Churchill Getting a New Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for John Taylor. And I think he was an AP at Churchill before so would ramp up quickly. He is the bomb!

He may be great, but MCPS isn’t going to fill one Principal vacancy just for another vacancy to open up in July. How would that impact the Cabin John community?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for John Taylor. And I think he was an AP at Churchill before so would ramp up quickly. He is the bomb!

He may be great, but MCPS isn’t going to fill one Principal vacancy just for another vacancy to open up in July. How would that impact the Cabin John community?

Of course they would. They do it all the time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone in all MCPS schools should have an approved list of books and movies being used in classes. After Memorial Day, many AP classes start showing movies for class because seniors have graduated. I was shocked that my child was exposed to movies with nudity, sex, drugs, and violence in one of his AP classes at Churchill. No parental notice sent home that these types of movies were going to be shown. No explanation as to how they fit in with the curriculum. More importantly, no parental permission slip to grant the teacher permission to show such movies to my child.

The administrators at Churchill have checked out and there is no monitoring of what teachers are exposing impressionable minds to during the school day.

Name the movie. It’s most likely rated PG-13. All high school students are at least 14 at the end of each school year, and the vast majority are at least 15.

One movie shown was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Rated R - nudity, sex, drugs, and violence. All teachers showing movies should cough up the list for administrative review. If higher ups knew rated R movies were being shown to students, they should have consequences.

A 1975 movie rated under 1975 standards. There’s no nudity, no sex, no drug use other than the patients taking (or not taking) prescribed drugs. Yes there are fights, and a lot of swearing. If your kid can’t handle hearing the f-bomb in a movie, what does he do in the hallways where it’s dropped all the time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone in all MCPS schools should have an approved list of books and movies being used in classes. After Memorial Day, many AP classes start showing movies for class because seniors have graduated. I was shocked that my child was exposed to movies with nudity, sex, drugs, and violence in one of his AP classes at Churchill. No parental notice sent home that these types of movies were going to be shown. No explanation as to how they fit in with the curriculum. More importantly, no parental permission slip to grant the teacher permission to show such movies to my child.

The administrators at Churchill have checked out and there is no monitoring of what teachers are exposing impressionable minds to during the school day.

Name the movie. It’s most likely rated PG-13. All high school students are at least 14 at the end of each school year, and the vast majority are at least 15.

One movie shown was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Rated R - nudity, sex, drugs, and violence. All teachers showing movies should cough up the list for administrative review. If higher ups knew rated R movies were being shown to students, they should have consequences.

A 1975 movie rated under 1975 standards. There’s no nudity, no sex, no drug use other than the patients taking (or not taking) prescribed drugs. Yes there are fights, and a lot of swearing. If your kid can’t handle hearing the f-bomb in a movie, what does he do in the hallways where it’s dropped all the time?

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/parentalguide

There’s actually quite a bit of illegal drug use in the movie. The main character sneaks two women into the ward who brings the drugs in from outside the facility. There’s nudity and sex with those women as well. The Board of Education should take the time to watch a movie that was shown to Churchill students class.

A teacher at an MCPS high school does not have the right to show or encourage the viewing of such filth to underage children. My child is not old enough buy a rated R movie ticket nor do we buy one for our children. If the school wants to show filth and say it’s educational, run it past the school board for approval but always give a parent a way to opt their child out.

I would also say that for a school that has a serious drug problem, showing movies that make illegal drug use look like a fun way to party is the wrong message to give students. Whom ever is next year’s principal should monitor what his/her staff is teaching students.

[Anonymous]

Churchill should consider how women and minorities are depicted in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the language used in the movie for them, and how women and minorities are treated. Not appropriate if your message is inclusiveness within the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another vote for John Taylor. And I think he was an AP at Churchill before so would ramp up quickly. He is the bomb!

He may be great, but MCPS isn’t going to fill one Principal vacancy just for another vacancy to open up in July. How would that impact the Cabin John community?

Of course they would. They do it all the time!

Does he get paid more for the HS headache? Hmm..

[Anonymous]

Yes, he would get paid more. There's more evening work too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone in all MCPS schools should have an approved list of books and movies being used in classes. After Memorial Day, many AP classes start showing movies for class because seniors have graduated. I was shocked that my child was exposed to movies with nudity, sex, drugs, and violence in one of his AP classes at Churchill. No parental notice sent home that these types of movies were going to be shown. No explanation as to how they fit in with the curriculum. More importantly, no parental permission slip to grant the teacher permission to show such movies to my child.

The administrators at Churchill have checked out and there is no monitoring of what teachers are exposing impressionable minds to during the school day.

Name the movie. It’s most likely rated PG-13. All high school students are at least 14 at the end of each school year, and the vast majority are at least 15.

One movie shown was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Rated R - nudity, sex, drugs, and violence. All teachers showing movies should cough up the list for administrative review. If higher ups knew rated R movies were being shown to students, they should have consequences.

A 1975 movie rated under 1975 standards. There’s no nudity, no sex, no drug use other than the patients taking (or not taking) prescribed drugs. Yes there are fights, and a lot of swearing. If your kid can’t handle hearing the f-bomb in a movie, what does he do in the hallways where it’s dropped all the time?

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/parentalguide

There’s actually quite a bit of illegal drug use in the movie. The main character sneaks two women into the ward who brings the drugs in from outside the facility. There’s nudity and sex with those women as well. The Board of Education should take the time to watch a movie that was shown to Churchill students class.

A teacher at an MCPS high school does not have the right to show or encourage the viewing of such filth to underage children. My child is not old enough buy a rated R movie ticket nor do we buy one for our children. If the school wants to show filth and say it’s educational, run it past the school board for approval but always give a parent a way to opt their child out.

I would also say that for a school that has a serious drug problem, showing movies that make illegal drug use look like a fun way to party is the wrong message to give students. Whom ever is next year’s principal should monitor what his/her staff is teaching students.

Showing a movie is not "teaching", it's showing a movie to kill some time more often than not, especially after AP exams are over. That said, there should be some structure to what's going on and a point beyond just "Here's a movie, we can eat up a few class periods with it". If there is an "R" rating that is a problem, especially for someone who would view a movie such as this or read the book from which it springs (alas, I'm the sort of nerd who has done both in this case), and come away with rampant drug abuse and nudity as the takeaways.

My recollection of the movie, which may be faulty but I re-watched it in the last year or so, only had pot and alcohol as the drugs abused, and I'd hardly say there was much in the way of "abuse" in either case - LOTs of institutional drug abuse, but that was so patients could be placated and our critic of this movie seems fine with that, but which was central to the point Kesey was trying to make (actually I'm confident Thorazine would be an easy way to placate children, too - now our critic's issues may have some clarity.)

The point of the movie was not to encourage drug use, nudity, or licentious behavior, and if that's the message anyone took away from it then they're high on the prude scale and likely didn't even bother trying to understand what was going on underneath all of the things that were offensive to their sensibilities or take away the powerful messages that Kesey (the author) and Douglas (the director of the flick) were trying to get across, indeed a message (didn't seem to have a problem with Chief's destruction of the shower at the end of the movie - wasn't the message there that it was good to destroy public property? Bad, bad, bad ...) that I think high school students can well appreciate and absorb without being turned into delinquents or send them home in a masturbatory frenzy. That said, for the prudes amongst us, they should have the opportunity to shield their children from such movies - indeed, that their kids can soon encounter all of this on their own when they go off to college and have to think through it with their friends shouldn't be a concern, indeed that's always a great school of life experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All schools deserve good leadership. All staff at school deserve to be respected. All parents and students deserve respect.

Any less than this is why MCPS is crumbling at its foundation.

Are there any "W" schools doing a good job on diversity? Pyle is infamous for its problems, and it seems the Whitman principal is spending a good deal of his time on diversity, equity related matters, but is it helping? Is there a principal who has made a dent and changed the culture of their "white/W" school for the better? I guess I'm wondering how the principals are doing at places like North Bethesda, Silver Creek, Westland, Cabin John, and at high schools like BCC, Walter Johnson, Whitman, and any other in this category that I'm forgetting.

The staff at Cabin John does an amazing job and i think it stems from the principal. He encourages the hiring of diverse applicants so his staff is diverse. Not to mention they are not diverse just to say they are diverse they are great at what they do. Media Center specialist, Dr. Massey, is a huge asset to the CJMS community. Ms. Kumar is a beloved science teacher. The school read Stamped and had Jason Reynolds on a webinar to discuss. All very well done! Half of these kids go on to Churchill so not sure what that means tho?

Mr. Taylor is a rock star. It will be interesting to see if he applies for the job.

He's woke though, so Churchill parents should beware.

What do you mean by this?

He assigned Kendi's "Stamped" to his entire school. Kendi is a known racist so it was a terrible choice. He then used the connect time class to have teachers introduce elements of CRT along with the book. You'd have to be pretty woke to do this

Kendi is a known racist? Damn, I didn't know that. To think that the guy who wrote "How to be an Anti-Racist" is the "thing" he writes about to help OTHER people not be, my Lord - tricky, tricky, tricky (just writing that sentence was tricky, wow ...) Now I know in "How to be An Anti-Racist" he talks about how growing up he was racist against Black folk, is this what you mean? I'm pretty sure he addresses this pretty clearly in the book as something he's "woke" about and he's feeling contrite and all - but clearly you have an inside line on his "racism". I need to look into this, see if he's still racist against Black people or whomever, and if it comes up true I'm returning that book - can't have a hypocrite in my library, no way, no how.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess Mrs. Heckert’s last day was today. MCPS texted at 5pm all business offices and schools are closed tomorrow. It’s not like staff has had enough time off this year.

It's a new federal holiday.

Add it to next year’s calendar and subtract another holiday. To announce the day before is ridiculous.

BTW - weren’t the principal interviews supposed to be tomorrow? June 18th? Now the interviews will have to be rescheduled. Sometimes there’s actually work that needs to be done in a public school system. Let’s just flush more tax dollars down the drain.

Tell it to Congress and Mr Biden. MPCS recognizes all federal holidays.

Why is there school on Columbus Day and Veterans’ Day?

I say this wryly because Columbus was a horrible human being who never even set foot on what would become the continental US. But as the daughter and wife of a Veteran, it should be a day off.

MCPS doesn't recognize ALL federal holidays, as someone pointed out Columbus day and Veteran's Day are both not observed by MCPS.

There are only but so many holidays that can be accommodated in the school year, and when you add in the religious holidays that the community insists on having time off for (in spite of the fact that there is no penalty for a student if they're out for religious reasons, they can make up the work either before or after the holiday in question, and teachers are expected to be highly accommodating of the the student's observance, so by to by there's little reason to observe as a holiday Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and any other "religious" holiday as far as I'm concerned.) Between the county and the union those two holidays have taken the hit. Veteran's never have a problem getting the day off if they opt to do so, but it is at the cost of a personal day.

And Juneteenth has NO bearing on the student calendar. Students are out of the building before the 19th, and usually the teachers no more than a couple of days after that, so the students and the teaching staff and some of the clerical staff, are not affected by this at all. Administrators are, but it would have no bearing on the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess Mrs. Heckert’s last day was today. MCPS texted at 5pm all business offices and schools are closed tomorrow. It’s not like staff has had enough time off this year.

It's a new federal holiday.

Add it to next year’s calendar and subtract another holiday. To announce the day before is ridiculous.

BTW - weren’t the principal interviews supposed to be tomorrow? June 18th? Now the interviews will have to be rescheduled. Sometimes there’s actually work that needs to be done in a public school system. Let’s just flush more tax dollars down the drain.

Tell it to Congress and Mr Biden. MPCS recognizes all federal holidays.

Why is there school on Columbus Day and Veterans’ Day?

I say this wryly because Columbus was a horrible human being who never even set foot on what would become the continental US. But as the daughter and wife of a Veteran, it should be a day off.

+1 I think the BOE should relook at the school calendar and prioritize holidays. I have nothing against Juneteenth as a school holiday. But perhaps get rid of another holiday. Veterans and their families make huge sacrifices for this country. I would support adding it as an MCPS holiday. Presidents Day - that one could go. Nothing wrong with adding the day after Thanksgiving as a work day.

Juneteenth is NOT a "school" holiday in the sense that it has any impact on students or most of the staff, or has any bearing on the overall academic calendar. It's like July 4th, it falls outside of the academic year, so it's an MCPS holiday, not a "school" holiday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess Mrs. Heckert’s last day was today. MCPS texted at 5pm all business offices and schools are closed tomorrow. It’s not like staff has had enough time off this year.

It's a new federal holiday.

Add it to next year’s calendar and subtract another holiday. To announce the day before is ridiculous.

BTW - weren’t the principal interviews supposed to be tomorrow? June 18th? Now the interviews will have to be rescheduled. Sometimes there’s actually work that needs to be done in a public school system. Let’s just flush more tax dollars down the drain.

This was a smart move by MCPS. They can barely get half the kids up to par on reading and math. But declaring Juneteenth a holiday will let them off the hook with black people and woke whites for another year.

Gotta love this: "But declaring Juneteenth a holiday will let them off the hook with black people and woke whites for another year." You're right, the white kids weren't left behind, just the black ones, but MCPS gets a pass on that 'cause the fed declared a holiday.

"Woke" whites? What does that make you, a "Somnolent" white? If being "woke" means you now look at a problem with a new perspective, and some clarity that can't possibly exist while you're asleep, then I guess on the issues of the day, be they racial or otherwise, I want to be in the "woke" crowd. Uh oh, how did I know you were white? Hmmmmmm ...

And as far as academic performance is concerned, Juneteenth does nuthin' for nobody - it took ZERO away from the academic calendar, you know the one that impacts the students, as it happens after the academic school year is over, so now you're "woke" on that issue - I'm sorry, I'm thinking that maybe you don't like to think of yourself as "woke", please forgive me, you can stay somnolent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All schools deserve good leadership. All staff at school deserve to be respected. All parents and students deserve respect.

Any less than this is why MCPS is crumbling at its foundation.

Are there any "W" schools doing a good job on diversity? Pyle is infamous for its problems, and it seems the Whitman principal is spending a good deal of his time on diversity, equity related matters, but is it helping? Is there a principal who has made a dent and changed the culture of their "white/W" school for the better? I guess I'm wondering how the principals are doing at places like North Bethesda, Silver Creek, Westland, Cabin John, and at high schools like BCC, Walter Johnson, Whitman, and any other in this category that I'm forgetting.

The staff at Cabin John does an amazing job and i think it stems from the principal. He encourages the hiring of diverse applicants so his staff is diverse. Not to mention they are not diverse just to say they are diverse they are great at what they do. Media Center specialist, Dr. Massey, is a huge asset to the CJMS community. Ms. Kumar is a beloved science teacher. The school read Stamped and had Jason Reynolds on a webinar to discuss. All very well done! Half of these kids go on to Churchill so not sure what that means tho?

Both Taylor and Massey are woke and are trying to indoctrinate kids with books like Stamped. Terrible.

Damn right! Reading books, and talking about what you read, TERRIBLE! I mean who wants anyone to learn something that they didn't know before? Or challenge thinking? Heck, not me - that's what COLLEGE is for, damnit, keep that tripe out of the high school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess Mrs. Heckert’s last day was today. MCPS texted at 5pm all business offices and schools are closed tomorrow. It’s not like staff has had enough time off this year.

It's a new federal holiday.

Add it to next year’s calendar and subtract another holiday. To announce the day before is ridiculous.

BTW - weren’t the principal interviews supposed to be tomorrow? June 18th? Now the interviews will have to be rescheduled. Sometimes there’s actually work that needs to be done in a public school system. Let’s just flush more tax dollars down the drain.

Tell it to Congress and Mr Biden. MPCS recognizes all federal holidays.

Why is there school on Columbus Day and Veterans’ Day?

I say this wryly because Columbus was a horrible human being who never even set foot on what would become the continental US. But as the daughter and wife of a Veteran, it should be a day off.

+1 I think the BOE should relook at the school calendar and prioritize holidays. I have nothing against Juneteenth as a school holiday. But perhaps get rid of another holiday. Veterans and their families make huge sacrifices for this country. I would support adding it as an MCPS holiday. Presidents Day - that one could go. Nothing wrong with adding the day after Thanksgiving as a work day.

Juneteenth is NOT a "school" holiday in the sense that it has any impact on students or most of the staff, or has any bearing on the overall academic calendar. It's like July 4th, it falls outside of the academic year, so it's an MCPS holiday, not a "school" holiday.

MCPS has programming after the normal school year. Summer school, enrichment courses, SAT/ACT prep classes, summer camps, and for students with disabilities, Extended School Year Services. There’s meetings for the functionality of the school system - interviews to hire the Churchill principal for example. Work doesn’t end in MCPS just because of Summer Break. There’s a lot of 12 month employees that have responsibilities to fulfill and 10 month employees that took a summer position to supplement their income.

The BOE should report to the residents of Montgomery County the cost of adding another holiday. I am not against naming Juneteenth. I just think it should not have sprung up the day before everyone had off so it could be planned around. I also think the Board should take away another holiday so the number of holidays remains the same.

[Anonymous]

MCPS and the Churchill cluster schools need to come clean on what they are teaching to our kids. Some of the staff actually live in the neighborhood and they hate the material being approved because of the filth.