Hearst Principal Leaving/Washington Post

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Hearst parent and I'm pretty involved with the school. And until this article, I had never heard about this violent child, much less the incident mentioned.

I'm OOB for Hearst with a child in 3rd grade. For years, I've been aware through the parent grapevine of behavior problems with the group of children in Hearst 3rd grade, next year 4th grade. The problems I've heard of seem to be pretty contained to that grade level.

Whend did the behavior problem children start at the school? Pre-k, K, 1st? That sounds like plenty of time for a principal to address the challenges of one classroom.

Can anyone speak to roughly how many "problem" children it takes to overwhelm a school of Hearst's size? Not snarky question. Our principal is also a new-ish, young-ish Rhee hire. I'm new to DCPS. Would like to hear a bit more about the signs to look for to avoid similar situation.

[Anonymous]

Kerlina's paycheck was reliable - for another year - he'd been asked to stay. He didn't want to.

He didn't abandon his staff any more than someone does when they are promoted or when they get fired - people leave jobs all the time and he left his in a responsible manner at the end of the school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kerlina's paycheck was reliable - for another year - he'd been asked to stay. He didn't want to.

He didn't abandon his staff any more than someone does when they are promoted or when they get fired - people leave jobs all the time and he left his in a responsible manner at the end of the school year.

Yes - unless you're of the opinion that he was obligated to stay in the job forever, or at least until DCPS said they didn't want him anymore, he resigned at exactly the right time.

And how did this devolve into a Rhee discussion? She been gone for how many months now? People on both sides - the detractors and the defenders - let it go already!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh, and, yes, I would describe someone who thinks Henderson's use of a colloquialism is the worst thing that's happened in DCPS since 1970 as "unhinged" as well.

Who thinks that?

So...I'll take the fact that you've latched onto my mild use of hyperbole as an endorsement of the examples in my first paragraph. Look, Rhee has her supporters. She has her rational detractors. I'm ambivalent--I'd give her positive marks for some things, negative for others. But frankly the level of vitriol directed at her on anonymous fora like DCUM, and the Washington Post comments section is hilariously unhinged. (My personal favorite is the loonbat who responds to any defense of Rhee with the accusation that the supporter is a paid shill from the dreaded "Central Office".)

I don't see that coming from her "supporters".

Frankly, people who use words like loonbat and unhinged to describe people they don't agree with come across like religious zealots so hooked into their beliefs that they have no recourse but name-calling. It's hard to believe that an ordinary citizen would be so obnoxiously defensive about a departed chancellor. It seems more likely that the vitriol is based on something more -- like entrenched beliefs and/or livelihood.

[Anonymous]

You really have to be a true believer to think that the only acceptable ways for an employee to leave DCPS is to be promoted or fired.

Note that both promotion and dismissal are done to the employee - not something the employee does of his/her own accord.

I guess retirement is OK too -- to make way for more people personally chosen by the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Hearst parent and I'm pretty involved with the school. And until this article, I had never heard about this violent child, much less the incident mentioned.

I'm OOB for Hearst with a child in 3rd grade. For years, I've been aware through the parent grapevine of behavior problems with the group of children in Hearst 3rd grade, next year 4th grade. The problems I've heard of seem to be pretty contained to that grade level.

Whend did the behavior problem children start at the school? Pre-k, K, 1st? That sounds like plenty of time for a principal to address the challenges of one classroom.

Can anyone speak to roughly how many "problem" children it takes to overwhelm a school of Hearst's size? Not snarky question. Our principal is also a new-ish, young-ish Rhee hire. I'm new to DCPS. Would like to hear a bit more about the signs to look for to avoid similar situation.

I heard that the year after this particular group of students got out of K, the K teacher said that she covered much more material, much more quickly, the next year. I heard that there were many children with behavioral issues in this particular class.

Remember, the resigning principal was in this school for their 2nd and 3rd grade years. It was a different principal for their grades preK, K, 1st. As I read the article with this background in mind, I did see that the principal was trying to address the behavioral issues, and that central office did not support him.

I think the "problem" children question needs to be asked on a classroom by classroom basis. In a class of 25, 5 problem children can pretty much derail the whole class's learning for the whole year. I say this as a parent with kids who have attended other schools, not Hearst. Really, 1 child can do it. One day my child's first grade class all went to the hall while a child threw chairs around the classroom. He was shortly after placed in a full time classroom out of the mainstream.