WHO'S MINDING THE PRINCIPALS?

[Anonymous]

I would be the last to defend DCPS or Rhee/Henderson (they and Clara Canty) are the people I hold responsible for ruining Thomson ES, but the info you seek regarding instructional Supers is here:

http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/About+DCPS/Who+We+Are/Instructional+Superintendents

And it looks like Oyster is under Zagmi. I think he's new?

Canty used to be over Thomson, now it's Errick Greene, who I think also might be new.

Wonder if Greene is on top of the puffy little twit that's running Thomson these days? Does he care that this guy has managed to alienate the Chinese and Hispanic parents by skipping the translation at PTA events? Does Greene care that an award-winning choir and music program is now gone? Does Greene care that parents are pulling their kids out of school mid-year? Does he care that the best teachers are looking elsewhere at Thomson?

I wonder how Mr. Greene is earning his $140K a year?

[Anonymous]

Okay, the supreintendent thing is really something we should have more, and plentiful, info about considering their salaries and influence. Been an Oyster parent for years and have never hear the name Nagami. Why wouldn't the chain of command be clearly outlined for families at their schools? Rhee hired plenty more of these creatures prior to her departure, so where's the beef?

[Anonymous]

P.S. The "new" Hardy skipped their artistically inspired winter concert this year, sorry to hear the arts are being sent to the bottom of the barrel at other schools like Thomson. Parents are pulling their kids from Oyster mid-year, as well. Their winter concert (at Adams) was pretty disturbingly bad. Speaking of the arts.

[Anonymous]

Parents are pulling kids our of Hardy too.

[Anonymous]

I'm 20:27, and yes, 21:36, I do agree.

You really shouldn't have to go digging on the the DCPS website. All these instructional superintendents should have presented themselves at the first PTA meetings.

They have very few schools to run, since Rhee doubled their cohort.

I agree, as an Oyster parent, you should know who is the principal's boss.

[Anonymous]

How about if each LSRT/SAB invite/require the super to attend at least one meeting before end of this year. Lots of things should be better communicated by central (Rhee's 2nd favorite excuse after unions). Flip side is parents have ways to collaborate overratedly across schools and the staff at central like critical response and Margie Yager. I forget her title, but seems to pop up with helpful responses in a bunch of areas like lottery craziness. Not all of central are useless.

[Anonymous]

The principal boss is the Superintendent or Chancellor. But the first-line supervisor is the Instructional Superintendent. As a first-line supervisor over a principal, he/she can recommend a principal for dismissal but only the superintendent/chancellor can make it happen. To the poster above, many principals have survived "you're fired" "but not yet" rule.

[Anonymous]

Rhee relied on rather inexperienced TFA teachers to replace ones she fired. The same holds true for many of her principal hires. No one wants to invest in solid, proven teacher training. It's much cheaper to hire someone right out of college who only stays for 2 years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/llana-garon/highly-qualified-highly-m_b_802177.html

[Anonymous]

"To the poster above, many principals have survived "you're fired" "but not yet" rule."

And more than a couple of highly qualified and skilled principals have taken a walk on Rhee's watch.

Given that their work day starts around 6am (calls in from sick teachers, gathering subs) and ends well into the night, why would you stick around to be abused by Rhee?

The damage Rhee caused will continue for years as a result of the good administrators who left and the many, many weak ones she hired.

[Anonymous]

Thomson was well on its way to being ruined independent of the new principal despite 1/4/2011 passionate attack. Over half the kids were not reading at grade level. The "award" winning music teacher had left the previous year feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated. The new person struggled from day one. Yes parents are pulling kids out mid-year because the new principal and teachers are being honest about the level of failure that has been there for at least 5 years. The happy juice is no longer being passed around. I am not happy with the new guy myself he has failed to do the necessary outreach but there is a lot to be done there. I think a lot of us are unhappy because we feel conned by all the cheer leading that told us we were in a successful school. Testing sucks, but as much as anything it sucks because a lot of us don't want to face the truth about the schools we are at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thomson was well on its way to being ruined independent of the new principal despite 1/4/2011 passionate attack. Over half the kids were not reading at grade level. The "award" winning music teacher had left the previous year feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated. The new person struggled from day one. Yes parents are pulling kids out mid-year because the new principal and teachers are being honest about the level of failure that has been there for at least 5 years. The happy juice is no longer being passed around. I am not happy with the new guy myself he has failed to do the necessary outreach but there is a lot to be done there. I think a lot of us are unhappy because we feel conned by all the cheer leading that told us we were in a successful school. Testing sucks, but as much as anything it sucks because a lot of us don't want to face the truth about the schools we are at.

To be fair, that describes the vast majority of DCPS - not just Thomson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thomson was well on its way to being ruined independent of the new principal despite 1/4/2011 passionate attack. Over half the kids were not reading at grade level. The "award" winning music teacher had left the previous year feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated. The new person struggled from day one. Yes parents are pulling kids out mid-year because the new principal and teachers are being honest about the level of failure that has been there for at least 5 years. The happy juice is no longer being passed around. I am not happy with the new guy myself he has failed to do the necessary outreach but there is a lot to be done there. I think a lot of us are unhappy because we feel conned by all the cheer leading that told us we were in a successful school. Testing sucks, but as much as anything it sucks because a lot of us don't want to face the truth about the schools we are at.

To be fair, that describes the vast majority of DCPS - not just Thomson.

And lots of charters....

[Anonymous]

Really 11:27, kind of sounds like you have an axe to grind?

You never noticed that poor Hispanic kids at Thomson struggle? Where have you been?

If you look at the scores of Thomson's white kids, middle class black kids and asian kids, they do pretty well.

In fact, 77% of non FARM kids were proficient or advanced in reading and 67.5 % were proficient or advanced in math.

Stellar, no, but not bad.

Thomson has the same problems of poverty as every other school in DCPS or for that matter, in the country.

Thomson was nice when it offered all the extras like a great music program. Now it's just another Title I school and it's sad. Taking away the joy of the school isn't going to make the poverty go away. It is making everyone pretty unhappy though. It is driving those out who have the means to get out, which will drive up the poverty. How is that good for anyone?

[Anonymous]

The new principal at Thomson is creating unhealthy tension at the school. He works in isolation and has started to make the parents feel ostracized. I am a Thomson parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thomson was well on its way to being ruined independent of the new principal despite 1/4/2011 passionate attack. Over half the kids were not reading at grade level. The "award" winning music teacher had left the previous year feeling overwhelmed and under appreciated. The new person struggled from day one. Yes parents are pulling kids out mid-year because the new principal and teachers are being honest about the level of failure that has been there for at least 5 years. The happy juice is no longer being passed around. I am not happy with the new guy myself he has failed to do the necessary outreach but there is a lot to be done there. I think a lot of us are unhappy because we feel conned by all the cheer leading that told us we were in a successful school. Testing sucks, but as much as anything it sucks because a lot of us don't want to face the truth about the schools we are at.

To be fair, that describes the vast majority of DCPS - not just Thomson.

And lots of charters....

I think it's a bit less true of charters because if people don't like them, they can leave. Families seem to be invested by choice as opposed to being stuck. The level of dissatisfaction at charters doesn't seem to be in the same ballpark as DCPS.