What is going on at Lowell School?

[Anonymous]

17:37 - The person who is leaving is the head of the lower school. This is somewhat like an assistant head of school, but with the planned expansion, the position is now called head of the lower school. Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

ok, so if I understand it correctly, L is leaving. Is she gone already or will she work through the rest of the year? Has there been any reason given for the departure? We really like Lowell and will raise these questions if we get in, but it would be nice to hear any insights people on the forum may have into what the change says about the current state of the school and where it's going.

thank you.

[Anonymous]

The email current parents received from Debbie simply stated that L was leaving for "personal reasons". Not real sure what that means and I'm really bothered by it, especially if she was asked to leave. However it was said it was for for pesonal reasons than it sounds like L wanted to leave. Who knows!!! Anyway..she will stay until the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The email current parents received from Debbie simply stated that L was leaving for "personal reasons". Not real sure what that means and I'm really bothered by it, especially if she was asked to leave. However it was said it was for for pesonal reasons than it sounds like L wanted to leave. Who knows!!! Anyway..she will stay until the end of the year.

Thank you for sharing this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:10:02, thanks for admitting you are a BITTER FORMER EMPLOYEE so we can judge your comments accordingly. The new head has been a terrific addition to the school and has made the changes that were needed. For example, she required all pre-primary teachers to have complete accreditations. Good for the school, bad for some former employees.

does sound the least bit bitter to me...sounds very truthful.

[Anonymous]

10:02 can you give some examples of what makes the faculty and staff unhappy? I am just curious because I am a Lowell parent, and the changes I have seen have seemed mostly positive from our perspective. It seems if parents know what faculty and staff don't like they can help improve the situation?

Also, regarding L., she has been like a ghost emplyee since she started, so her leaving does not seem like a big deal at all. As far as I see it, the previous head left and there was a short period of time to fill the spot and they went with L. Turns out she was not a good fit and now they are taking a longer time to really try to fill this position.

But it is a big deal to me if many faculty and staff are miserable and I'd love to hear why.

[Anonymous]

10:02 can you give some examples of what makes the faculty and staff unhappy? I am just curious because I am a Lowell parent, and the changes I have seen have seemed mostly positive from our perspective. It seems if parents know what faculty and staff don't like they can help improve the situation?

Also, regarding L., she has been like a ghost emplyee since she started, so her leaving does not seem like a big deal at all. As far as I see it, the previous head left and there was a short period of time to fill the spot and they went with L. Turns out she was not a good fit and now they are taking a longer time to really try to fill this position.

But it is a big deal to me if many faculty and staff are miserable and I'd love to hear why.

18:27 There are so many reasons. But I will just elaborate and the lies she had told to F/S and parents. For one, I (and others) have heard over and over again the Head of school telling parents (potential and Lowell parents) lies just to get them to sign a contract or not apply out before 6th grade. Everyone in the school knew (and still knows) that many parents would apply there children out before they graduated, including board members' children. Faculty and staff were told on several occasions if we do not get parents to sign-on we could potentially loose our jobs. When faculty members confronted the Head (on several occasions), she became very defensive and would even walk out of meetings. Some staff members just played along and knew it was wrong. I just couldn't do it. On top of other "stuff" going on in the school, Lowell's work environment became an unhealthy place for me.

On the diversity note, that is just simply a word to the Head. I know and have heard with my own ears VERY insensitive and derogatory remarks she has said to faculty regarding their race and sexual orientation. Regarding parents, she could care less about you unless you are a MAJOR donor.

I don't know if parents can change the work atmosphere at Lowell. But you will have to really understand what is really happening. I do know that there are some current parents who DO know. What I can say is that parents have the power to change a lot at Lowell, more than they know.

[Anonymous]

10:02, I have to say that your post did not make much sense to me as a current Lowell parent. I am not sure what "lies" you think the Head has told parents to get them to come to the school. It is part of her job to recruit families but I did not understand what you thought she said that was not accurate. As far as applying out, there are families that apply out before graduation and I am not aware of any "lies" being told to try to get them to stay. I know there were some faculty members who were unhappy with having to deal with a new head and especially some of the old timers who had gotten used to the way things had been run. But I think as the earlier poster said, most parents see the changes that have come to Lowell as being positive and have not seen this unhappiness among the stronger faculty members.

I am glad that since you and the new Head did not agree on things that you have moved on and hope that you have found a school that provides you what you are looking for in a teaching position.

[Anonymous]

I am 18:27 (but not 22:35) and I appreciate that you elaborated on your concerns. I have to agree with PP and say that it didn't fully shed light on the problems for me, but I can see why the pressure on F/S to retain families would be very hard to endure and that since there was no middle school plan under the previous head, this would be a new pressure!

To prospective parents reading this thread, I will say that our experience has been positive, and that the staff turnover has not seemed excessive or worried me at all. I would like to think that it is not a toxic environment for staff and I will bring up some of these concerns with admin, if I have the opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Another former Lowell Employee here. I think what the other former employee was trying to say is that the head of school delays announcements to the parent community until it is too late to apply to other schools or too late to back out of your contract. This happened all the time. The former asst head of school is now at an all girls boarding school in VA and he has taken a lesser position than what he held at Lowell. He was asked to look for other employment, he was not cutting it at Lowell. It also didn't help that the head of Lowell had zero respect for him, spoke down to him in front of others, and didn't explain what she wanted from him. This can be echoed from all of the staff, she has no personal skills and lacks basic social skills. Yes, she has focused on math and science but it takes a lot more than that to keep a school going.
It is true that the Faculty and Staff are very unhappy and you will continue to see a mass exodus. However, you will also see more families leave as well, enrollment was down this year and it will be down more next year.

[Anonymous]

Re L, I thought you were all referring to this person as "L" to keep her relatively anonymous but on the Lowell website there is a faculty description PDF that describes this person as "L". How weird!!!

[Anonymous]

Anyone know how many students are in the current 3rd and 5th grades? tia

[Anonymous]

PP who asked about 3rd and 5th grade, I have kids in each of those classes. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but both of them are in the 30-35 range this year (that is split into two classrooms each).

In response to the PP Lowell former employee, I am still at a loss as to what you are accusing the Head of doing. Can you give me an example of a delayed announcement that you think was somehow unfair to parents? We are very involved at the school and I am at a loss to think of an example of something that was sprung on parents like that. In fact, parents have had a lot of lead time for example on deciding how to handle the middle school transition.

I have not seen any mass exodus of teachers. There were some long time teachers who left after the new head came. My impression however (and one that I think is shared by many parents that I know) is that several of those folks were very nice people, but not the strongest teachers. There is always some turnover of teachers and this was true under the old head as well. But by and large things are stable as evidenced by the fact that my kids have had the same teachers two years apart all but one year (and that teacher left to stay at home with her baby).

As for the former asst head, I thought he was going to Atlanta, not some boarding school in Va. Did that not work out for him?

[Anonymous]

I don't think it is at all unusual for schools to delay announcing sensitive pieces of information until it is too late for parents to apply elsewhere. This may have happened at Lowell, but it happens at other places as well.

Re: Lowell, we were there for several years 6-8 years ago. We had a lot of issues with the former head and the head of preprimary. I think it can only be an improvement to have new folks on deck. At the time we were struck at the lack of formal credentials on the part of many preprimary teachers. Credential, of course, do not guarantee good teaching, but it was odd that so many preprimary teachers had minimal formal credentials.

[Anonymous]

Former Lowell parent gives a good example of why this issue is viewed differently by former staff than by current parents. My understanding is that the new head found the credentials issue unacceptable and insisted that teachers in preprimary get the credentials within a certain period of time. Some did, but some chose not to and left. From a parental perspective, I think the head was right to insist on this and support that decision. This change in policy was howver not popular with those teachers affected or some of their colleagues. So, this is an example of a change that some faculty may not like but that parents support and leads to an improved school overall.