Any thoughts on the Wash Post/Bill Turque article on Hardy MS on the schools insider website??

[Anonymous]

Here we go. It's all about reinstating Pope.
Guess what -families at Key School have EVERY right to have an excellent public MS option. It is not for anyone else to judge that they are "bound for private regardless" of what happens at Hardy.
Perhaps the students/parents are responding poorly to a new administration at Hardy (if we take the article at its word that they are) because of the animosity shown by Hardy teachers, Rhee-bashers, Key-bashers, who continually insist that Pope is the only legitimate principal for Hardy.

[Anonymous]

It's not that Pope is the only legitimate choice it's the way the entire situation was handled cowpoke. Hardy was excellent under Pope. When it was a piece of shit with toilets that didn't flush and windows that didn't close it was fine for the blacks then. Now that it's renovated the whites want it back. Do you believe that? No, I really don't either. But the truth is that the parents at Key were just yanking Rhee's chain. If they're responding poorly to the new administration you're proven my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Guess what -families at Key School have EVERY right to have an excellent public MS option.

Guess what? Families across the District have EVERY right to an excellent public MS option. But they don't. Ward 5 doesn't even have a midle school, let alone an excellent one.

[Anonymous]

19:21 -- I hear you! Man, I'm not even a Hardy parent, but have been a parent at two schools where Rhee played gangster and fired principals. The most disappointing line in the story is that Henderson feels comfortable saying Gray instrucgted her to "not re-hire Pope" or something like that. I'm sorry, those of us who watched that Rhee train wreck know that if Pope were put back at the helm it would go a LONG way toward healing so many wounds Rhee inflicted, and after all, Gray is Mayor-Elect largely due to our frustration in the community about having no voice.
So why doesn't Gray, today, now that he's mayor-elect stand by his sound concern about why Pope was fired and ask Henderson to re-instate him? It's not exactly kissing the WTU ass, but woudl go a long way toward boosting morale among the DCPS parents who voted for Gray. Or, if there is some terrible dark secret about Pope that he is absolutely unqualified, explain the mystery! If there's really a skeleton in his closet, why continue to have him languish at tax payor expense in Central when he coudl be healing Hardy and, symbolically, all of DCPS??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Guess what -families at Key School have EVERY right to have an excellent public MS option.

Guess what? Families across the District have EVERY right to an excellent public MS option. But they don't. Ward 5 doesn't even have a midle school, let alone an excellent one.

Understood - but, Key School families live in boundary for Hardy and someone in Ward 5 does not. Are you suggesting doing away with the neighborhood school concept? Bear in mind, Key families pay a fortune for (mostly) very small houses and pay property taxes to support the neighborhood schools (including Hardy). Why should these families simply accept the level of hostility that seems to come from the Hardy community. The prevailing attitude seems to be -- Key school families are not welcome at Hardy. Sadly, this impression seems to be stronger than ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Guess what -families at Key School have EVERY right to have an excellent public MS option.

Guess what? Families across the District have EVERY right to an excellent public MS option. But they don't. Ward 5 doesn't even have a midle school, let alone an excellent one.

Understood - but, Key School families live in boundary for Hardy and someone in Ward 5 does not. Are you suggesting doing away with the neighborhood school concept? Bear in mind, Key families pay a fortune for (mostly) very small houses and pay property taxes to support the neighborhood schools (including Hardy). Why should these families simply accept the level of hostility that seems to come from the Hardy community. The prevailing attitude seems to be -- Key school families are not welcome at Hardy. Sadly, this impression seems to be stronger than ever.

This level of hostility began when your heroine Rhee had private meetings with Key parents and cancelled meetings with hardy parents. Put yourself in their place, if you can.

Your financial squeeze is not more important than other residents' financial squeeze, no matter what taxes you pay, and you can send your kids to Hardy at any time.

Is Hardy more attractive this year to inboundary families, after Rhee's changes?

I don't think so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here we go. It's all about reinstating Pope.
Guess what -families at Key School have EVERY right to have an excellent public MS option. It is not for anyone else to judge that they are "bound for private regardless" of what happens at Hardy.
Perhaps the students/parents are responding poorly to a new administration at Hardy (if we take the article at its word that they are) because of the animosity shown by Hardy teachers, Rhee-bashers, Key-bashers, who continually insist that Pope is the only legitimate principal for Hardy.

Wow. Well stated, clear, and completely wrong.

As a former parent of a Hardy Student who attended Key Elementary K-5, and former Hardy PTA and LSRT member, I can say that there are few in this forum that know enough about Hardy, Pope, the Faculty, or the Families to have anything approaching an informed opinion.

The new Hardy administration is has been a disaster. Not because people did not give them a chance, but because they have alienated both families and faculty, and instituted changes that have no reasonable chance to succeed at this, or any other middle school. Bill Turque's article does not expose much of the really disturbing information given by many of the families and teachers he interviewed for this piece. And many of the positive quotes from parents in the article are from OOB families that have no realistic chance of better public schools in their own neighborhoods.

My wife and I made the very difficult choice to pull our child out of Hardy in the first week of school after it became clear that Principal Nerenberg was not up to the task, and no amount of assistant principals were going to help. Barring a miracle turnaround, Hardy will lose most of it's best teachers after this year is done, and this will effectively put an end to Hardy as a viable option for in-boundary families for years to come. At this point, it is clear to those who know the school intimately that the best chance to save the school is to reinstate Pope.

Some food for thought ...
If 88% of graduating fifth graders from Hardy's feeder schools (Key, Mann, Stoddert, Hyde, and Eaton) matriculated to Hardy, the 165 seat sixth grade would be fully enrolled, with no room for the OOB children that many Ward 2 & 3 parents have accused Pope of favoring. Not only is this false, but parents often fail to recognize that once an OOB child is enrolled in one of the feeder schools, that child is entitled to follow his/her classmates to the next middle or high school as if they were in-boundary. There are many such children at all of Hardy's feeder schools, and it should be no surprise that they are the most likely to continue on to Hardy.

For all those in-boundary elementary school parents who felt such passion and accomplishment for motivating Chancellor Rhee to remove principal Pope, I have two questions.

1) If Hardy Middle School is a mess next year (and likely many more), will you send your children to help save the school anyway? As a proportion of enrollment, the in-boundary population of Hardy actually fell this year. This is bad for many reasons, including the fact that families from less affluent neighborhoods actually enthusiastically embrace the fact that their children share a classroom with traditionally wealthier Ward 2 & 3 children. This has actually been one of the reasons that the Hardy formula worked so well.

2) And ... If you choose NOT to go to Hardy, will you ever consider yourself partially responsible for the suffering of many hundreds of children that don't have the same "middle school options" as yourselves. Because of this debacle, we now send our seventh grader to private school at great expense, like many others who find no viable public school option in DC.

Please consider that for most of us the lottery is something you do when the PowerBall goes over $100 million; and not something you do to save you child from disastrous neighborhood schools, as this is much more like a game of Russian Roulette, where losing is not an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fights at Hardy???? I would expect this of maybe Francis Junior High students, but not Hardy or Deal!!1

get real!

[Anonymous]

Some of the students you think are from Francis are actually from Hardy. I saw some unruly kids coming out from Georgetown (off the bus?) and they were walking to the Metro. I asked what school they were from, and guess what? Hardy. Hardy's sheer numbers dwarf Francis' so you will see more rowdy behavior there and as they go through the streets of Georgetown on to the Metro.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fights at Hardy???? I would expect this of maybe Francis Junior High students, but not Hardy or Deal!!1

get real!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids will be kids regardless of where they are. How many people have grown up in an urban city and not been in a fight or two?

Me? And probably a lot of middle-class girls?

Yeah, me too. I don't think any of the honors students I grew up with, male or female, got into physical fights in school. There's no reason for this to be considered an urban thing, but it could be a class thing (with is a separate matter).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, me too. I don't think any of the honors students I grew up with, male or female, got into physical fights in school. There's no reason for this to be considered an urban thing, but it could be a class thing (with is a separate matter).

I went to a Midwestern vanilla middle school in a Wonder Bread suburb and we got into fights. Unless the school is on lock-down, I can't imagine how there wouldn't be fights at middle school or high school. Isn’t that part of growing up? Scraped knees, cliques, occasional bullying, fights, earth shattering break-ups with girlfriends/boyfriends, zits, puberty . . . And I don’t think honors students are immune to it either. Middle school is just plain awkward for many and most can’t escape it.

[Anonymous]

I was glad to see an article following up on Hardy. It's hard to know what is going on these days (my dd graduated 4 years ago under Pope). I am quite concerned about 1:41's depiction of the school as being worse than what Turque had reported. I guess I'll have a clearer idea when it becomes apparent whether the best teachers are leaving next year.

FWIW, my white upper middle class child got a good education there. We started out in-boundary for elementary and then bought a house OOB because we couldn't afford to buy in Georgetown. I was so pleased that she could continue in Hardy OOB. I never felt like the school was designed to serve only African-American kids from out of boundaries.

As far as I can tell, many in-boundary families rejected the school over the years but nevertheless Pope was able to build a good school through hiring and keeping good teachers and by using the arts application process to pick the best students from out-of-boundary. Now I'm hearing rumors that the application process was not used to weed out problem students this year. If that's true, well, in-boundary families are going to be even less likely to send their kids there. That's what happens when you ask the Chancellor to solve your problems rather than families organizing together and working with the school administration to improve communication. What a mess!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:19:21 -- I hear you! Man, I'm not even a Hardy parent, but have been a parent at two schools where Rhee played gangster and fired principals. The most disappointing line in the story is that Henderson feels comfortable saying Gray instrucgted her to "not re-hire Pope" or something like that. I'm sorry, those of us who watched that Rhee train wreck know that if Pope were put back at the helm it would go a LONG way toward healing so many wounds Rhee inflicted, and after all, Gray is Mayor-Elect largely due to our frustration in the community about having no voice.
So why doesn't Gray, today, now that he's mayor-elect stand by his sound concern about why Pope was fired and ask Henderson to re-instate him? It's not exactly kissing the WTU ass, but woudl go a long way toward boosting morale among the DCPS parents who voted for Gray. Or, if there is some terrible dark secret about Pope that he is absolutely unqualified, explain the mystery! If there's really a skeleton in his closet, why continue to have him languish at tax payor expense in Central when he coudl be healing Hardy and, symbolically, all of DCPS??

I think the obvious answer to that is that Gray pretty much agrees with the changes that Rhee made during the last few years--which makes sense given his oversight as council Chair, and his near instantaneous appointment of Rhee lieutenant Kaya Henderson to the top position. He understands, as does every other responsible adult that [b]the[/b core goal of DCPS in the coming years should be to get middle-class parents into the system, special ed reform, and building modernization. Mostly staunching the bleeding of middle-class parents, though.

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

[Anonymous]

"Please consider that for most of us the lottery is something you do when the PowerBall goes over $100 million; and not something you do to save you child from disastrous neighborhood schools, as this is much more like a game of Russian Roulette, where losing is not an option. "

Yup - you are 100% correct.

I am glad that insiders are posting information on DCUM -

[Anonymous]

And ... If you choose NOT to go to Hardy, will you ever consider yourself partially responsible for the suffering of many hundreds of children that don't have the same "middle school options" as yourselves. Because of this debacle, we now send our seventh grader to private school at great expense, like many others who find no viable public school option in DC.

Well, do YOU "consider yourself partially responsible for the suffering of many hundreds of children" because you opted out of Hardy?