New principal: how to improve Oyster-Adams

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have a vision and plan for improving Adams, especially if the new boundary revisions don't go through and Deal remains an option.

Have the capacity to effectively oversee two campuses that are not right near one another.

Deal with overcrowding - ensure that families who move OOB who received their a slot IB are not allowed to stay.

Retaining Deal as the non-immersion option won't stick. Eaton lost Deal, and is much, much closer than Oyster. Expect a choice of either Adams or Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a vision and plan for improving Adams, especially if the new boundary revisions don't go through and Deal remains an option.

Have the capacity to effectively oversee two campuses that are not right near one another.

Deal with overcrowding - ensure that families who move OOB who received their a slot IB are not allowed to stay.

Retaining Deal as the non-immersion option won't stick. Eaton lost Deal, and is much, much closer than Oyster. Expect a choice of either Adams or Hardy.

The question still remains--does the new principal have a plan in place to get people to stick with Adams if they have the Hardy alternative? I think O-A does much better if there is no alternative, as is in the current proposal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a vision and plan for improving Adams, especially if the new boundary revisions don't go through and Deal remains an option.

Have the capacity to effectively oversee two campuses that are not right near one another.

Deal with overcrowding - ensure that families who move OOB who received their a slot IB are not allowed to stay.

Retaining Deal as the non-immersion option won't stick. Eaton lost Deal, and is much, much closer than Oyster. Expect a choice of either Adams or Hardy.

The question still remains--does the new principal have a plan in place to get people to stick with Adams if they have the Hardy alternative? I think O-A does much better if there is no alternative, as is in the current proposal.

Then what do you do for the family that moves IB in 6th grade with no previous exposure to Spanish?

[Anonymous]

The link to the new principal lists no previous administrative experience. Is there more recent info in her bio?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a vision and plan for improving Adams, especially if the new boundary revisions don't go through and Deal remains an option.

Have the capacity to effectively oversee two campuses that are not right near one another.

Deal with overcrowding - ensure that families who move OOB who received their a slot IB are not allowed to stay.

Retaining Deal as the non-immersion option won't stick. Eaton lost Deal, and is much, much closer than Oyster. Expect a choice of either Adams or Hardy.

The question still remains--does the new principal have a plan in place to get people to stick with Adams if they have the Hardy alternative? I think O-A does much better if there is no alternative, as is in the current proposal.

It's the exact same issue that Cooke and Tubman face in this, only it's worse there, because neither school is dual-language and they feed to a 100% dual-language school (CHEC) with no alternative. I asked about this at the DME meeting, and they did not seem to think it was a problem. The proposal says that people who attend elementary schools that are 100% dual-language do not have to go there if they don't want to. It says nothing about middle and high schools. I asked about it at the DME meeting and they said it was intentional. I am providing feedback that the same policy should apply for middle and high schools as for elementary schools--if it is a 100% dual-language program, then people should have an alternative English-only program.


Then what do you do for the family that moves IB in 6th grade with no previous exposure to Spanish?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The link to the new principal lists no previous administrative experience. Is there more recent info in her bio?

She doesn't have administrative experience, other than being an instructional coach at CHEC.

[Anonymous]

The link to the new principal lists no previous administrative experience. Is there more recent info in her bio?

June 2013- Present: Assistant Principal Grades 6-7 Dual Language, English Department administrator grades 6-12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a vision and plan for improving Adams, especially if the new boundary revisions don't go through and Deal remains an option.

Have the capacity to effectively oversee two campuses that are not right near one another.

Deal with overcrowding - ensure that families who move OOB who received their a slot IB are not allowed to stay.

Retaining Deal as the non-immersion option won't stick. Eaton lost Deal, and is much, much closer than Oyster. Expect a choice of either Adams or Hardy.

The question still remains--does the new principal have a plan in place to get people to stick with Adams if they have the Hardy alternative? I think O-A does much better if there is no alternative, as is in the current proposal.

Then what do you do for the family that moves IB in 6th grade with no previous exposure to Spanish?

Sorry, my response appeared in the quoted section. Here it is:


It's the exact same issue that Cooke and Tubman face in this, only it's worse there, because neither school is dual-language and they feed to a 100% dual-language school (CHEC) with no alternative. I asked about this at the DME meeting, and they did not seem to think it was a problem. The proposal says that people who attend elementary schools that are 100% dual-language do not have to go there if they don't want to. It says nothing about middle and high schools. I asked about it at the DME meeting and they said it was intentional. I am providing feedback that the same policy should apply for middle and high schools as for elementary schools--if it is a 100% dual-language program, then people should have an alternative English-only program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

Ok, but more specifics will be helpful. What type of bullying are you talking about? Are these mean girls (and boys) gossiping and spreading rumors about one another? Or are kids getting beat up in the bathroom and stuffed into lockers?

Do the "unchallenging academics" boil down to the fact that Adams offers Algebra I in 8th grade, as opposed to Algebra II? If so, that seems like a pretty easy fix under a new (and presumably willing) principal. If the academic problems, from your perspective, simply boil down to the level of Algebra, that seems pretty petty. Please give us more example of Adams', alleged, mediocre academic offerings.

Here's my take as the parent of an Adams MS student:

- We think Adams MS is MUCH, MUCH better than Oyster ES (through 5th grade) was. I know many parents are very happy with Oyster, and maybe we just had bad luck with teachers 4 years in a row, but we were very unhappy with Oyster. Adams has been totally different --- expectations are very clear, feedback is provided via JupiterGrades and DC is engaged in a way that he never was at Oyster. The Spanish instruction at Adams is, in my opinion, also much better.

- The very limited "bullying" that I have seen or heard of is mean boy/girl stuff. Mean boy/girl stuff is not good, but I am not aware of any hitting by students that is not dealt with by the administration, and the counselors try to control the mean kids stuff too. Keep in mind that this is a small school with short periods between classes and lots of adults everywhere. The opportunities for kids getting stuffed in lockers are pretty limited, and I've never seen or heard of anything like that within the last 3 years.

- As for challenging academics... meh. DC is very engaged by his classes, is always reading something interesting and seems to be learning a lot of math in school (unlike at Oyster where he had to learn outside of class). I know others want their kids to be several years ahead of grade level in math, and that's fine. That's not really critical to us (both parents with graduate degrees working in technical fields). I guess am a little concerned that DC gets excellent grades without doing much of homework or studying much, but I also do not think hours of homework every day is not productive.

My suggestion would be for the new principal to look at what she can do to create a clear, transparent infrastructure to support teachers, students and parents in an orderly progression toward growth and learning. The OA community is great, and everyone pulls together in times of crisis to get things done, but it often feels like every school year is an ongoing series of self-created crises for absolutely no reason. Everything from scheduling parent teacher conferences to requesting help with field trips to getting kids to athletic events is almost inevitably a last minute scramble, and there is no reason for it. Eliminating the crises will make more time for things like differentiated instruction.

Some ideas include:

-Create processes for routine things like scheduling conferences, mandate that everyone use it and be done --- don't leave it to teachers to invent multiple new, competing processes every year at the last minute. Ditto with field trips and sporting events --- create a master calendar that is available on the Web, publish it and build lead times for asking for help into it. Stop all the last-minute appeals to parents.

- Create a Web site that is easy to update and use it as a primary means of communication that is updated daily. There is new content on the site, but much is outdated (the calendar on the site is from 2012) and the design is very hard to use. Implement an immediate redesign that is focused on the information to be conveyed rather than endless discussions about look and feel of the homepage. Pick a simple, very usable design, build it and move forward. Make it mobile-friendly since almost everyone who doesn't have a home computer has a web-enabled smart phone and print pages from the site for parents who don't have computer access (rather than creating totally documents through a separate process).

- Try to look at the school as an outsider would and fix low hanging fruit that give a bad impression. For example, when parents are walking around the school looking lost, instruct faculty and staff not to walk by with their eyes lowered --- first impressions are everyone's job.

Thanks. We are the family expecting to get a MS spot. This is very helpful information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

Ok, but more specifics will be helpful. What type of bullying are you talking about? Are these mean girls (and boys) gossiping and spreading rumors about one another? Or are kids getting beat up in the bathroom and stuffed into lockers?

Do the "unchallenging academics" boil down to the fact that Adams offers Algebra I in 8th grade, as opposed to Algebra II? If so, that seems like a pretty easy fix under a new (and presumably willing) principal. If the academic problems, from your perspective, simply boil down to the level of Algebra, that seems pretty petty. Please give us more example of Adams', alleged, mediocre academic offerings.

Here's my take as the parent of an Adams MS student:

- We think Adams MS is MUCH, MUCH better than Oyster ES (through 5th grade) was. I know many parents are very happy with Oyster, and maybe we just had bad luck with teachers 4 years in a row, but we were very unhappy with Oyster. Adams has been totally different --- expectations are very clear, feedback is provided via JupiterGrades and DC is engaged in a way that he never was at Oyster. The Spanish instruction at Adams is, in my opinion, also much better.

- The very limited "bullying" that I have seen or heard of is mean boy/girl stuff. Mean boy/girl stuff is not good, but I am not aware of any hitting by students that is not dealt with by the administration, and the counselors try to control the mean kids stuff too. Keep in mind that this is a small school with short periods between classes and lots of adults everywhere. The opportunities for kids getting stuffed in lockers are pretty limited, and I've never seen or heard of anything like that within the last 3 years.

- As for challenging academics... meh. DC is very engaged by his classes, is always reading something interesting and seems to be learning a lot of math in school (unlike at Oyster where he had to learn outside of class). I know others want their kids to be several years ahead of grade level in math, and that's fine. That's not really critical to us (both parents with graduate degrees working in technical fields). I guess am a little concerned that DC gets excellent grades without doing much of homework or studying much, but I also do not think hours of homework every day is not productive.

My suggestion would be for the new principal to look at what she can do to create a clear, transparent infrastructure to support teachers, students and parents in an orderly progression toward growth and learning. The OA community is great, and everyone pulls together in times of crisis to get things done, but it often feels like every school year is an ongoing series of self-created crises for absolutely no reason. Everything from scheduling parent teacher conferences to requesting help with field trips to getting kids to athletic events is almost inevitably a last minute scramble, and there is no reason for it. Eliminating the crises will make more time for things like differentiated instruction.

Some ideas include:

-Create processes for routine things like scheduling conferences, mandate that everyone use it and be done --- don't leave it to teachers to invent multiple new, competing processes every year at the last minute. Ditto with field trips and sporting events --- create a master calendar that is available on the Web, publish it and build lead times for asking for help into it. Stop all the last-minute appeals to parents.

- Create a Web site that is easy to update and use it as a primary means of communication that is updated daily. There is new content on the site, but much is outdated (the calendar on the site is from 2012) and the design is very hard to use. Implement an immediate redesign that is focused on the information to be conveyed rather than endless discussions about look and feel of the homepage. Pick a simple, very usable design, build it and move forward. Make it mobile-friendly since almost everyone who doesn't have a home computer has a web-enabled smart phone and print pages from the site for parents who don't have computer access (rather than creating totally documents through a separate process).

- Try to look at the school as an outsider would and fix low hanging fruit that give a bad impression. For example, when parents are walking around the school looking lost, instruct faculty and staff not to walk by with their eyes lowered --- first impressions are everyone's job.

Deal does not tolerate mean girl/boy behavior. In fact, I'd suggest sending Adams faculty and administrators to Deal to learn how to establish and maintain an orderly, respectful environment. Deal invests enormous energy in establishing/maintaining routines and expectations. They're not usually reacting to adverse situations, they're preventing problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

+1

Stayed through 6th. Of course, this was a few years ago and things may have changed. But the unchallenging academics in math and science were the two things that pushed our kid to leave. DC is not a genius, but enjoys learning. The science class seemed non-existent, and had no hands-on lab. Science Fair was an exercise for the parents to figure out. Math was spending one week on concepts that should have taken one day, but until everyone was ready to move on, no one did. Teachers also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to manage poor behavior, with no support from any of the principals.

Too late for us, but if I were moving over to Adams, I would like to see a principal who understands differentiated learning and puts it into the curriculum. (Again, maybe they already have, but we wouldn't know) Expectations of behavior should be high, and enforced. Science should not be a "special," but something that is an everyday subject. And teachers shouldn't be "teaching" just because they speak Spanish. Teachers should be teaching because they are qualified.

Bilingual education is a great thing, and some of the dedicated teachers and sports team instructors are great. By middle school, that's not enough anymore. There is no comparison with Deal as far as academics are concerned. In addition, behavior management is much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

+1

Stayed through 6th. Of course, this was a few years ago and things may have changed. But the unchallenging academics in math and science were the two things that pushed our kid to leave. DC is not a genius, but enjoys learning. The science class seemed non-existent, and had no hands-on lab. Science Fair was an exercise for the parents to figure out. Math was spending one week on concepts that should have taken one day, but until everyone was ready to move on, no one did. Teachers also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to manage poor behavior, with no support from any of the principals.

Too late for us, but if I were moving over to Adams, I would like to see a principal who understands differentiated learning and puts it into the curriculum. (Again, maybe they already have, but we wouldn't know) Expectations of behavior should be high, and enforced. Science should not be a "special," but something that is an everyday subject. And teachers shouldn't be "teaching" just because they speak Spanish. Teachers should be teaching because they are qualified.

Bilingual education is a great thing, and some of the dedicated teachers and sports team instructors are great. By middle school, that's not enough anymore. There is no comparison with Deal as far as academics are concerned. In addition, behavior management is much better.

Science is now a core subject at Adams, not a special. Srta. Dronda, the science teacher, is terrific. DC started the year not very excited about the 6th grade curriculum, but ended up learning a ton about space, the formation of planets, plate tectonics, volcanoes and lots of other stuff that is good to know but not very interesting to most kids. The fact that DC learned so enthusiastically seemed like a real endorsement of Srta. Dronda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Deal does not tolerate mean girl/boy behavior. In fact, I'd suggest sending Adams faculty and administrators to Deal to learn how to establish and maintain an orderly, respectful environment. Deal invests enormous energy in establishing/maintaining routines and expectations. They're not usually reacting to adverse situations, they're preventing problems.

I think lots of this stuff comes down to everyone's individual experiences. I've heard wonderful things about Deal. But, while I have seen no bullying Adams, but I have also heard about bullying at Deal from parents who were very unhappy with how it was handled.

I have heard that things were a lot different at Adams few years ago. I think that there has been a big push over the past several years to manage behavior and resolve these issues, so I would take people reporting what happened years ago with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

Ok, but more specifics will be helpful. What type of bullying are you talking about? Are these mean girls (and boys) gossiping and spreading rumors about one another? Or are kids getting beat up in the bathroom and stuffed into lockers?

Do the "unchallenging academics" boil down to the fact that Adams offers Algebra I in 8th grade, as opposed to Algebra II? If so, that seems like a pretty easy fix under a new (and presumably willing) principal. If the academic problems, from your perspective, simply boil down to the level of Algebra, that seems pretty petty. Please give us more example of Adams', alleged, mediocre academic offerings.

Thank you! This is very helpful, constructive information.

Here's my take as the parent of an Adams MS student:

- We think Adams MS is MUCH, MUCH better than Oyster ES (through 5th grade) was. I know many parents are very happy with Oyster, and maybe we just had bad luck with teachers 4 years in a row, but we were very unhappy with Oyster. Adams has been totally different --- expectations are very clear, feedback is provided via JupiterGrades and DC is engaged in a way that he never was at Oyster. The Spanish instruction at Adams is, in my opinion, also much better.

- The very limited "bullying" that I have seen or heard of is mean boy/girl stuff. Mean boy/girl stuff is not good, but I am not aware of any hitting by students that is not dealt with by the administration, and the counselors try to control the mean kids stuff too. Keep in mind that this is a small school with short periods between classes and lots of adults everywhere. The opportunities for kids getting stuffed in lockers are pretty limited, and I've never seen or heard of anything like that within the last 3 years.

- As for challenging academics... meh. DC is very engaged by his classes, is always reading something interesting and seems to be learning a lot of math in school (unlike at Oyster where he had to learn outside of class). I know others want their kids to be several years ahead of grade level in math, and that's fine. That's not really critical to us (both parents with graduate degrees working in technical fields). I guess am a little concerned that DC gets excellent grades without doing much of homework or studying much, but I also do not think hours of homework every day is not productive.

My suggestion would be for the new principal to look at what she can do to create a clear, transparent infrastructure to support teachers, students and parents in an orderly progression toward growth and learning. The OA community is great, and everyone pulls together in times of crisis to get things done, but it often feels like every school year is an ongoing series of self-created crises for absolutely no reason. Everything from scheduling parent teacher conferences to requesting help with field trips to getting kids to athletic events is almost inevitably a last minute scramble, and there is no reason for it. Eliminating the crises will make more time for things like differentiated instruction.

Some ideas include:

-Create processes for routine things like scheduling conferences, mandate that everyone use it and be done --- don't leave it to teachers to invent multiple new, competing processes every year at the last minute. Ditto with field trips and sporting events --- create a master calendar that is available on the Web, publish it and build lead times for asking for help into it. Stop all the last-minute appeals to parents.

- Create a Web site that is easy to update and use it as a primary means of communication that is updated daily. There is new content on the site, but much is outdated (the calendar on the site is from 2012) and the design is very hard to use. Implement an immediate redesign that is focused on the information to be conveyed rather than endless discussions about look and feel of the homepage. Pick a simple, very usable design, build it and move forward. Make it mobile-friendly since almost everyone who doesn't have a home computer has a web-enabled smart phone and print pages from the site for parents who don't have computer access (rather than creating totally documents through a separate process).

- Try to look at the school as an outsider would and fix low hanging fruit that give a bad impression. For example, when parents are walking around the school looking lost, instruct faculty and staff not to walk by with their eyes lowered --- first impressions are everyone's job.

[Anonymous]

Improve it from what to what? Higher overall scores? Higher percentages of advanced students? Improvement in Spanish grammar? One building? A better website? Keep more IB families no matter how high the % of non-Spanish speaking families?

None of these things matter to DCPS. O-A is about as good as it's going to get in terms of quantitative measures. The new principal looks like she was put in there as part of the overall DCPS middle school retention effort. They are going to throw a lot of stuff at the middle school grades for 3 years or so to see if they can stem the tide of flight to charters.

But there is no long-term strategy for the school or any of the dual-language programs in DCPS. It has been completely absent from the entire DME process.

To improve the qualitative elements of the school that many families complain about, all she needs to do is fire the MS AP, move the 4-5th grade AP to the lower grades at Oyster building, hire a superb Dean of Students, get rid of some entrenched staff who have been coasting on the success of individual teachers.

We're IB and bilingual at O-A and have had mixed results. We're contemplating leaving for many reasons, but we're wondering what dual language schools will be better? The only dual immersion secondary school is CHEC.

An easy to use web platform would be great, but first there needs to be consistency in teaching and well-organized administration. Like PP said, many of the crises were self-made or poorly communicated. It would be pretty easy to improve some of the basic operations at O-A.

The elephant in the room is whether it can or will continue as many things to many people. How long can it stay as a neighborhood, bilingual, inclusion, two campus, PK-8 school, that feeds into an English-only high school?