Wilson HS

[Anonymous]

The head of WISP, Jeff Schultz, turned up at Wilson in 1999 or thereabouts. He departed from Kennedy in MOCO after about 20 years of service there after he got into a very public spat with a Principal named Sheila Dobbins. Now here's where it gets weird. Schultz "departed" after he came under fire for running a Leadership Training Academy at Kennedy. The problem? It was mostly white in a largely minority school. I think he even said he started the academy at Kennedy to stem "white flight" from the school.
He was hired at Wilson because Wilson's former principal, Steve Tarason, had been at Kennedy also. Schultz hung out at Wilson for three years and did next to nothing until Pat Eaton passed away. Then he took over her WISP post. WISP is largely white in a school that is largely minority. He's a sweet dude but that's the problem. He's a sweet dude and not a change agent.
WISP's real strength are the students that it attracts most of whom have parents that are very involved in the school therefore anything involving WISP, success or failure, gets blown out of proportion.

[Anonymous]

Wow thanks. You seem to have the situation down cold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The head of WISP, Jeff Schultz, turned up at Wilson in 1999 or thereabouts. He departed from Kennedy in MOCO after about 20 years of service there after he got into a very public spat with a Principal named Sheila Dobbins. Now here's where it gets weird. Schultz "departed" after he came under fire for running a Leadership Training Academy at Kennedy. The problem? It was mostly white in a largely minority school. I think he even said he started the academy at Kennedy to stem "white flight" from the school.
He was hired at Wilson because Wilson's former principal, Steve Tarason, had been at Kennedy also. Schultz hung out at Wilson for three years and did next to nothing until Pat Eaton passed away. Then he took over her WISP post. WISP is largely white in a school that is largely minority. He's a sweet dude but that's the problem. He's a sweet dude and not a change agent.
WISP's real strength are the students that it attracts most of whom have parents that are very involved in the school therefore anything involving WISP, success or failure, gets blown out of proportion.

Thanks, PP. What about the other academies? Can you shed any light on those, specifically Science/Math/Tech? Finance sounds like it could be promising. Not sure I understand the purpose of HAM - at least the way it reads on Wilson's website. I can't see how it's very different from Ellington School for the Arts. And "Athletic Achievement" just sounds like a sop for the jocks, but as we're not there it's strictly the way it reads to me and not based on any information.

[Anonymous]

You've got it down. AA was devised to reach at risk African-American males. Schultz was in charge of the Finance Academy before becoming the head of WISP. HAM and SMT are an attempt to break a large impersonal school into a smaller more personal school, but here's the back story. Teachers have classes that are comprised of WISP only and or SMT only sections. It becomes defacto tracking. Not a big problem but let's call it for what it is. So WISP becomes a largely white academy in a largely minority school. If not treated well many of the white parents would bolt for MOCO or privates. Would you blame them? Probably not. It's not about color it's about achievement. Some of the Wilson kids come from home incredibly well prepared and some of the students are on an elementary school level. True, but nobody wants to talk about it. Rest assured this is a nationwide problem. In Washington everything is racially tinged. Even snow removal.

[Anonymous]

My child is in WISP and although I think she has had some strong teachers, the diversity really just isn't there. So I would have to agree that the academies do create tracking and perpetuate segregation.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone think this situation will change anytime soon? I am excited to be sending my child to attend Deal in two years which seems like it doesn't have this issue of defacto tracking/segregation. For me Wilson is a big ? mostly because of the issues pp stated above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You've got it down. AA was devised to reach at risk African-American males. Schultz was in charge of the Finance Academy before becoming the head of WISP. HAM and SMT are an attempt to break a large impersonal school into a smaller more personal school, but here's the back story. Teachers have classes that are comprised of WISP only and or SMT only sections. It becomes defacto tracking. Not a big problem but let's call it for what it is. So WISP becomes a largely white academy in a largely minority school. If not treated well many of the white parents would bolt for MOCO or privates. Would you blame them? Probably not. It's not about color it's about achievement. Some of the Wilson kids come from home incredibly well prepared and some of the students are on an elementary school level. True, but nobody wants to talk about it. Rest assured this is a nationwide problem. In Washington everything is racially tinged. Even snow removal.

Very interesting, PP. Thanks for the scoop. If Schultz moved from Finance to WISP, then that suggests where the priorities lie and who gets first choice of scarce resources. Is there still room in the WISP core curriculum for classes like AP Bio/AP Chem/AP Physics/AP Calc? Or is that only available to SMT?

[Anonymous]

Deal's situation improved because the principal worked to fix the segregation with scheduling and academic improvements. My kids are at Wilson now and the difference is shocking. If Wilson gets serious about detracking, they will have to do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Deal's situation improved because the principal worked to fix the segregation with scheduling and academic improvements. My kids are at Wilson now and the difference is shocking. If Wilson gets serious about detracking, they will have to do the same.

This is very interesting, since I think I remember a group of African-American parents at Deal making very clear their displeasure with the principal based on some perception of bias or insensitivity. Am I misremembering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Deal's situation improved because the principal worked to fix the segregation with scheduling and academic improvements. My kids are at Wilson now and the difference is shocking. If Wilson gets serious about detracking, they will have to do the same.

This is very interesting, since I think I remember a group of African-American parents at Deal making very clear their displeasure with the principal based on some perception of bias or insensitivity. Am I misremembering?

I think that issue was around discipline being doled out disproportionately or unfairly. I don't think the parents were complaining about academics per se, but I could be wrong. I just hate the whole tracking situation and if Wilson is still like that when its time for high school, we will have to look at other options. Maybe there will be an excellent charter high school by that time. The kids that graduate from Deal have to go somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Forgive me, but what exactly is "tracking" in this context? Is that just another word for grouping students by ability? And if so, why is that a bad thing?

Sorry if this is OT, I guess I just don't understand.

[Anonymous]

I will take a stab at explaining it and others can chime in.

It is when kids are grouped in classes by ability and this inadvertently causes racial segregation within the school. It also means that once you are labeled with low ability, that label follows you forever and having an opportunity to move to another track is nil.

I don't think grouping students within a classroom by ability for certain activities has the same effect. It's when the entire school operates this way and kids don't end up experiencing diversity in the classroom - different opinions, perspectives and learning styles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will take a stab at explaining it and others can chime in.

It is when kids are grouped in classes by ability and this inadvertently causes racial segregation within the school. It also means that once you are labeled with low ability, that label follows you forever and having an opportunity to move to another track is nil.

I don't think grouping students within a classroom by ability for certain activities has the same effect. It's when the entire school operates this way and kids don't end up experiencing diversity in the classroom - different opinions, perspectives and learning styles.

Back in the dark ages when I went to high school, there were honors classes for advanced students. The downside was that we were known as the nerdy kids. Even though it was a high school of about 2000 students, we generally always ended up in the same classes (there would be only 1 or 2 sections of Honors Freshman English or Honors Algebra or Honors American History, etc.). It was harder to get to know our peers who weren't in the honors classes. The upside was that it certainly elevated the tone of the class (not to mention it set the stage for AP classes Junior and Senior years)! We were able to cover so much more material and cover it in more depth than the regular classes did. I don't know if I would have gotten a National Merit Scholarship or the college acceptance choices that I did if I hadn't had the opportunity to take more challenging coursework on what I suppose was the "honors track".

And now, having said all that I still think school would have served me better by being more challenging still. When I did eventually go off to that Ivy university it was a BIG shock to my system to be surrounded by so many other bright students who also had good study habits! Many of them had gone to either private schools or very challenging public magnet schools and had actually had demanding enough coursework to have to really learn to work. I felt that I was at a disadvantage not having had to work hard enough to learn good study habits prior to going to college. It was a real adjustment.

I definitely want to put my child in a high school environment that provides high academic expectations. Academic tracking is the least the school can do ensure a worthwhile challenge. If that's not possible in a regular public school, then it's pretty clear why parents feel they have no choice but to go private.

[Anonymous]

I'd send my kid to a Wilson academy as it exists today, warts and all. In an ideal world we'd choose a school that's free/public, rigorous, AND diverse. If we can't get diversity within the academies, I'm not going to sweat it too much.

[Anonymous]

But isn't there something yucky about having your kids in a segregated environment. I am black and my kids will attend Deal and I have no doubt that they would be able to excel in one of Wilson's academies. The problem is if you are one of a few black kids in those academies within a school where most of the kids of your race may not be performing as well...I just question whether or not this is a good environment for my kids. And what kind of message does it send to white kids? I want my kids to be in a place where they see kids of all types excel - not just a chosen few. High school should be challenging, but not at the expense of self-image/esteem. Maybe I am totally overthinking it....I have a ways to go yet.