What is it like sending your DC to a majority/plurality asian school?(Churchill/Wootton area)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I should add, the true test of the new principal at Churchill will be whether she addresses problems head on, work with staff, students, and parents to identify and resolve problems or if she talks a good talk but does nothing like her predecessor.

Agree, PP! Do you see that there’s a Meet and Greet with the new principal next week?

Really, you think a meet and greet is the appropriate time and place to discuss these things? Not too many people around the neighborhood now so perhaps it will be a quaint enough gathering to do so but it might put her on the spot.

It seems however that a meet and greet will only have time to say hi and bye but not really enough time to delve into what is going to be done to fix the big issues in the school. I would think a PTA meeting or a town forum at a time closer to the start of school or even a scheduled meeting if she had the time would be more appropriate.

It would be appropriate to ask a question or two about addressing some of the issues that Churchill went through last year, For example, What your plans to address the racist and anti-Semitic incidents from last year?

Do you have any plans to increase training for coaches?

Not too hard to ask these simple questions.

I think working through the PTA will have a louder voice to make headway on these issues. The PTA President is well aware of specifics and can help guide the discussion to a more appropriate venue. A flipant answer at a Meet and Greet without an opportunity to develop a real solution wouldn't be progress. Parents and teachers want real solutions to problems in the school not lip service.

[Anonymous]

Regarding athletics: I would ask her to reveiw Title IX issues prevalent in the entire Athletic Department. What's being done to get rid of coaches who violate MCPS Employee Code of Conduct and what is being done to hire more female coaches?

The leadership in the Athletic Department should also be scrutinized for overlooking the problems across several teams and by many athletes, including many of whom were female. It's 2018 people but the treatment of girls at Churchill is worse than anything I experienced in my lifetime but the AD calls it a "different coaching style" instead of sexual harassment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding athletics: I would ask her to reveiw Title IX issues prevalent in the entire Athletic Department. What's being done to get rid of coaches who violate MCPS Employee Code of Conduct and what is being done to hire more female coaches?

The leadership in the Athletic Department should also be scrutinized for overlooking the problems across several teams and by many athletes, including many of whom were female. It's 2018 people but the treatment of girls at Churchill is worse than anything I experienced in my lifetime but the AD calls it a "different coaching style" instead of sexual harassment.

That is pretty much his standard answer for any Coach who doesn't realize the difference between coaching and verbal abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding athletics: I would ask her to reveiw Title IX issues prevalent in the entire Athletic Department. What's being done to get rid of coaches who violate MCPS Employee Code of Conduct and what is being done to hire more female coaches?

The leadership in the Athletic Department should also be scrutinized for overlooking the problems across several teams and by many athletes, including many of whom were female. It's 2018 people but the treatment of girls at Churchill is worse than anything I experienced in my lifetime but the AD calls it a "different coaching style" instead of sexual harassment.

That is pretty much his standard answer for any Coach who doesn't realize the difference between coaching and verbal abuse.

On some of the teams, conduct of male coaches with athletes went beyond verbal inappropriateness. AD is part of the problem because he did nothing to protect children despite years of complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regarding athletics: I would ask her to reveiw Title IX issues prevalent in the entire Athletic Department. What's being done to get rid of coaches who violate MCPS Employee Code of Conduct and what is being done to hire more female coaches?

The leadership in the Athletic Department should also be scrutinized for overlooking the problems across several teams and by many athletes, including many of whom were female. It's 2018 people but the treatment of girls at Churchill is worse than anything I experienced in my lifetime but the AD calls it a "different coaching style" instead of sexual harassment.

That is pretty much his standard answer for any Coach who doesn't realize the difference between coaching and verbal abuse.

Here's the big question - Does the AD understand the difference between coaching and verbal abuse? Does he know language that is widely considered to be sexual harassment?

Someone in MCPS should make him a chart to know the difference or hire an AD that has better judgement and character.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m in the Wootton cluster. It’s not that the population is largely Asian, it’s that the parents are mostly immigrants. Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, middle eastern, Russian.

The parent groups are largely insular. The kids are expected to be high performing. Their behavior outside of grades seems largely ignored, particularly for the boys. I’m sure many kids are lovely. But many have significant issues. Drugs and theft are prevalent.

I have heard about discipline problems from Asian students (yes particularly boys) in Clarksburg schools too ! Has this got anything to do with parents giving undue importance to the male child (which used to be prevalent in the Asian culture) and cutting them too much slack?

In our school there are a lot of boys with awful behaviors, but they are all white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I should add, the true test of the new principal at Churchill will be whether she addresses problems head on, work with staff, students, and parents to identify and resolve problems or if she talks a good talk but does nothing like her predecessor.

Agree, PP! Do you see that there’s a Meet and Greet with the new principal next week?

Really, you think a meet and greet is the appropriate time and place to discuss these things? Not too many people around the neighborhood now so perhaps it will be a quaint enough gathering to do so but it might put her on the spot.

It seems however that a meet and greet will only have time to say hi and bye but not really enough time to delve into what is going to be done to fix the big issues in the school. I would think a PTA meeting or a town forum at a time closer to the start of school or even a scheduled meeting if she had the time would be more appropriate.

It would be appropriate to ask a question or two about addressing some of the issues that Churchill went through last year, For example, What your plans to address the racist and anti-Semitic incidents from last year?

Do you have any plans to increase training for coaches?

Not too hard to ask these simple questions.

I think working through the PTA will have a louder voice to make headway on these issues. The PTA President is well aware of specifics and can help guide the discussion to a more appropriate venue. A flipant answer at a Meet and Greet without an opportunity to develop a real solution wouldn't be progress. Parents and teachers want real solutions to problems in the school not lip service.

No one’s disagreeing that working through he PTSA is a good idea. It just seems strange that you think that parents shouldn’t take the opportunity presented to share their concerns and get the new principal’s point of view as well.

[Anonymous]

I think working through the PTA will have a louder voice to make headway on these issues. The PTA President is well aware of specifics and can help guide the discussion to a more appropriate venue. A flipant answer at a Meet and Greet without an opportunity to develop a real solution wouldn't be progress. Parents and teachers want real solutions to problems in the school not lip service.

No, no, no.

PTAs do a lot of good but MCCPTA is terrible at being the voice of parents. Its infected with the same shush up the complainers, reward complicit behavior and both intentionally and sometimes unintentionally works to support the MCPS system not the parents, students and teachers. Principals work to control the PTA leaders, give favors, subtle threats of retribution, reward them with more access and do whatever they can to keep the PTA quiet. The MCCPTA board has the same relationship with the central office. If they stay quiet then they get access and more things for their cluster.

Parents need to come out in numbers and raise these issues. Again, and again and again. Its the only way to change anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think working through the PTA will have a louder voice to make headway on these issues. The PTA President is well aware of specifics and can help guide the discussion to a more appropriate venue. A flipant answer at a Meet and Greet without an opportunity to develop a real solution wouldn't be progress. Parents and teachers want real solutions to problems in the school not lip service.

No, no, no.

PTAs do a lot of good but MCCPTA is terrible at being the voice of parents. Its infected with the same shush up the complainers, reward complicit behavior and both intentionally and sometimes unintentionally works to support the MCPS system not the parents, students and teachers. Principals work to control the PTA leaders, give favors, subtle threats of retribution, reward them with more access and do whatever they can to keep the PTA quiet. The MCCPTA board has the same relationship with the central office. If they stay quiet then they get access and more things for their cluster.

Parents need to come out in numbers and raise these issues. Again, and again and again. Its the only way to change anything.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be racist, seriously curious. Looking into a few elementary schools in the Churchill/Wootton high school clusters for DD to start kindergarten in the fall. Are these schools with an exceptionally high asian population any different/have a different atmosphere from an elementary school with few asians? Are these schools more competitive in the classroom? Thanks. Examples of these schools: Wayside, Cold Spring, Lakewood, Stone Mill, and Travilah).

If you have to start a sentence "Not to be racist..." then you probably shouldn't be asking the question.

+1 There aren't threads about what it's like to go to a majority white or a majority black school, so just move along.

exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be racist, seriously curious. Looking into a few elementary schools in the Churchill/Wootton high school clusters for DD to start kindergarten in the fall. Are these schools with an exceptionally high asian population any different/have a different atmosphere from an elementary school with few asians? Are these schools more competitive in the classroom? Thanks. Examples of these schools: Wayside, Cold Spring, Lakewood, Stone Mill, and Travilah).

If you have to start a sentence "Not to be racist..." then you probably shouldn't be asking the question.

+1 There aren't threads about what it's like to go to a majority white or a majority black school, so just move along.

exactly

But why should people move along? A majority white or black school would have their own cultures as well and I would completely understand why a person not a member of that majority would want to know what the culture is like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I should add, the true test of the new principal at Churchill will be whether she addresses problems head on, work with staff, students, and parents to identify and resolve problems or if she talks a good talk but does nothing like her predecessor.

Agree, PP! Do you see that there’s a Meet and Greet with the new principal next week?

Really, you think a meet and greet is the appropriate time and place to discuss these things? Not too many people around the neighborhood now so perhaps it will be a quaint enough gathering to do so but it might put her on the spot.

It seems however that a meet and greet will only have time to say hi and bye but not really enough time to delve into what is going to be done to fix the big issues in the school. I would think a PTA meeting or a town forum at a time closer to the start of school or even a scheduled meeting if she had the time would be more appropriate.

It would be appropriate to ask a question or two about addressing some of the issues that Churchill went through last year, For example, What your plans to address the racist and anti-Semitic incidents from last year?

Do you have any plans to increase training for coaches?

Not too hard to ask these simple questions.

I think working through the PTA will have a louder voice to make headway on these issues. The PTA President is well aware of specifics and can help guide the discussion to a more appropriate venue. A flipant answer at a Meet and Greet without an opportunity to develop a real solution wouldn't be progress. Parents and teachers want real solutions to problems in the school not lip service.

No one’s disagreeing that working through he PTSA is a good idea. It just seems strange that you think that parents shouldn’t take the opportunity presented to share their concerns and get the new principal’s point of view as well.

People can do what they want. I am out of town so I can't attend. I also think people should be respectful of the agenda.

Regarding the PTA, we have had self serving leadership in the past but I think the current board has the best interest of the school at heart. MCCPTA also has been working with the Churchill PTA on these issues. I think they can speak with a collective voice so individual students and families are not retaliated as been the case in the past. They also can connect enough dots to know the issues are wide and broad beyond a single incident, a single student, or a single athletic team.

[Anonymous]

The central office looks at MCCPTA board members and leaders as individuals to be handled NOT a representative body. To the central office, if a MCCPTA member pushes them in a direction that serves the students, parents, and teachers but not the central office they restrict access or try to surround the board member with other complicit MCCPTA members.

MCCPTA ranges from ineffective to down right corrupt. The local PTA leaders may have all the best intentions but they are being led into the woods with no return path by their MCCPTA partners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While everyone's experience is unique, here is what I noticed:

1. Asian American parents do not generally view a STEM classroom as a place where a child learns; rather, they expect a child to study ahead and REVIEW in a math / science classroom. While the school overall is 40% Asian, the advanced math classes will have a much larger percent of Asian students. Most of them will be reviewing the material, not learning it for the first time. If you do not naturally come from that tradition, you need to plan accordingly.

2. If your child is a good student, he/she needs to be very comfortable being possibly the only non-Asian student in a class or (more commonly) an academic extracurricular activity, such as math team, physics team, orroboytics team.

And this 'tradition' starts in elementary school. Insane!

I think part of the issue is that math and science goes so damn slow. I'm all for teaching kids different methods to multiply and divide, but to drag it out for a year or two is pretty ridiculous. So yes, I can understand why some parents want to move their children ahead. I am sure it stops once the kids get to more complicated math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The central office looks at MCCPTA board members and leaders as individuals to be handled NOT a representative body. To the central office, if a MCCPTA member pushes them in a direction that serves the students, parents, and teachers but not the central office they restrict access or try to surround the board member with other complicit MCCPTA members.

MCCPTA ranges from ineffective to down right corrupt. The local PTA leaders may have all the best intentions but they are being led into the woods with no return path by their MCCPTA partners.

Have you ever considered a MCCPTA position or a PTA position even join a committee to help the leaders? These positions are manned by volunteers who sacrifice their time and efforts to help improve our public education system.

Perhaps I am naive or as experienced in MCPS politics as PP, so how would PP suggest parents ban together at Churchill? Should we file a class action civil suit against MCPS for Title IX violations to bring our voices and experiences together?