A quarter of the teachers at Lakewood Elementary are leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I really don't think parents are going to get what they want here because nothing I've seen described in this thread goes outside the purview of a principal within their own school.

Moving teachers between grade levels, choosing to departmentalize (or not) certain grades, stating that she wants to take an anti-racist approach, being a Black woman in a plurality Asian American school.

None of those are things that MCPS is going to fire someone for, even if they did a bad job communicating, because the last thing MCPS wants is parents rising up and demanding a principal be replaced every time an administrator makes a decision that parents disagree with.

Maybe these are not reasons to fire a principal. But these are enough reasons for MCPS administration to take actions and ask her to change her working style with teachers, students and parents. Keep antagonizing the community by ignoring their complaints will not end up well.

Yes!! We would love to have a collaborative community with open communication between admin, teachers, parents and students. I know Dr. Kelly is big on cultural competency; why not consult with the PTA about how to best communicate with the unique populations at this school? The Black National Anthem thing is an example. Lift Every Voice and Sing is not a "national anthem," but I can see how not giving more context about it could be confusing for the (many, MANY) immigrant parents where at Lakewood who are not familiar with the history of American racial inequities.

I genuinely think most parents at Lakewood are very much on board with her anti-racist agenda and curriculum, but because of language and cultural barriers, don't always understand what she is trying achieve. Lakewood has a high Asian population, right? Well, education about the civil rights movement and Black history could benefit from something like talking about the Yellow Peril Supports Black Panthers movement, as an example of allyship between Asian and Black people in the US. It could absolutely become something collaborative and more engaging for the unique population here. Otherwise it becomes kind of, "okay, Black history, cool... but what does that have to do with me? My parents came here like 10 years ago."

Seriously it really doesn’t have much to do with race. It has to do with how she handled the relationship with teachers, students and parents, and also MCPS administration’s unwillingness to listen to parents. I don’t know why some posters kept muddying the water by talking about Blacks and Asians. It’s not about that at all.

Oh, it is very much about race. The principal has made it about race.

MCPS, as a whole, is hyper-focused in race. This is just one small example of how that becomes a negative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I really don't think parents are going to get what they want here because nothing I've seen described in this thread goes outside the purview of a principal within their own school.

Moving teachers between grade levels, choosing to departmentalize (or not) certain grades, stating that she wants to take an anti-racist approach, being a Black woman in a plurality Asian American school.

None of those are things that MCPS is going to fire someone for, even if they did a bad job communicating, because the last thing MCPS wants is parents rising up and demanding a principal be replaced every time an administrator makes a decision that parents disagree with.

Maybe these are not reasons to fire a principal. But these are enough reasons for MCPS administration to take actions and ask her to change her working style with teachers, students and parents. Keep antagonizing the community by ignoring their complaints will not end up well.

Yes!! We would love to have a collaborative community with open communication between admin, teachers, parents and students. I know Dr. Kelly is big on cultural competency; why not consult with the PTA about how to best communicate with the unique populations at this school? The Black National Anthem thing is an example. Lift Every Voice and Sing is not a "national anthem," but I can see how not giving more context about it could be confusing for the (many, MANY) immigrant parents where at Lakewood who are not familiar with the history of American racial inequities.

I genuinely think most parents at Lakewood are very much on board with her anti-racist agenda and curriculum, but because of language and cultural barriers, don't always understand what she is trying achieve. Lakewood has a high Asian population, right? Well, education about the civil rights movement and Black history could benefit from something like talking about the Yellow Peril Supports Black Panthers movement, as an example of allyship between Asian and Black people in the US. It could absolutely become something collaborative and more engaging for the unique population here. Otherwise it becomes kind of, "okay, Black history, cool... but what does that have to do with me? My parents came here like 10 years ago."

Seriously it really doesn’t have much to do with race. It has to do with how she handled the relationship with teachers, students and parents, and also MCPS administration’s unwillingness to listen to parents. I don’t know why some posters kept muddying the water by talking about Blacks and Asians. It’s not about that at all.

Oh, it is very much about race. The principal has made it about race.

MCPS, as a whole, is hyper-focused in race. This is just one small example of how that becomes a negative.

And you want hyper-focused-in-race MCPS to do something about hyper-focused-in-race principal?

It’s really about her inability to function as a principal. Race issue is just on top of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I really don't think parents are going to get what they want here because nothing I've seen described in this thread goes outside the purview of a principal within their own school.

Moving teachers between grade levels, choosing to departmentalize (or not) certain grades, stating that she wants to take an anti-racist approach, being a Black woman in a plurality Asian American school.

None of those are things that MCPS is going to fire someone for, even if they did a bad job communicating, because the last thing MCPS wants is parents rising up and demanding a principal be replaced every time an administrator makes a decision that parents disagree with.

Maybe these are not reasons to fire a principal. But these are enough reasons for MCPS administration to take actions and ask her to change her working style with teachers, students and parents. Keep antagonizing the community by ignoring their complaints will not end up well.

Yes!! We would love to have a collaborative community with open communication between admin, teachers, parents and students. I know Dr. Kelly is big on cultural competency; why not consult with the PTA about how to best communicate with the unique populations at this school? The Black National Anthem thing is an example. Lift Every Voice and Sing is not a "national anthem," but I can see how not giving more context about it could be confusing for the (many, MANY) immigrant parents where at Lakewood who are not familiar with the history of American racial inequities.

I genuinely think most parents at Lakewood are very much on board with her anti-racist agenda and curriculum, but because of language and cultural barriers, don't always understand what she is trying achieve. Lakewood has a high Asian population, right? Well, education about the civil rights movement and Black history could benefit from something like talking about the Yellow Peril Supports Black Panthers movement, as an example of allyship between Asian and Black people in the US. It could absolutely become something collaborative and more engaging for the unique population here. Otherwise it becomes kind of, "okay, Black history, cool... but what does that have to do with me? My parents came here like 10 years ago."

Seriously it really doesn’t have much to do with race. It has to do with how she handled the relationship with teachers, students and parents, and also MCPS administration’s unwillingness to listen to parents. I don’t know why some posters kept muddying the water by talking about Blacks and Asians. It’s not about that at all.

Actually since Dr. Kelly makes it about race, it does have to do with race. If she came in emphasizing the school and students well being, it would only be about her poor communication, collaboration and management styles.

Looking into it, Clarksburg High, which also has a popular and well liked principal that is Black, does have a mission statement that includes anti racism and equity in it's message:

To provide a quality evolving education that ensures success for every student through teaching and learning.

Clarksburg High School’s Race and Equity Pledge

We will act with a mindset of high expectations for all students and call attention to and eliminate patterns of inequity and racial bias in student outcomes.

Staff will take personal and institutional responsibility for the success of their students, and critically reassess their own practices. Our promise also requires that staff are race-conscious community members who support anti-racist policies and ideas through their actions and/or words and are aware of the social and historical context of exclusionary practices in our school.

We will nurture a community that values our inherent diversity while holding each individual responsible to a collective good.

This is our promise to our staff, students, parents, and community.

So seeing that, maybe Dr. Kelly's mission isn't that out of the norm. But the makeup of Clarksburg High and Lakewood are different. So some context and making sure in being careful on how it might be taken would've helped. No one knew where she was coming from.

It doesn't help that in the meeting a Black family stood up and tried to tell everyone to calm down and that the things were happening was normal. Families already knew the teacher's point of view and wanted that time for a moment of transparency from Dr. Kelly's point of view. So already didn't trust Michelle Shultz and Dr. Kelly because teachers were telling them things otherwise. And the family standing up for Dr. Kelly looked like it was done for Black solidarity sowing further racial disharmony in the community.

An example of good transparency, is that Dr. Kelly did mention how with one of the leaving staff members it was inappropriate to go to student homes during the weekend. Thinking about it, besides the excellent child and classroom management, probably due to years of experience, one of the reasons why one of the leaving teachers was so valued was because they always went above and beyond, in a somewhat Freedom Writerish kind of way, saying "My kids need me...". It has crossed my mind before that they often broke a lot of union contract rules in doing what they did. So I'm always kind of careful in mentioning why we appreciate them so much because don't want anything to come back to them. So maybe Dr. Kelly decided that she couldn't have someone in her staff going rogue like that. Although I will say that if I recall correctly one of the reasons why the principal at Clarksburg High was lauded back when he was at Shady Grove Middle School was that he made to sure to pay in person home visits to students. So one person gets applauded for it and the other seeing it as a negative thing? But that's besides the point.

I don't know what people thought of Lakewood's environment previously. But I see Dr. Kelly as fracturing the community and causing disharmony. For example:

-With the Lift Every Voice and Sing issue at the graduation ceremony, that was an opportunity for Dr. Kelly to share and teach many a wonderful and uplifting song that may mean a lot to her. But instead it was seen as her attacking and fighting back and that moment was looked at with suspicion

-during the graduation ceremony, people would kind of look sideways at Black families and wonder if they saw their issues with Dr. Kelly as them being racist. Then should they overcompensate by making sure to cheer for all the Black students? Did they support Dr. Kelly? And do they only support her because she's Black?

-having questions if she's attacking the community or being hostile. Going back to the song from the graduation ceremony. Or during the townhall meeting, I wasn't online and couldn't see but there some comments like "Wow look how angry she looks" But maybe she was just honestly just being silent waiting for responses. But the relationship is so broken that's how things are misconstrued.

-and then in general, are Dr. Kelly's plans and actions for the sake of the students and their education or is it for the sake of diversity and equity?

Looking at things a little bit more, I'm willing to say that a lot of issues are due to Dr. Kelly's inexperience and being tone deaf. But I'm also suspicious of her motives and see her actions as causing issues in the community rather than uniting it.

Ehh... I don't know if I agree with this perspective. Dr. Kelly is not a mind reader, perhaps she lacks cultural competency (in not realizing that the unique demographics of Lakewood might mean that we don't all have the same background understanding of racial dynamics in the US, so that, yes, we will need some context) but you are almost expecting her to be able to anticipate how people will react to every little nuance? It would be more generous of us to give her some grace. When the complaints are about "we felt..." or "we feel..." or "we didn't know..." well, it's not a strong point to argue from. How is "she looks angry" a legitimate criticism? Is she not also allowed to have feelings? To be fair, when you have angry parents shouting at you and telling you that you have "devastated the community," that is some pretty harsh feedback. I would be upset too!

It would be just as easy for Dr. Kelly to turn this around and say, "well, look at how ignorant this community is. They thought I was trying to attack them just by playing a song! This obviously means that they NEED this anti-racist agenda more than anything, I should absolutely stay this course." As an outsider, reading your post, making points like this make it seem like you are choosing to interpret her every action in only the most negative way. What's that famous saying? "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"?

Relationships go two ways. We can argue the relationship between admin and parents is broken now, but I wonder if we have tried attracting flies with honey instead of vinegar. The fact of the matter is, 10 of our best teachers at Lakewood are leaving, and no amount of haranguing Dr. Kelly is going to make them come back. Like, they've signed contracts at other schools, gotten new jobs, switched careers, whatever. Our goal is to prevent other good teachers from leaving. Our goal is to have input in the new teachers who are replacing the ones who are leaving, because, well, we care about the quality of our children's education!! The more adversarial we make this relationship, the more the administration can and will use it as a reason to shut parents out.

Another issue about making it a race issue is the optics. For example, you brought up the other Black family who defended Dr. Kelly. Why are you invalidating how they feel about Lakewood? Perhaps they really do feel positively about it, and it's not just a matter of Black solidarity. I actually do know this family, and they are active members and supporters of the school. Did you read the results of the anti-racist survey? I did. I do see that Black families surveyed at Lakewood feel that they are not as supported as other ethnic groups. So to them, perhaps their perspective is, "hey, Lakewood wasn't that great for us, perhaps these new policies set in place by this Principal, who arguably understands the Black experience in US better than the previous Principal, will be the change that we needed." That viewpoint is very valid as well.

Looking at the last names of the people who attended this meeting... it's mostly Asian and white. Nobody is going to read past the headline and first paragraph in the Washington Post, which will basically come down to: affluent white and Asian parents are bullying the new Black principal because she pushes an anti-racist agenda. Obviously it's an oversimplification of the situation, but nobody is going to turn to page 3 and read about the teacher turnover rate, departmentalization, discipline issues, etc etc. And I hate to say it, but in a blue county like MoCo, white people are hyperconscious about coming across as racist. (Go to a comedy show and see who laughs during racial jokes... white people always look around first before they start laughing.) If we let this become about race, we will absolutely lose support that we cannot afford to lose.

Dr. Kelly is data-driven, and that works to her benefit because she can point to studies and hard numbers and say, "look at this, this is actual results, this is not about feelings." So we need to take the same approach. We are worried about the educational quality of the school. We're against teacher reassignments, because it poses an undue burden on the teachers, who are already stressed and already overworked, and we want to support the teachers. But like Michelle Schultze said, it is within Dr. Kelly's purview to assign teachers to new grades, and Central office will not support the parents in this case -- not just because they probably really don't GAF, but because they also want to cover their butts, and don't want any openings for it to be said, "look at the systemic racism in the system, this Black principal is struggling with these entitled, affluent parents, but she's not even getting backup from her superiors! How terrible, all she's trying to do is to educate."

What we can do, as parents, is to critically examine what happens when these changes are implemented at Lakewood. If they are truly bad changes, like resulting test scores dropping, or increased discipline problems, we can point these out and use that data to argue our point. Being brutally honest, this will be hard for me as well -- as a Lakewood parent, I've been pretty complacent. I felt confident in the teachers and the educational quality at Lakewood, which meant that I didn't need to be terribly involved, just some classroom volunteering every now and then. I don't feel that confidence now. But the fact of the matter is, students with active, involved parents are the most successful ones, and in an situation where I cannot rely on others to ensure my childrens' educational success, then I have to be the one to step up and ensure it, and that may mean I have to be more active in the PTA, or establish new lines of communication with the teachers so I can learn how better to support them, or maybe just become that annoying activist parent, because it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

[Anonymous]

A simple question:

Should the Vision of the school reflect the parents belief of what is good for the students?

or

Should the Vision of the school reflect the Principal's belief of what is good for the students?

or

There is a middle ground between the two

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I really don't think parents are going to get what they want here because nothing I've seen described in this thread goes outside the purview of a principal within their own school.

Moving teachers between grade levels, choosing to departmentalize (or not) certain grades, stating that she wants to take an anti-racist approach, being a Black woman in a plurality Asian American school.

None of those are things that MCPS is going to fire someone for, even if they did a bad job communicating, because the last thing MCPS wants is parents rising up and demanding a principal be replaced every time an administrator makes a decision that parents disagree with.

Maybe these are not reasons to fire a principal. But these are enough reasons for MCPS administration to take actions and ask her to change her working style with teachers, students and parents. Keep antagonizing the community by ignoring their complaints will not end up well.

Yes!! We would love to have a collaborative community with open communication between admin, teachers, parents and students. I know Dr. Kelly is big on cultural competency; why not consult with the PTA about how to best communicate with the unique populations at this school? The Black National Anthem thing is an example. Lift Every Voice and Sing is not a "national anthem," but I can see how not giving more context about it could be confusing for the (many, MANY) immigrant parents where at Lakewood who are not familiar with the history of American racial inequities.

I genuinely think most parents at Lakewood are very much on board with her anti-racist agenda and curriculum, but because of language and cultural barriers, don't always understand what she is trying achieve. Lakewood has a high Asian population, right? Well, education about the civil rights movement and Black history could benefit from something like talking about the Yellow Peril Supports Black Panthers movement, as an example of allyship between Asian and Black people in the US. It could absolutely become something collaborative and more engaging for the unique population here. Otherwise it becomes kind of, "okay, Black history, cool... but what does that have to do with me? My parents came here like 10 years ago."

Seriously it really doesn’t have much to do with race. It has to do with how she handled the relationship with teachers, students and parents, and also MCPS administration’s unwillingness to listen to parents. I don’t know why some posters kept muddying the water by talking about Blacks and Asians. It’s not about that at all.

Actually since Dr. Kelly makes it about race, it does have to do with race. If she came in emphasizing the school and students well being, it would only be about her poor communication, collaboration and management styles.

Looking into it, Clarksburg High, which also has a popular and well liked principal that is Black, does have a mission statement that includes anti racism and equity in it's message:

To provide a quality evolving education that ensures success for every student through teaching and learning.

Clarksburg High School’s Race and Equity Pledge

We will act with a mindset of high expectations for all students and call attention to and eliminate patterns of inequity and racial bias in student outcomes.

Staff will take personal and institutional responsibility for the success of their students, and critically reassess their own practices. Our promise also requires that staff are race-conscious community members who support anti-racist policies and ideas through their actions and/or words and are aware of the social and historical context of exclusionary practices in our school.

We will nurture a community that values our inherent diversity while holding each individual responsible to a collective good.

This is our promise to our staff, students, parents, and community.

So seeing that, maybe Dr. Kelly's mission isn't that out of the norm. But the makeup of Clarksburg High and Lakewood are different. So some context and making sure in being careful on how it might be taken would've helped. No one knew where she was coming from.

It doesn't help that in the meeting a Black family stood up and tried to tell everyone to calm down and that the things were happening was normal. Families already knew the teacher's point of view and wanted that time for a moment of transparency from Dr. Kelly's point of view. So already didn't trust Michelle Shultz and Dr. Kelly because teachers were telling them things otherwise. And the family standing up for Dr. Kelly looked like it was done for Black solidarity sowing further racial disharmony in the community.

An example of good transparency, is that Dr. Kelly did mention how with one of the leaving staff members it was inappropriate to go to student homes during the weekend. Thinking about it, besides the excellent child and classroom management, probably due to years of experience, one of the reasons why one of the leaving teachers was so valued was because they always went above and beyond, in a somewhat Freedom Writerish kind of way, saying "My kids need me...". It has crossed my mind before that they often broke a lot of union contract rules in doing what they did. So I'm always kind of careful in mentioning why we appreciate them so much because don't want anything to come back to them. So maybe Dr. Kelly decided that she couldn't have someone in her staff going rogue like that. Although I will say that if I recall correctly one of the reasons why the principal at Clarksburg High was lauded back when he was at Shady Grove Middle School was that he made to sure to pay in person home visits to students. So one person gets applauded for it and the other seeing it as a negative thing? But that's besides the point.

I don't know what people thought of Lakewood's environment previously. But I see Dr. Kelly as fracturing the community and causing disharmony. For example:

-With the Lift Every Voice and Sing issue at the graduation ceremony, that was an opportunity for Dr. Kelly to share and teach many a wonderful and uplifting song that may mean a lot to her. But instead it was seen as her attacking and fighting back and that moment was looked at with suspicion

-during the graduation ceremony, people would kind of look sideways at Black families and wonder if they saw their issues with Dr. Kelly as them being racist. Then should they overcompensate by making sure to cheer for all the Black students? Did they support Dr. Kelly? And do they only support her because she's Black?

-having questions if she's attacking the community or being hostile. Going back to the song from the graduation ceremony. Or during the townhall meeting, I wasn't online and couldn't see but there some comments like "Wow look how angry she looks" But maybe she was just honestly just being silent waiting for responses. But the relationship is so broken that's how things are misconstrued.

-and then in general, are Dr. Kelly's plans and actions for the sake of the students and their education or is it for the sake of diversity and equity?

Looking at things a little bit more, I'm willing to say that a lot of issues are due to Dr. Kelly's inexperience and being tone deaf. But I'm also suspicious of her motives and see her actions as causing issues in the community rather than uniting it.

Ehh... I don't know if I agree with this perspective. Dr. Kelly is not a mind reader, perhaps she lacks cultural competency (in not realizing that the unique demographics of Lakewood might mean that we don't all have the same background understanding of racial dynamics in the US, so that, yes, we will need some context) but you are almost expecting her to be able to anticipate how people will react to every little nuance? It would be more generous of us to give her some grace. When the complaints are about "we felt..." or "we feel..." or "we didn't know..." well, it's not a strong point to argue from. How is "she looks angry" a legitimate criticism? Is she not also allowed to have feelings? To be fair, when you have angry parents shouting at you and telling you that you have "devastated the community," that is some pretty harsh feedback. I would be upset too!

It would be just as easy for Dr. Kelly to turn this around and say, "well, look at how ignorant this community is. They thought I was trying to attack them just by playing a song! This obviously means that they NEED this anti-racist agenda more than anything, I should absolutely stay this course." As an outsider, reading your post, making points like this make it seem like you are choosing to interpret her every action in only the most negative way. What's that famous saying? "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"?

Relationships go two ways. We can argue the relationship between admin and parents is broken now, but I wonder if we have tried attracting flies with honey instead of vinegar. The fact of the matter is, 10 of our best teachers at Lakewood are leaving, and no amount of haranguing Dr. Kelly is going to make them come back. Like, they've signed contracts at other schools, gotten new jobs, switched careers, whatever. Our goal is to prevent other good teachers from leaving. Our goal is to have input in the new teachers who are replacing the ones who are leaving, because, well, we care about the quality of our children's education!! The more adversarial we make this relationship, the more the administration can and will use it as a reason to shut parents out.

Another issue about making it a race issue is the optics. For example, you brought up the other Black family who defended Dr. Kelly. Why are you invalidating how they feel about Lakewood? Perhaps they really do feel positively about it, and it's not just a matter of Black solidarity. I actually do know this family, and they are active members and supporters of the school. Did you read the results of the anti-racist survey? I did. I do see that Black families surveyed at Lakewood feel that they are not as supported as other ethnic groups. So to them, perhaps their perspective is, "hey, Lakewood wasn't that great for us, perhaps these new policies set in place by this Principal, who arguably understands the Black experience in US better than the previous Principal, will be the change that we needed." That viewpoint is very valid as well.

Looking at the last names of the people who attended this meeting... it's mostly Asian and white. Nobody is going to read past the headline and first paragraph in the Washington Post, which will basically come down to: affluent white and Asian parents are bullying the new Black principal because she pushes an anti-racist agenda. Obviously it's an oversimplification of the situation, but nobody is going to turn to page 3 and read about the teacher turnover rate, departmentalization, discipline issues, etc etc. And I hate to say it, but in a blue county like MoCo, white people are hyperconscious about coming across as racist. (Go to a comedy show and see who laughs during racial jokes... white people always look around first before they start laughing.) If we let this become about race, we will absolutely lose support that we cannot afford to lose.

Dr. Kelly is data-driven, and that works to her benefit because she can point to studies and hard numbers and say, "look at this, this is actual results, this is not about feelings." So we need to take the same approach. We are worried about the educational quality of the school. We're against teacher reassignments, because it poses an undue burden on the teachers, who are already stressed and already overworked, and we want to support the teachers. But like Michelle Schultze said, it is within Dr. Kelly's purview to assign teachers to new grades, and Central office will not support the parents in this case -- not just because they probably really don't GAF, but because they also want to cover their butts, and don't want any openings for it to be said, "look at the systemic racism in the system, this Black principal is struggling with these entitled, affluent parents, but she's not even getting backup from her superiors! How terrible, all she's trying to do is to educate."

What we can do, as parents, is to critically examine what happens when these changes are implemented at Lakewood. If they are truly bad changes, like resulting test scores dropping, or increased discipline problems, we can point these out and use that data to argue our point. Being brutally honest, this will be hard for me as well -- as a Lakewood parent, I've been pretty complacent. I felt confident in the teachers and the educational quality at Lakewood, which meant that I didn't need to be terribly involved, just some classroom volunteering every now and then. I don't feel that confidence now. But the fact of the matter is, students with active, involved parents are the most successful ones, and in an situation where I cannot rely on others to ensure my childrens' educational success, then I have to be the one to step up and ensure it, and that may mean I have to be more active in the PTA, or establish new lines of communication with the teachers so I can learn how better to support them, or maybe just become that annoying activist parent, because it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

This is a balanced and excellent comment, and one I wish I had written.

I want to add that, as an outsider to this situation, some of the parents on this thread are not doing themselves any favors. I'm not saying that to be on kind, I'm saying it because I came into this thread ready to be sympathetic and am exactly the sort of potential ally that will be alienated by this narrative.

It is clear that the trust is broken in this relationship, but it's not clear that it is entirely the principal's fault. At every turn, it seems that the parent community is describing the worst possible motives.

The zoom meeting is a good example. Anyone who has done a school sponsored meeting in the last 3 years knows there is a high likelihood that they will need to log in with their child's account. One or two administrators have figured out how to turn off that function, but the bastard majority have left the covid precautions against spamming in place. But instead of listening to explanations of how this is normal, it seems some critical mass of parents decided that the principal was deliberately keeping them out, or attempting to compile a list of her political enemies. That's the sort of bad faith. Read of a totally normal situation that will get the central office to defend the principal.

The school performance is another good example. I've read countless times on this thread. How intelligent, and technologically savvy, and professionally successful, the parent community at the school is, but no one thought to Google Black National Anthem and see that it matches the name of the song in the program?

Calling out a Black family is another great example of what appears to be wrong with this situation. What if they genuinely thought people on the call should slow their roll? I have no idea who these people are, but I know how hard it is to speak up against the group, and the fact that they did so should be seen in the best possible light, not as some sort of racial solidarity.

I don't know, maybe the vast majority of parents in the community are rational and kind, but the ones posting on this thread and therefore the ones most likely to be giving newspaper interview quotes, are making it sound like a pretty mean spirited, petty, and racially troubled school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I really don't think parents are going to get what they want here because nothing I've seen described in this thread goes outside the purview of a principal within their own school.

Moving teachers between grade levels, choosing to departmentalize (or not) certain grades, stating that she wants to take an anti-racist approach, being a Black woman in a plurality Asian American school.

None of those are things that MCPS is going to fire someone for, even if they did a bad job communicating, because the last thing MCPS wants is parents rising up and demanding a principal be replaced every time an administrator makes a decision that parents disagree with.

Maybe these are not reasons to fire a principal. But these are enough reasons for MCPS administration to take actions and ask her to change her working style with teachers, students and parents. Keep antagonizing the community by ignoring their complaints will not end up well.

Yes!! We would love to have a collaborative community with open communication between admin, teachers, parents and students. I know Dr. Kelly is big on cultural competency; why not consult with the PTA about how to best communicate with the unique populations at this school? The Black National Anthem thing is an example. Lift Every Voice and Sing is not a "national anthem," but I can see how not giving more context about it could be confusing for the (many, MANY) immigrant parents where at Lakewood who are not familiar with the history of American racial inequities.

I genuinely think most parents at Lakewood are very much on board with her anti-racist agenda and curriculum, but because of language and cultural barriers, don't always understand what she is trying achieve. Lakewood has a high Asian population, right? Well, education about the civil rights movement and Black history could benefit from something like talking about the Yellow Peril Supports Black Panthers movement, as an example of allyship between Asian and Black people in the US. It could absolutely become something collaborative and more engaging for the unique population here. Otherwise it becomes kind of, "okay, Black history, cool... but what does that have to do with me? My parents came here like 10 years ago."

Seriously it really doesn’t have much to do with race. It has to do with how she handled the relationship with teachers, students and parents, and also MCPS administration’s unwillingness to listen to parents. I don’t know why some posters kept muddying the water by talking about Blacks and Asians. It’s not about that at all.

Actually since Dr. Kelly makes it about race, it does have to do with race. If she came in emphasizing the school and students well being, it would only be about her poor communication, collaboration and management styles.

Looking into it, Clarksburg High, which also has a popular and well liked principal that is Black, does have a mission statement that includes anti racism and equity in it's message:

To provide a quality evolving education that ensures success for every student through teaching and learning.

Clarksburg High School’s Race and Equity Pledge

We will act with a mindset of high expectations for all students and call attention to and eliminate patterns of inequity and racial bias in student outcomes.

Staff will take personal and institutional responsibility for the success of their students, and critically reassess their own practices. Our promise also requires that staff are race-conscious community members who support anti-racist policies and ideas through their actions and/or words and are aware of the social and historical context of exclusionary practices in our school.

We will nurture a community that values our inherent diversity while holding each individual responsible to a collective good.

This is our promise to our staff, students, parents, and community.

So seeing that, maybe Dr. Kelly's mission isn't that out of the norm. But the makeup of Clarksburg High and Lakewood are different. So some context and making sure in being careful on how it might be taken would've helped. No one knew where she was coming from.

It doesn't help that in the meeting a Black family stood up and tried to tell everyone to calm down and that the things were happening was normal. Families already knew the teacher's point of view and wanted that time for a moment of transparency from Dr. Kelly's point of view. So already didn't trust Michelle Shultz and Dr. Kelly because teachers were telling them things otherwise. And the family standing up for Dr. Kelly looked like it was done for Black solidarity sowing further racial disharmony in the community.

An example of good transparency, is that Dr. Kelly did mention how with one of the leaving staff members it was inappropriate to go to student homes during the weekend. Thinking about it, besides the excellent child and classroom management, probably due to years of experience, one of the reasons why one of the leaving teachers was so valued was because they always went above and beyond, in a somewhat Freedom Writerish kind of way, saying "My kids need me...". It has crossed my mind before that they often broke a lot of union contract rules in doing what they did. So I'm always kind of careful in mentioning why we appreciate them so much because don't want anything to come back to them. So maybe Dr. Kelly decided that she couldn't have someone in her staff going rogue like that. Although I will say that if I recall correctly one of the reasons why the principal at Clarksburg High was lauded back when he was at Shady Grove Middle School was that he made to sure to pay in person home visits to students. So one person gets applauded for it and the other seeing it as a negative thing? But that's besides the point.

I don't know what people thought of Lakewood's environment previously. But I see Dr. Kelly as fracturing the community and causing disharmony. For example:

-With the Lift Every Voice and Sing issue at the graduation ceremony, that was an opportunity for Dr. Kelly to share and teach many a wonderful and uplifting song that may mean a lot to her. But instead it was seen as her attacking and fighting back and that moment was looked at with suspicion

-during the graduation ceremony, people would kind of look sideways at Black families and wonder if they saw their issues with Dr. Kelly as them being racist. Then should they overcompensate by making sure to cheer for all the Black students? Did they support Dr. Kelly? And do they only support her because she's Black?

-having questions if she's attacking the community or being hostile. Going back to the song from the graduation ceremony. Or during the townhall meeting, I wasn't online and couldn't see but there some comments like "Wow look how angry she looks" But maybe she was just honestly just being silent waiting for responses. But the relationship is so broken that's how things are misconstrued.

-and then in general, are Dr. Kelly's plans and actions for the sake of the students and their education or is it for the sake of diversity and equity?

Looking at things a little bit more, I'm willing to say that a lot of issues are due to Dr. Kelly's inexperience and being tone deaf. But I'm also suspicious of her motives and see her actions as causing issues in the community rather than uniting it.

Ehh... I don't know if I agree with this perspective. Dr. Kelly is not a mind reader, perhaps she lacks cultural competency (in not realizing that the unique demographics of Lakewood might mean that we don't all have the same background understanding of racial dynamics in the US, so that, yes, we will need some context) but you are almost expecting her to be able to anticipate how people will react to every little nuance? It would be more generous of us to give her some grace. When the complaints are about "we felt..." or "we feel..." or "we didn't know..." well, it's not a strong point to argue from. How is "she looks angry" a legitimate criticism? Is she not also allowed to have feelings? To be fair, when you have angry parents shouting at you and telling you that you have "devastated the community," that is some pretty harsh feedback. I would be upset too!

It would be just as easy for Dr. Kelly to turn this around and say, "well, look at how ignorant this community is. They thought I was trying to attack them just by playing a song! This obviously means that they NEED this anti-racist agenda more than anything, I should absolutely stay this course." As an outsider, reading your post, making points like this make it seem like you are choosing to interpret her every action in only the most negative way. What's that famous saying? "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"?

Relationships go two ways. We can argue the relationship between admin and parents is broken now, but I wonder if we have tried attracting flies with honey instead of vinegar. The fact of the matter is, 10 of our best teachers at Lakewood are leaving, and no amount of haranguing Dr. Kelly is going to make them come back. Like, they've signed contracts at other schools, gotten new jobs, switched careers, whatever. Our goal is to prevent other good teachers from leaving. Our goal is to have input in the new teachers who are replacing the ones who are leaving, because, well, we care about the quality of our children's education!! The more adversarial we make this relationship, the more the administration can and will use it as a reason to shut parents out.

Another issue about making it a race issue is the optics. For example, you brought up the other Black family who defended Dr. Kelly. Why are you invalidating how they feel about Lakewood? Perhaps they really do feel positively about it, and it's not just a matter of Black solidarity. I actually do know this family, and they are active members and supporters of the school. Did you read the results of the anti-racist survey? I did. I do see that Black families surveyed at Lakewood feel that they are not as supported as other ethnic groups. So to them, perhaps their perspective is, "hey, Lakewood wasn't that great for us, perhaps these new policies set in place by this Principal, who arguably understands the Black experience in US better than the previous Principal, will be the change that we needed." That viewpoint is very valid as well.

Looking at the last names of the people who attended this meeting... it's mostly Asian and white. Nobody is going to read past the headline and first paragraph in the Washington Post, which will basically come down to: affluent white and Asian parents are bullying the new Black principal because she pushes an anti-racist agenda. Obviously it's an oversimplification of the situation, but nobody is going to turn to page 3 and read about the teacher turnover rate, departmentalization, discipline issues, etc etc. And I hate to say it, but in a blue county like MoCo, white people are hyperconscious about coming across as racist. (Go to a comedy show and see who laughs during racial jokes... white people always look around first before they start laughing.) If we let this become about race, we will absolutely lose support that we cannot afford to lose.

Dr. Kelly is data-driven, and that works to her benefit because she can point to studies and hard numbers and say, "look at this, this is actual results, this is not about feelings." So we need to take the same approach. We are worried about the educational quality of the school. We're against teacher reassignments, because it poses an undue burden on the teachers, who are already stressed and already overworked, and we want to support the teachers. But like Michelle Schultze said, it is within Dr. Kelly's purview to assign teachers to new grades, and Central office will not support the parents in this case -- not just because they probably really don't GAF, but because they also want to cover their butts, and don't want any openings for it to be said, "look at the systemic racism in the system, this Black principal is struggling with these entitled, affluent parents, but she's not even getting backup from her superiors! How terrible, all she's trying to do is to educate."

What we can do, as parents, is to critically examine what happens when these changes are implemented at Lakewood. If they are truly bad changes, like resulting test scores dropping, or increased discipline problems, we can point these out and use that data to argue our point. Being brutally honest, this will be hard for me as well -- as a Lakewood parent, I've been pretty complacent. I felt confident in the teachers and the educational quality at Lakewood, which meant that I didn't need to be terribly involved, just some classroom volunteering every now and then. I don't feel that confidence now. But the fact of the matter is, students with active, involved parents are the most successful ones, and in an situation where I cannot rely on others to ensure my childrens' educational success, then I have to be the one to step up and ensure it, and that may mean I have to be more active in the PTA, or establish new lines of communication with the teachers so I can learn how better to support them, or maybe just become that annoying activist parent, because it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

This is a balanced and excellent comment, and one I wish I had written.

I want to add that, as an outsider to this situation, some of the parents on this thread are not doing themselves any favors. I'm not saying that to be on kind, I'm saying it because I came into this thread ready to be sympathetic and am exactly the sort of potential ally that will be alienated by this narrative.

It is clear that the trust is broken in this relationship, but it's not clear that it is entirely the principal's fault. At every turn, it seems that the parent community is describing the worst possible motives.

The zoom meeting is a good example. Anyone who has done a school sponsored meeting in the last 3 years knows there is a high likelihood that they will need to log in with their child's account. One or two administrators have figured out how to turn off that function, but the bastard majority have left the covid precautions against spamming in place. But instead of listening to explanations of how this is normal, it seems some critical mass of parents decided that the principal was deliberately keeping them out, or attempting to compile a list of her political enemies. That's the sort of bad faith. Read of a totally normal situation that will get the central office to defend the principal.

The school performance is another good example. I've read countless times on this thread. How intelligent, and technologically savvy, and professionally successful, the parent community at the school is, but no one thought to Google Black National Anthem and see that it matches the name of the song in the program?

Calling out a Black family is another great example of what appears to be wrong with this situation. What if they genuinely thought people on the call should slow their roll? I have no idea who these people are, but I know how hard it is to speak up against the group, and the fact that they did so should be seen in the best possible light, not as some sort of racial solidarity.

I don't know, maybe the vast majority of parents in the community are rational and kind, but the ones posting on this thread and therefore the ones most likely to be giving newspaper interview quotes, are making it sound like a pretty mean spirited, petty, and racially troubled school.

Agreed. But keep in mind that this is an anonymous forum with lots of people with far right agenda to muddy the water.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, I really don't think parents are going to get what they want here because nothing I've seen described in this thread goes outside the purview of a principal within their own school.

Moving teachers between grade levels, choosing to departmentalize (or not) certain grades, stating that she wants to take an anti-racist approach, being a Black woman in a plurality Asian American school.

None of those are things that MCPS is going to fire someone for, even if they did a bad job communicating, because the last thing MCPS wants is parents rising up and demanding a principal be replaced every time an administrator makes a decision that parents disagree with.

Maybe these are not reasons to fire a principal. But these are enough reasons for MCPS administration to take actions and ask her to change her working style with teachers, students and parents. Keep antagonizing the community by ignoring their complaints will not end up well.

Yes!! We would love to have a collaborative community with open communication between admin, teachers, parents and students. I know Dr. Kelly is big on cultural competency; why not consult with the PTA about how to best communicate with the unique populations at this school? The Black National Anthem thing is an example. Lift Every Voice and Sing is not a "national anthem," but I can see how not giving more context about it could be confusing for the (many, MANY) immigrant parents where at Lakewood who are not familiar with the history of American racial inequities.

I genuinely think most parents at Lakewood are very much on board with her anti-racist agenda and curriculum, but because of language and cultural barriers, don't always understand what she is trying achieve. Lakewood has a high Asian population, right? Well, education about the civil rights movement and Black history could benefit from something like talking about the Yellow Peril Supports Black Panthers movement, as an example of allyship between Asian and Black people in the US. It could absolutely become something collaborative and more engaging for the unique population here. Otherwise it becomes kind of, "okay, Black history, cool... but what does that have to do with me? My parents came here like 10 years ago."

Seriously it really doesn’t have much to do with race. It has to do with how she handled the relationship with teachers, students and parents, and also MCPS administration’s unwillingness to listen to parents. I don’t know why some posters kept muddying the water by talking about Blacks and Asians. It’s not about that at all.

Actually since Dr. Kelly makes it about race, it does have to do with race. If she came in emphasizing the school and students well being, it would only be about her poor communication, collaboration and management styles.

Looking into it, Clarksburg High, which also has a popular and well liked principal that is Black, does have a mission statement that includes anti racism and equity in it's message:

To provide a quality evolving education that ensures success for every student through teaching and learning.

Clarksburg High School’s Race and Equity Pledge

We will act with a mindset of high expectations for all students and call attention to and eliminate patterns of inequity and racial bias in student outcomes.

Staff will take personal and institutional responsibility for the success of their students, and critically reassess their own practices. Our promise also requires that staff are race-conscious community members who support anti-racist policies and ideas through their actions and/or words and are aware of the social and historical context of exclusionary practices in our school.

We will nurture a community that values our inherent diversity while holding each individual responsible to a collective good.

This is our promise to our staff, students, parents, and community.

So seeing that, maybe Dr. Kelly's mission isn't that out of the norm. But the makeup of Clarksburg High and Lakewood are different. So some context and making sure in being careful on how it might be taken would've helped. No one knew where she was coming from.

It doesn't help that in the meeting a Black family stood up and tried to tell everyone to calm down and that the things were happening was normal. Families already knew the teacher's point of view and wanted that time for a moment of transparency from Dr. Kelly's point of view. So already didn't trust Michelle Shultz and Dr. Kelly because teachers were telling them things otherwise. And the family standing up for Dr. Kelly looked like it was done for Black solidarity sowing further racial disharmony in the community.

An example of good transparency, is that Dr. Kelly did mention how with one of the leaving staff members it was inappropriate to go to student homes during the weekend. Thinking about it, besides the excellent child and classroom management, probably due to years of experience, one of the reasons why one of the leaving teachers was so valued was because they always went above and beyond, in a somewhat Freedom Writerish kind of way, saying "My kids need me...". It has crossed my mind before that they often broke a lot of union contract rules in doing what they did. So I'm always kind of careful in mentioning why we appreciate them so much because don't want anything to come back to them. So maybe Dr. Kelly decided that she couldn't have someone in her staff going rogue like that. Although I will say that if I recall correctly one of the reasons why the principal at Clarksburg High was lauded back when he was at Shady Grove Middle School was that he made to sure to pay in person home visits to students. So one person gets applauded for it and the other seeing it as a negative thing? But that's besides the point.

I don't know what people thought of Lakewood's environment previously. But I see Dr. Kelly as fracturing the community and causing disharmony. For example:

-With the Lift Every Voice and Sing issue at the graduation ceremony, that was an opportunity for Dr. Kelly to share and teach many a wonderful and uplifting song that may mean a lot to her. But instead it was seen as her attacking and fighting back and that moment was looked at with suspicion

-during the graduation ceremony, people would kind of look sideways at Black families and wonder if they saw their issues with Dr. Kelly as them being racist. Then should they overcompensate by making sure to cheer for all the Black students? Did they support Dr. Kelly? And do they only support her because she's Black?

-having questions if she's attacking the community or being hostile. Going back to the song from the graduation ceremony. Or during the townhall meeting, I wasn't online and couldn't see but there some comments like "Wow look how angry she looks" But maybe she was just honestly just being silent waiting for responses. But the relationship is so broken that's how things are misconstrued.

-and then in general, are Dr. Kelly's plans and actions for the sake of the students and their education or is it for the sake of diversity and equity?

Looking at things a little bit more, I'm willing to say that a lot of issues are due to Dr. Kelly's inexperience and being tone deaf. But I'm also suspicious of her motives and see her actions as causing issues in the community rather than uniting it.

Ehh... I don't know if I agree with this perspective. Dr. Kelly is not a mind reader, perhaps she lacks cultural competency (in not realizing that the unique demographics of Lakewood might mean that we don't all have the same background understanding of racial dynamics in the US, so that, yes, we will need some context) but you are almost expecting her to be able to anticipate how people will react to every little nuance? It would be more generous of us to give her some grace. When the complaints are about "we felt..." or "we feel..." or "we didn't know..." well, it's not a strong point to argue from. How is "she looks angry" a legitimate criticism? Is she not also allowed to have feelings? To be fair, when you have angry parents shouting at you and telling you that you have "devastated the community," that is some pretty harsh feedback. I would be upset too!

It would be just as easy for Dr. Kelly to turn this around and say, "well, look at how ignorant this community is. They thought I was trying to attack them just by playing a song! This obviously means that they NEED this anti-racist agenda more than anything, I should absolutely stay this course." As an outsider, reading your post, making points like this make it seem like you are choosing to interpret her every action in only the most negative way. What's that famous saying? "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"?

Relationships go two ways. We can argue the relationship between admin and parents is broken now, but I wonder if we have tried attracting flies with honey instead of vinegar. The fact of the matter is, 10 of our best teachers at Lakewood are leaving, and no amount of haranguing Dr. Kelly is going to make them come back. Like, they've signed contracts at other schools, gotten new jobs, switched careers, whatever. Our goal is to prevent other good teachers from leaving. Our goal is to have input in the new teachers who are replacing the ones who are leaving, because, well, we care about the quality of our children's education!! The more adversarial we make this relationship, the more the administration can and will use it as a reason to shut parents out.

Another issue about making it a race issue is the optics. For example, you brought up the other Black family who defended Dr. Kelly. Why are you invalidating how they feel about Lakewood? Perhaps they really do feel positively about it, and it's not just a matter of Black solidarity. I actually do know this family, and they are active members and supporters of the school. Did you read the results of the anti-racist survey? I did. I do see that Black families surveyed at Lakewood feel that they are not as supported as other ethnic groups. So to them, perhaps their perspective is, "hey, Lakewood wasn't that great for us, perhaps these new policies set in place by this Principal, who arguably understands the Black experience in US better than the previous Principal, will be the change that we needed." That viewpoint is very valid as well.

Looking at the last names of the people who attended this meeting... it's mostly Asian and white. Nobody is going to read past the headline and first paragraph in the Washington Post, which will basically come down to: affluent white and Asian parents are bullying the new Black principal because she pushes an anti-racist agenda. Obviously it's an oversimplification of the situation, but nobody is going to turn to page 3 and read about the teacher turnover rate, departmentalization, discipline issues, etc etc. And I hate to say it, but in a blue county like MoCo, white people are hyperconscious about coming across as racist. (Go to a comedy show and see who laughs during racial jokes... white people always look around first before they start laughing.) If we let this become about race, we will absolutely lose support that we cannot afford to lose.

Dr. Kelly is data-driven, and that works to her benefit because she can point to studies and hard numbers and say, "look at this, this is actual results, this is not about feelings." So we need to take the same approach. We are worried about the educational quality of the school. We're against teacher reassignments, because it poses an undue burden on the teachers, who are already stressed and already overworked, and we want to support the teachers. But like Michelle Schultze said, it is within Dr. Kelly's purview to assign teachers to new grades, and Central office will not support the parents in this case -- not just because they probably really don't GAF, but because they also want to cover their butts, and don't want any openings for it to be said, "look at the systemic racism in the system, this Black principal is struggling with these entitled, affluent parents, but she's not even getting backup from her superiors! How terrible, all she's trying to do is to educate."

What we can do, as parents, is to critically examine what happens when these changes are implemented at Lakewood. If they are truly bad changes, like resulting test scores dropping, or increased discipline problems, we can point these out and use that data to argue our point. Being brutally honest, this will be hard for me as well -- as a Lakewood parent, I've been pretty complacent. I felt confident in the teachers and the educational quality at Lakewood, which meant that I didn't need to be terribly involved, just some classroom volunteering every now and then. I don't feel that confidence now. But the fact of the matter is, students with active, involved parents are the most successful ones, and in an situation where I cannot rely on others to ensure my childrens' educational success, then I have to be the one to step up and ensure it, and that may mean I have to be more active in the PTA, or establish new lines of communication with the teachers so I can learn how better to support them, or maybe just become that annoying activist parent, because it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.

I pointed out several examples of principals that are able to convey a message and atmosphere of positiveness, acceptedness and focused on learning. I am very familiar with the mission of ensuring equity and making sure there is a focus on disenfranchised groups.

One very important thing that goes out in communications is to make sure to not have anything come out that looks like it's pitting student groups, especially minorities, against each other. For example one of the things we're working on publishing now is Blacks compared to the rest of the population, Special Ed compared to the rest of the population, Economically Disadvantaged compared to the rest of the population, etc.

The communications and wordings from Dr. Kelly should never have gone out the way it did if it was vetted by the appropriate people.

The one major difference beween Dr. Kelly and the principals I've listed as examples, is that they all have 20+ years of experience.

Dr. Kelly can certainly can benefit by having a mentor, maybe a better one if she currently has one, and/or needs some more time in training.

She needs to be careful of the optics of things. Just the night before there was the acrimonious meeting and the next day with no explanation there's the title Black National Anthem on the screen. Something like that should be obvious in how it would come across. Being a principal also includes being a politician and these kind of things need to be considered.

Others saying that "she looks hostile" is me relaying what others are saying and trying to show how the community feels or views her. As I mentioned I didn't get a chance to log on yet and am passing on the interaction and relations with the community. As I mentioned, her expression may have been misread. Maybe she was being attacked and was on the defensive.

Being a principal requires knowing and working with different groups in the school and community. Dr. Kelly shows that she is ill equiped to do so.

I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on some things. I don't share the same issues/concerns other people in the community have with Dr. Kelly, where I agree some things are within her right to do so. She might have some great ideas and just needs an opportunity to put in place. I'm not against restorative justice either. But the way she's been going, myself and others question her agenda.

But I think the way she carried herself, she comes across as a bad fit for the community. It's possible to replace with her with another Black female principal who has more experience, knows how to communicate, knows how to work with people and they'd be more welcome by the community. Or if she's willing to change, I think the community might be willing to work with her too but I'm not sure about that.

And I'm just letting you know that this is resulting in unhealthy racial tensions in the community.

[Anonymous]

Also remember with me calling out that family, I was calling them out on saying that the changes are normal and to be expected. The same reasons why people don't believe Dr. Kelly or Michelle Shultz in saying that the type of turnover in staff was normal. We know those changes aren't normal and is why people want answers.

Not that family's feelings on their experience in Lakewood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The zoom meeting is a good example. Anyone who has done a school sponsored meeting in the last 3 years knows there is a high likelihood that they will need to log in with their child's account. One or two administrators have figured out how to turn off that function, but the bastard majority have left the covid precautions against spamming in place. But instead of listening to explanations of how this is normal, it seems some critical mass of parents decided that the principal was deliberately keeping them out, or attempting to compile a list of her political enemies. That's the sort of bad faith. Read of a totally normal situation that will get the central office to defend the principal.

Okay, to be fair - we're all learning here. I'm the one who made the tin foil hat comment, and I also wrote the comment that you just described as well-balanced. Mea culpa. The past few years of American politics and election interference have gotten me more than a little paranoid.

[Anonymous]

The key here is the lack of transparency and communications. I came into this situation giving her the benefit of the doubt. I left that townhall with a sense that she has zero regard to parent's concerns for the future of their school. The community has definitely been fractured by her and now is filled with distrust, fear, and resentment. Sure, she may be green and need some mentorship. However, that comes at the cost of our kid's education while at Lakewood. So far she has shown zero interest in attempting to understand/addressing the parent's concerns. Should our kids pay the price for her ignorance while she learns how to be a better principal? Also being green, she should be listening more than talking/acting in this new community where she has no ties.

As others have stated in this thread, there's a right way and a wrong way to promote anti-racism, equality and inclusivity. All of which I have zero problems with. Right now, she seems to have all of her focus and attention on 13% of her students while not including the other 87% of her students. Her Band Her Sounds is how the community feels right now. At the end of the day, yes, optics matter and how the community feels matters. Broad strokes on policies without parental engagement is not how you foster a unified school community.

[Anonymous]

My kid goes to Lakewood and this thread is creeping me out. This morning I got an email from someone with a gmail address and access to all parent contacts (because I never signed up for the PTA.) Generally whenever I see a disclosure explaining “we’re not anti-LGBQT+ but…” it means the opposite. Considering the anti-black sentiment over the principal, I feel really concerned about what the hell is going on at that school. Here’s the text of the email:


Hello Lakewood Kindergarten Parents,

I am sure you have heard that lots of teachers and staff are leaving Lakewood.
Could you please take a few minutes out of your busy day today and let them know how much you appreciate them? Please send them a simple email stating your appreciation.

You may find your child's teacher and staff email address in the Lakewood Staff directory.
https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/lakewoodes/staff/directory/

It is important to send them a message today because they might not be here next year.

We are so sorry to hear that so many of our wonderful teachers and staff are leaving.
Sincerely,
Lakewood Momma Bear
Helping us all watchout for our young.

Momma bears are affectionate, protective, devoted, strict, sensitive and attentive with their young. Not unlike people, bears can be empathetic, fearful, joyful, playful, social and even altruistic. They're all individuals and have unique personalities.
Please NOTE: Momma Bear is NOT Anti-LGTBQ. Momma Bear simply wants all parents to know that they have the power to decide what material is appropriate to be exposed to their children (i.e. bear cubs).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just curious, when teachers leave one district, do they also forfeit those years toward their retirement?

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to Lakewood and this thread is creeping me out. This morning I got an email from someone with a gmail address and access to all parent contacts (because I never signed up for the PTA.) Generally whenever I see a disclosure explaining “we’re not anti-LGBQT+ but…” it means the opposite. Considering the anti-black sentiment over the principal, I feel really concerned about what the hell is going on at that school. Here’s the text of the email:


Hello Lakewood Kindergarten Parents,

I am sure you have heard that lots of teachers and staff are leaving Lakewood.
Could you please take a few minutes out of your busy day today and let them know how much you appreciate them? Please send them a simple email stating your appreciation.

You may find your child's teacher and staff email address in the Lakewood Staff directory.
https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/lakewoodes/staff/directory/

It is important to send them a message today because they might not be here next year.

We are so sorry to hear that so many of our wonderful teachers and staff are leaving.
Sincerely,
Lakewood Momma Bear
Helping us all watchout for our young.

Momma bears are affectionate, protective, devoted, strict, sensitive and attentive with their young. Not unlike people, bears can be empathetic, fearful, joyful, playful, social and even altruistic. They're all individuals and have unique personalities.
Please NOTE: Momma Bear is NOT Anti-LGTBQ. Momma Bear simply wants all parents to know that they have the power to decide what material is appropriate to be exposed to their children (i.e. bear cubs).

This goes back to the lack of transparency from the school again. Alot of parents did not know that LGBTQ books are being introduced. The principal did not make it clear in any of her newsletters. In fact the only mention of it was a hidden link to slides presented at some obscure meeting. Whether you agree with it or not, this is a sensitive topic for some parents and they deserve to be notified in a more clear fashion. The newsletters from this administration has a lot of filler material that doesn't highlight major topics. At another elementary school, the principal took a different approach and went all in announcing the LGBTQ books in their news letters. Momma Bear's email had nothing defamatory, it literally just listed the books being introduced with YouTube links to the stories being read.

Ignore the racist trolls here and focus on the communication issues that's causing this strife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to Lakewood and this thread is creeping me out. This morning I got an email from someone with a gmail address and access to all parent contacts (because I never signed up for the PTA.) Generally whenever I see a disclosure explaining “we’re not anti-LGBQT+ but…” it means the opposite. Considering the anti-black sentiment over the principal, I feel really concerned about what the hell is going on at that school. Here’s the text of the email:


Hello Lakewood Kindergarten Parents,

I am sure you have heard that lots of teachers and staff are leaving Lakewood.
Could you please take a few minutes out of your busy day today and let them know how much you appreciate them? Please send them a simple email stating your appreciation.

You may find your child's teacher and staff email address in the Lakewood Staff directory.
https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/lakewoodes/staff/directory/

It is important to send them a message today because they might not be here next year.

We are so sorry to hear that so many of our wonderful teachers and staff are leaving.
Sincerely,
Lakewood Momma Bear
Helping us all watchout for our young.

Momma bears are affectionate, protective, devoted, strict, sensitive and attentive with their young. Not unlike people, bears can be empathetic, fearful, joyful, playful, social and even altruistic. They're all individuals and have unique personalities.
Please NOTE: Momma Bear is NOT Anti-LGTBQ. Momma Bear simply wants all parents to know that they have the power to decide what material is appropriate to be exposed to their children (i.e. bear cubs).

This goes back to the lack of transparency from the school again. Alot of parents did not know that LGBTQ books are being introduced. The principal did not make it clear in any of her newsletters. In fact the only mention of it was a hidden link to slides presented at some obscure meeting. Whether you agree with it or not, this is a sensitive topic for some parents and they deserve to be notified in a more clear fashion. The newsletters from this administration has a lot of filler material that doesn't highlight major topics. At another elementary school, the principal took a different approach and went all in announcing the LGBTQ books in their news letters. Momma Bear's email had nothing defamatory, it literally just listed the books being introduced with YouTube links to the stories being read.

Ignore the racist trolls here and focus on the communication issues that's causing this strife.

The district released the information about the LGBTQ+ books to everyone. It wasn't "hidden". Mama bear and her cubs sound like loads of fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid goes to Lakewood and this thread is creeping me out. This morning I got an email from someone with a gmail address and access to all parent contacts (because I never signed up for the PTA.) Generally whenever I see a disclosure explaining “we’re not anti-LGBQT+ but…” it means the opposite. Considering the anti-black sentiment over the principal, I feel really concerned about what the hell is going on at that school. Here’s the text of the email:


Hello Lakewood Kindergarten Parents,

I am sure you have heard that lots of teachers and staff are leaving Lakewood.
Could you please take a few minutes out of your busy day today and let them know how much you appreciate them? Please send them a simple email stating your appreciation.

You may find your child's teacher and staff email address in the Lakewood Staff directory.
https://www2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/schools/lakewoodes/staff/directory/

It is important to send them a message today because they might not be here next year.

We are so sorry to hear that so many of our wonderful teachers and staff are leaving.
Sincerely,
Lakewood Momma Bear
Helping us all watchout for our young.

Momma bears are affectionate, protective, devoted, strict, sensitive and attentive with their young. Not unlike people, bears can be empathetic, fearful, joyful, playful, social and even altruistic. They're all individuals and have unique personalities.
Please NOTE: Momma Bear is NOT Anti-LGTBQ. Momma Bear simply wants all parents to know that they have the power to decide what material is appropriate to be exposed to their children (i.e. bear cubs).

This goes back to the lack of transparency from the school again. Alot of parents did not know that LGBTQ books are being introduced. The principal did not make it clear in any of her newsletters. In fact the only mention of it was a hidden link to slides presented at some obscure meeting. Whether you agree with it or not, this is a sensitive topic for some parents and they deserve to be notified in a more clear fashion. The newsletters from this administration has a lot of filler material that doesn't highlight major topics. At another elementary school, the principal took a different approach and went all in announcing the LGBTQ books in their news letters. Momma Bear's email had nothing defamatory, it literally just listed the books being introduced with YouTube links to the stories being read.

Ignore the racist trolls here and focus on the communication issues that's causing this strife.

The problem is that someone from the PTA (or similar authority) is lobbying against LGBTQ books. I didn’t realize banning books was even a thing amongst fellow Lakewood parents. Apparently, a bunch of these same parents were angry about singing “Lift every voice and sing” because it’s the black national anthem. This feels like insanity to me. This is the type of crap I would expect in Florida or a MAGA rally. Frankly, it’s scary to think that this is how all the “nice families” at my child’s “nice school” truly feel.