they therefore couldn’t have gym. On the days they did have it, the gym teacher was utterly dismissive and misogynistic towards the girls.

4.) A band and orchestra that can only meet one time a week for 30 minutes either during your lunch or advisory.

5.) An inexperienced and ineffective principal.

6.) Baffling rambling communications that bury important information unless you want to wade through what amounts to a roughly 6 page email pleading with us to provide supplies and tell our students to stop destroying the bathrooms.

7.) And yes, despite another poster’s obvious repeating of this fact in repetitive language, vaping in the bathrooms.

8.) Due to the cut of specials, extremely long academic blocks of the actual subjects.

9.) Bizarrely uneven class sizes- say science has 17 kids somehow, followed by geography at 36 kids.

Thank you for summarizing this for others. As a fellow Hardy parent I will add a few more and also point out that the majority of the issues are with THE ADULTS in the school:

1. Lack of responsiveness from teachers
2. Lack of accountability and responsiveness from administration
3. Lack of adult role models at school. The beginning of the year started off with a real bang with the Athletic Director and another staff member being fired for encouraging student athletes to lie about paperwork. That's the tip of the iceberg from that situation.
4. The aforementioned gym teacher who is a known misogynist who my daughter has complained about.
5. A female advisory teacher who talks to the girls about diets and losing weight.
6. A science teacher who is racist.
7. An inability to carry out school extracurricular clubs to any effective level. Things being cancelled constantly.
8. Inconsistency in educational opportunities within the same grade based on which teacher you may or may not have

IF* (and that's because they do not always respond) someone writes back regarding any voiced concerns, it's basically a "too bad" form letter "we will note your concerns" type of thing. You can only blame so much on budget cuts.

[Anonymous]

Hardy parent here. How do you hear about all this? I attend the PTO meetings and read the newsletter and emails from the grade reps, but they're all frustratingly vague about any "issues." Granted, my kid is noncommunicative, and we're OOB, but I'm shocked at all the stuff I never hear about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hardy parent here. How do you hear about all this? I attend the PTO meetings and read the newsletter and emails from the grade reps, but they're all frustratingly vague about any "issues." Granted, my kid is noncommunicative, and we're OOB, but I'm shocked at all the stuff I never hear about.

My kid is super unhappy there so I hear about this on the regular. I get a daily digest of all the bad stuff, plus what I don’t hear myself, I talk to my neighbors who also send kids there and get the info from them on what their kids are reporting which is always at least a few issues different than my own child.

[Anonymous]

Re Hardy: I don’t know if this is a particularly bad year for behavioral issues and it needed to be cracked down on… but my kid and their group of friends say that the admin and many of the teachers have bought into a really bizarre system of demerits which they employ all willy nilly all day long at kids for any old thing: talking too much (INFRACTION), wrong sweater color (INFRACTION), ACTUALLY DOUBLE INFRACTION for being out of uniform and not-complying… it’s bizarre, sounds desperate and I hate to say it, but it’s slightly comical. There are so many emails about discipline. Is it really that bad? I don’t know. I try to stay out of it…but the kids are not super happy there. Then again it’s also middle school so who knows; it’s a sucky time for a lot of kids. I’ve had multiple kids over different admin go there and this crew is weird. I don’t get what they’re about. Some teachers are really lovely and great and then there are some total duds which I guess you could argue happens in all schools. We’ve also had lots of teacher absence as an issue there even pre Covid and under previous Principal. It is small compared to Deal and generally a nice community. It feels nicely racially and economically diverse but I don’t know for sure. Also—yes—can confirm some of these kids are getting high…its middle school. It happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re Hardy: I don’t know if this is a particularly bad year for behavioral issues and it needed to be cracked down on… but my kid and their group of friends say that the admin and many of the teachers have bought into a really bizarre system of demerits which they employ all willy nilly all day long at kids for any old thing: talking too much (INFRACTION), wrong sweater color (INFRACTION), ACTUALLY DOUBLE INFRACTION for being out of uniform and not-complying… it’s bizarre, sounds desperate and I hate to say it, but it’s slightly comical. There are so many emails about discipline. Is it really that bad? I don’t know. I try to stay out of it…but the kids are not super happy there. Then again it’s also middle school so who knows; it’s a sucky time for a lot of kids. I’ve had multiple kids over different admin go there and this crew is weird. I don’t get what they’re about. Some teachers are really lovely and great and then there are some total duds which I guess you could argue happens in all schools. We’ve also had lots of teacher absence as an issue there even pre Covid and under previous Principal. It is small compared to Deal and generally a nice community. It feels nicely racially and economically diverse but I don’t know for sure. Also—yes—can confirm some of these kids are getting high…its middle school. It happens.

Desperate had been my take, too. Assemblies about behavior, a behavior contract for students and parents to sign, 'wellness' check-in calls. I appreciate that they are trying hard, but I feel like they don't know what to do. Desperate is a tough place to be; seems hard to get back to a position of authority with the students.

I do think this year is particularly challenging; sounds like it has been many places. But the triple-whammy described above (post-pandemic behavior, new principal, and absurdly insufficient budget) has done damage.

[Anonymous]

There are many possible points of blame but this new principal has the school spiraling downward. It is a relatively small school and he has zero control. A change must be made.

[Anonymous]

Just check the videos the kids posted every week fighting, bullying and sleeping during class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are many possible points of blame but this new principal has the school spiraling downward. It is a relatively small school and he has zero control. A change must be made.

Have any parents done any collective complaints to DCPS?