What’s going on at Wootton?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

I can agree that MCPS's DEI department and training are a laughing stock. But Doug left himself open for precisely this kind of thing by not complying with training requirements.

If he thought the trainings were sucky or ineffective, he should have said so out loud and lobbied to improve them. Instead, he thought he could do what he wanted without consequence.

It’s December. If this training was mandatory, it sounds like MCPS administration and the superintendent just realizing it wasn’t done in August is just as fault. This school was the only one in the hundreds that somehow slipped thru the cracks on mandatory training. Come on lol

I agree with that. Doug Nelson's director and associate superintendent also need to be held to account.

[Anonymous]

I just read this entire thread and I still don’t see here, on social media, or in any county notifications all of the “race-related” student incidents people keep saying happened this year at Wootton.

I’ve seen one. One

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just read this entire thread and I still don’t see here, on social media, or in any county notifications all of the “race-related” student incidents people keep saying happened this year at Wootton.

I’ve seen one. One

You can't read then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just read this entire thread and I still don’t see here, on social media, or in any county notifications all of the “race-related” student incidents people keep saying happened this year at Wootton.

I’ve seen one. One

Since you and your colleagues are slow: https://wjla.com/news/local/maryland-montgomery-county-public-schools-mcps-wootton-high-principal-placed-on-leave-racial-slur-incident-parents-douglas-nelson-ptsa-black-and-brown-coalition-for-educational-equity-and-excellence-#

An anti-Black racial slur was found written on the desk of a Thomas S. Wootton High School student on December 3 according to Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) officials.

This incident comes only seven months after another racist incident at the same high school. On May 15, a Wootton student printed the N-word 1,000 times on 1,000 pieces of paper.

That's two. The recent one that saw the n-word written on the desk after the student went to the bathroom, the May incident where a student printed the n-word 1,000 times.

1 + 1 = 2

Therefore there were two incidents within 12 months that Principal Doug Nelson failed to properly report and respond to. And that's why he got in trouble.

Got it now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

I can agree that MCPS's DEI department and training are a laughing stock. But Doug left himself open for precisely this kind of thing by not complying with training requirements.

If he thought the trainings were sucky or ineffective, he should have said so out loud and lobbied to improve them. Instead, he thought he could do what he wanted without consequence.

It’s December. If this training was mandatory, it sounds like MCPS administration and the superintendent just realizing it wasn’t done in August is just as fault. This school was the only one in the hundreds that somehow slipped thru the cracks on mandatory training. Come on lol

I agree with that. Doug Nelson's director and associate superintendent also need to be held to account.

That could be why the communications have been coming from Moran and not them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

I can agree that MCPS's DEI department and training are a laughing stock. But Doug left himself open for precisely this kind of thing by not complying with training requirements.

If he thought the trainings were sucky or ineffective, he should have said so out loud and lobbied to improve them. Instead, he thought he could do what he wanted without consequence.

It’s December. If this training was mandatory, it sounds like MCPS administration and the superintendent just realizing it wasn’t done in August is just as fault. This school was the only one in the hundreds that somehow slipped thru the cracks on mandatory training. Come on lol

I agree with that. Doug Nelson's director and associate superintendent also need to be held to account.

Agreed. The principal’s chain of command above him also failed. His director and associate superintend are also at fault. I know Taylor said in the video from the civic association — if you watch in full- that he intends to cut central office staff going into next year. Cutting ineffective directors and associate superintendents would be great. There is too much staff not student facing right now. Glad on looking to create the new operating budget he is looking there. MCPS needs better streamlined procedures that are actually followed in central office and fewer highly paid ineffective directors and supervisors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just read this entire thread and I still don’t see here, on social media, or in any county notifications all of the “race-related” student incidents people keep saying happened this year at Wootton.

I’ve seen one. One

Since you and your colleagues are slow: https://wjla.com/news/local/maryland-montgomery-county-public-schools-mcps-wootton-high-principal-placed-on-leave-racial-slur-incident-parents-douglas-nelson-ptsa-black-and-brown-coalition-for-educational-equity-and-excellence-#

An anti-Black racial slur was found written on the desk of a Thomas S. Wootton High School student on December 3 according to Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) officials.

This incident comes only seven months after another racist incident at the same high school. On May 15, a Wootton student printed the N-word 1,000 times on 1,000 pieces of paper.

That's two. The recent one that saw the n-word written on the desk after the student went to the bathroom, the May incident where a student printed the n-word 1,000 times.

1 + 1 = 2

Therefore there were two incidents within 12 months that Principal Doug Nelson failed to properly report and respond to. And that's why he got in trouble.

Got it now?

Really it's 1001 instances of hate speech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Why are you ass
Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

DEI training is beyond wasteful. It only further divides teachers from one another based on race (not to mention dividing students on the basis of skin color, leading to MORE racial division and racism.

Why are you assuming the training was DEI? It sounds more like the training was in MCPS policy on hate speech and how to respond according to policy. The principal can disagree with policy but he can’t go rogue and just not have his staff so required training or have his staff follow MCPS. That is nuts. Principals don’t get to pick and choose what MCPS policy they follow. If they don’t like policy they can speak out and they can quit but they can’t just ignore. I do not understand why people are defending this. If it is scores, they are down under his regime not up. He started at a 5 star ranked school on the Maryland report card that now dropped down to 4. Sounds like he was given a high performing school to run that got worse, that he didn’t follow policy, and that there were two high profile racist incidents that were poorly managed (policy not followed) under his watch.

Sure would be nice if the people accusing him of misconduct could explain the misconduct.

Many parents prefer a principal who focuses on taking care of the school and not CO-based disruptions distracting and undermining the educators in the school buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MoCo Show is reporting principal placed on leave anfter something racist was written on a desk, and also that a sub used the N word. I can’t figure out how the three are connected

There’s been a series of anti-Black incidents at Wootton that the principal, Doug Nelson, has not reported and failed to act on. There is an anti-Black culture that has been allowed to fester his leadership.

That’s how they’re connected.

At least one of the anti black incidents was carried out by a BLACK STUDENT! This is absolutely relevant and anyone inciting a race war over this needs to acknowledge it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

I'm not thrilled and the board isn't doing it's job to keep this new superintendent on the path of righting the ship.
Wootton parents, draw attention to this latest mcps debacle and keep your voices heard when we go into the next election cycle.
Your neighbors don't know how bad mcps has become. NextDoor and local Facebook groups are good places to bring people's attention to how poorly mcps is being run.

Guess what? I’m a Wootton parent and I don’t agree with you. Not all of us do. He’s a nice enough guy but from day one he was in over his head at the school. I know of a particular incident (non-racism) involving my own child and another student that was extremely serious and not handled appropriately. Read the school environment surveys and you will see staff haven’t been happy. I know that there were multiple incidences of anti-semitism that were left unsolved and frankly I can’t figure out how unless you just really aren’t looking for the culprit. DS’s black friends have been negatively impacted by racism. They aren’t whiners and they aren’t looking for excuses to skip classes. They are good kids who work hard to excel and they need to feel safe in their school. I’m so proud that they have stood up and spoken up. Yes, there will always be racism but that doesn’t mean we just ignore it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

I'm not thrilled and the board isn't doing it's job to keep this new superintendent on the path of righting the ship.
Wootton parents, draw attention to this latest mcps debacle and keep your voices heard when we go into the next election cycle.
Your neighbors don't know how bad mcps has become. NextDoor and local Facebook groups are good places to bring people's attention to how poorly mcps is being run.

Guess what? I’m a Wootton parent and I don’t agree with you. Not all of us do. He’s a nice enough guy but from day one he was in over his head at the school. I know of a particular incident (non-racism) involving my own child and another student that was extremely serious and not handled appropriately. Read the school environment surveys and you will see staff haven’t been happy. I know that there were multiple incidences of anti-semitism that were left unsolved and frankly I can’t figure out how unless you just really aren’t looking for the culprit. DS’s black friends have been negatively impacted by racism. They aren’t whiners and they aren’t looking for excuses to skip classes. They are good kids who work hard to excel and they need to feel safe in their school. I’m so proud that they have stood up and spoken up. Yes, there will always be racism but that doesn’t mean we just ignore it.

As a WHS staff member, hearing these examples are infuriating yet unsurprising. There have been many staff concerns that were brushed off as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Why are you ass
Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

Which training?

We are adults. We went to school (not MCPS, thankfully.)

Present the information in a coherent document with cited sources, like our English students are supposed to do. Publish it so it can be shared and referenced.
Don't tell us to watch a TikTok.

A mandated (likely DEI) training that is useless and takes time away from teachers actually doing their job of teaching kids. This training is completely irrelevant to the incident and they were just looking for a reason to fire him so they can make the bad PR go away. Good luck hiring anyone that is actually a good principal when MOCO throws competent employees under the bus for political expediency.

These are two different things. It is reasonable to question/debate the utility of DEI training. I haven't seen the training (nor certainly have you), so I don't express an opinion about how useful it is. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor of DEI generally, but I've seen a lot of evidence suggesting this type of training isn't very useful. So this is a reasonable thing to debate (among people who know what they're talking about, which is not either of us).

It's not reasonable to argue that a principal can unilaterally waive the required training in their school. For any reason, really. But particularly if the school has known issues with this specific topic. The principal is welcome to question/debate/challenge the utility of the training to their boss. But they aren't welcome to just skip such a requirement on their own. They shouldn't expect to retain their job if ignore the requirements of their job.

DEI training is beyond wasteful. It only further divides teachers from one another based on race (not to mention dividing students on the basis of skin color, leading to MORE racial division and racism.

Why are you assuming the training was DEI? It sounds more like the training was in MCPS policy on hate speech and how to respond according to policy. The principal can disagree with policy but he can’t go rogue and just not have his staff so required training or have his staff follow MCPS. That is nuts. Principals don’t get to pick and choose what MCPS policy they follow. If they don’t like policy they can speak out and they can quit but they can’t just ignore. I do not understand why people are defending this. If it is scores, they are down under his regime not up. He started at a 5 star ranked school on the Maryland report card that now dropped down to 4. Sounds like he was given a high performing school to run that got worse, that he didn’t follow policy, and that there were two high profile racist incidents that were poorly managed (policy not followed) under his watch.

Sure would be nice if the people accusing him of misconduct could explain the misconduct.

Many parents prefer a principal who focuses on taking care of the school and not CO-based disruptions distracting and undermining the educators in the school buildings.

Stop playing stupid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Post is covering this now too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/12/10/wootton-high-racial-slur-desk/

This is a significant black eye for MCPS. Taylor needs to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

I am going to let you in on something I know you already know. Vulgar words and hate are committed every day at every high school in every state in every decade.

My God, People are overreacting to this and it’s utterly ridiculous. The principal is not an omnipresent force in the school that can prevent a misbehaving student from writing hateful language on a desk with a pencil. The whole crisis counselor thing is stupid too. HS students will pretend to be traumatized just to skip their classes.

Please watch the video of Taylor discussing why the Principal was removed. He stated that there was mandated staff training required by MCPS that the Principal had chosen not to have the Wootton staff do. Taylor found out the Principal had not done his job and had staff do the required before school opened training. This is not about the Principal needing to be “omnipresent” but about basic job expectations. For any job if you fail to do a large required task you can loose your job. Add to this that Wootton had not followed required MCPS reporting protocol and that Wootton students had testified recently at the BOE about racism not being properly addressed at Wootton.

I am thrilled MCPS has a Superintendent who will follow policy and impose consequences on staff rather than hiding administrative incompetence. Not protecting incompetent staff is a good start to improving MCPS again. Just because some people think the Principal was a nice guy is not an excuse to keep him when he failed to do his job of following MCPS policy including the mandated training. There can be no discipline if administrators do not follow rules. I hope this heralds more stringent discipline and accountability at all schools. For folks following along the issue causing his removal was not that a student drew the N word on another student’s desk. (That hopefully is now being handled with consequences given to the offending student.) The issue was that this Principal ran the school like a fiefdom where he did not have to follow rules or meet his job requirements. And yes that should get him fired.

I'm not thrilled and the board isn't doing it's job to keep this new superintendent on the path of righting the ship.
Wootton parents, draw attention to this latest mcps debacle and keep your voices heard when we go into the next election cycle.
Your neighbors don't know how bad mcps has become. NextDoor and local Facebook groups are good places to bring people's attention to how poorly mcps is being run.

Guess what? I’m a Wootton parent and I don’t agree with you. Not all of us do. He’s a nice enough guy but from day one he was in over his head at the school. I know of a particular incident (non-racism) involving my own child and another student that was extremely serious and not handled appropriately. Read the school environment surveys and you will see staff haven’t been happy. I know that there were multiple incidences of anti-semitism that were left unsolved and frankly I can’t figure out how unless you just really aren’t looking for the culprit. DS’s black friends have been negatively impacted by racism. They aren’t whiners and they aren’t looking for excuses to skip classes. They are good kids who work hard to excel and they need to feel safe in their school. I’m so proud that they have stood up and spoken up. Yes, there will always be racism but that doesn’t mean we just ignore it.

Thank you for speaking out and telling the truth as a good Wootton parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dr. Bostic, who is a AP and just started his principal internship at Northwood, will be acting principal at Wootton starting tomorrow.

How long had he served as AP before becoming a principal intern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check social media, none of this is isolated, surprising or even unexpected over there which is sad. The school can’t fix this on their own, parents need to wake up and realize that the kids through the racial and hate speech around like it’s no big deal.

1 incident a school year? I would say thats isolated

That’s what I don’t understand. It was an incident last year and one last week?

My daughter is gay and got bullied at her high school all the time. Nothing was ever done. The kids were just talked to. No in or out of school suspensions. She applied for a COSA (which was recommended) and left. Most victims have to leave MCPS schools because those that did the wrong, get nothing. This was direct to her face and known bullies, not just something random sketched on a desk or bathroom. That happens now in her new high school. It is definitely not county notified. They just clean it up and nothing is sent out to the parents. For us, it’s not worth all the complaints if you don’t know who. Teens can be jerks and have no frontal lobes. So can many parents. Look at all the fights about free lunches, transgender bathrooms, and sports eligibility. Putting a principal on leave because of 2 kids in 2 separate years did something wrong. Something isn’t adding up. There has got to be more to the story.

I agree. High School students change classrooms each period. The kid knew who was going to be sitting in that desk the next period or even later that day? Students write curse words and slurs on desks and papers every day because they think their peers will find it funny and they want the attention.

It may have been intended for someone in a later period, but in this case, the class that was in the room was not the class that was usually in the room. The teacher of record needed a substitute. A different teacher with a planning period was tapped to take over. The teacher brought the class into their room. Students should always be mindful of everyone around them.