Shake Up at SSMA?

[Anonymous]

Is the director of education the woman with above the shoulder curly blond hair that we would have met at the open house?

[Anonymous]

Someone should get Mark Lerner the DC charter blogger on this. He seems pretty in the know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone report if the tangle was untangled and the teachers indeed got paid today? I know that the guides are one level, but many of the support staff are likely dependent on payday happening... on time

Yes, people got paid. The Director of Compliance eventually sorted the problem out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the director of education the woman with above the shoulder curly blond hair that we would have met at the open house?

Yes, she's the new Principal/Director of Education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone report if the tangle was untangled and the teachers indeed got paid today? I know that the guides are one level, but many of the support staff are likely dependent on payday happening... on time

Yes, people got paid. The Director of Compliance eventually sorted the problem out.

Still, ew. Does not bode well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone report if the tangle was untangled and the teachers indeed got paid today? I know that the guides are one level, but many of the support staff are likely dependent on payday happening... on time

Yes, people got paid. The Director of Compliance eventually sorted the problem out.

Still, ew. Does not bode well.

No, it doesn't. When people have their healthcare company threaten to turn off their healthcare and have the school forget to pay them, you know bad things are in store for the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this back and forth on Shining Stars being disorganized has made me decide to post here.

The school has three jobs up on the AMS website, one of the first places where Montessori teachers go to find jobs. And Shining Stars is not representing itself well at all. Look at the formatting of these jobs:

https://amshq.org/Impak/Content/Job-Detail?jobid=21016
https://amshq.org/Impak/Content/Job-Detail?jobid=21147
https://amshq.org/Impak/Content/Job-Detail?jobid=21148

Who posted these? There are no paragraphs. It's so unreadable this way that it's basically gibberish.

Look, I know a lot of people on here have been tearing the school down. But Shining Stars has some pretty good guides. That's my experience at least.

So if a bunch of guides are leaving, the school needs to recruit top caliber replacements. But it can't recruit anyone this way. It's embarrassing.

SSMA Admin: I hope you're reading this. PLEASE fix those ads. It makes the school look disorganized and a place where people won't want to work.

One more thing to SSMA Admin. PLEASE change the education requirement from "High School" to "Bachelor's Degree". You won't get good candidates otherwise.

Also notice the start date is 8/1/2108 for the first job placement. That's WAAAY into the future. The second one doesn't even have a start date. No attention to detail

These job placements speak volumes about admin at Shining Stars.

The email address on the first one is wrong too: [e-mail] instead of [e-mail]

Clownish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of this back and forth on Shining Stars being disorganized has made me decide to post here.

The school has three jobs up on the AMS website, one of the first places where Montessori teachers go to find jobs. And Shining Stars is not representing itself well at all. Look at the formatting of these jobs:

https://amshq.org/Impak/Content/Job-Detail?jobid=21016
https://amshq.org/Impak/Content/Job-Detail?jobid=21147
https://amshq.org/Impak/Content/Job-Detail?jobid=21148

Who posted these? There are no paragraphs. It's so unreadable this way that it's basically gibberish.

Look, I know a lot of people on here have been tearing the school down. But Shining Stars has some pretty good guides. That's my experience at least.

So if a bunch of guides are leaving, the school needs to recruit top caliber replacements. But it can't recruit anyone this way. It's embarrassing.

SSMA Admin: I hope you're reading this. PLEASE fix those ads. It makes the school look disorganized and a place where people won't want to work.

One more thing to SSMA Admin. PLEASE change the education requirement from "High School" to "Bachelor's Degree". You won't get good candidates otherwise.

Also notice the start date is 8/1/2108 for the first job placement. That's WAAAY into the future. The second one doesn't even have a start date. No attention to detail

These job placements speak volumes about admin at Shining Stars.

The email address on the first one is wrong too: [e-mail] instead of [e-mail]

Clownish

Clearly they are not interested in getting candidates for these roles.

[Anonymous]

So has someone actually emailed SSMA to let them know about the contact info typo in the job description, or are you just griping about it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So has someone actually emailed SSMA to let them know about the contact info typo in the job description, or are you just griping about it?

As one PP said, you don’t question admin at SSMA if you want to keep your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SSMA is a sinking ship as long as the ED is around making personal rather than professional decisions, as long as the Board continues to be her rubber stamp, and as long as the staff has few other viable options. It’s toxic.

This thread is so depressing.

How is it that so many people know that Shining Stars is a toxic work environment, yet nobody does anything about it? Was it always this bad or has the principal's leaving made it like this?

Yes, it is really depressing. This was the 3rd principal in 4 years so we were used to principals leaving (and hoping - maybe foolishly - that there were not deeper issues). But, the WAY that and the timing of the principal being fired was shocking and made parents start asking questions, talking to teachers/staff (who were shocked as well and it seemed needed to start telling parents more about the leadership of the school). What's more depressing is that the ED answers to the school's board, the school board answers to the charter school board. The charter school board only cares about advancing charter schools - so unless someone has done something illegal they are happy to let things continue as is. When the school's board responded to the PTO's questions/concerns with accusations of bullying and harassment, and threatening to get rid of the PTO, that's when parents should have begun looking for alternatives.

It's so weird to me that the DCPCSB thinks the way to advance charter schools is to do no oversight and allow them to flail and fail in a publicly humiliating manner. Wouldn't it be in the best interest of the movement generally to have some quality control? There is so little transparency that it's hard for parents to provide effective oversight, so if the DCPCSB doesn't do it, who will?

It is a feature, not a bug of the original DC charter law. The PCSB has very limited power once a school is up and operating, unless a school fails to make academic progress or if there is financial mismanagement or bankruptcy. They have the most leverage and power when a school is authorized to open, and when a charter is up for renewal. But even then they have to make decisions based on finances and academic performance.

They can talk to schools about management issues, but they cannot force things to change.

Thanks feature not a bug person. You always say this. The thing to talk about is, how's it working? It's not. There is a middle ground which needs to be achieved because the current charter laws are not enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Thanks feature not a bug person. You always say this. The thing to talk about is, how's it working? It's not. There is a middle ground which needs to be achieved because the current charter laws are not enough.

I agree. There is definitely a middle ground because the Shining Stars board ousted its founding ED when they found things to be dysfunctional. So the middle ground starts with any charter school's board.

The people currently on the SSMA board clearly don't take their responsibilities seriously enough. They don't know the circumstances of the previous principal's departure. They didn't know she was gone until after it had happened. They had no sucession plan in place when she left. They still have none for either the principal or the ED. They don't know that the Director of Compliance was never re-assigned after the nap incidents mentioned on this board. They don't know that SSMA didn't pay its healthcare bills and employees were almost forced to pay out of pocket. They don't know that a mass exodus of staff is currently underway. They are clueless. And that's because they take the ED's word on everything without following up, investigating independently, and coming to their own conclusions. The ED probably wrote their email responses. After all, think about who could have come up with the grievance process the board outlined in their last email.

Maybe they are on the board just to pad their resumes.

If SSMA's board had conducted thorough and confidential interviews with SSMA staff, they would see a troubling picture of the school. And we wouldn't where we are now. The community association did a lot of hard work in getting feedback. NINETY responses from parents. And they got slapped in the face, threatened with decertification. All you have to do is see all the stuff coming out on DC Urban Moms to know something is seriously wrong at Shining Stars. The SSMA board is supposed to be the governing body that sets the strategic direction of the school. The ED is supposed to be the operational manager. The fact that the ED is lording over the situation with no checks on her power is all because the board is asleep at the wheel. All the parent board members have to do is ask their own guides and other parents for more information. How hard is that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Thanks feature not a bug person. You always say this. The thing to talk about is, how's it working? It's not. There is a middle ground which needs to be achieved because the current charter laws are not enough.

I agree. There is definitely a middle ground because the Shining Stars board ousted its founding ED when they found things to be dysfunctional. So the middle ground starts with any charter school's board.

The people currently on the SSMA board clearly don't take their responsibilities seriously enough. They don't know the circumstances of the previous principal's departure. They didn't know she was gone until after it had happened. They had no sucession plan in place when she left. They still have none for either the principal or the ED. They don't know that the Director of Compliance was never re-assigned after the nap incidents mentioned on this board. They don't know that SSMA didn't pay its healthcare bills and employees were almost forced to pay out of pocket. They don't know that a mass exodus of staff is currently underway. They are clueless. And that's because they take the ED's word on everything without following up, investigating independently, and coming to their own conclusions. The ED probably wrote their email responses. After all, think about who could have come up with the grievance process the board outlined in their last email.

Maybe they are on the board just to pad their resumes.

If SSMA's board had conducted thorough and confidential interviews with SSMA staff, they would see a troubling picture of the school. And we wouldn't where we are now. The community association did a lot of hard work in getting feedback. NINETY responses from parents. And they got slapped in the face, threatened with decertification. All you have to do is see all the stuff coming out on DC Urban Moms to know something is seriously wrong at Shining Stars. The SSMA board is supposed to be the governing body that sets the strategic direction of the school. The ED is supposed to be the operational manager. The fact that the ED is lording over the situation with no checks on her power is all because the board is asleep at the wheel. All the parent board members have to do is ask their own guides and other parents for more information. How hard is that?

Agreed! I've said for a while that the SSMA Board is a Board in "name only!" A lot of the issues could have been handled before it got to this point. Even with everything that has been divulged the Board is still clueless and in denial. "Adults failing kids over and over again."

[Anonymous]

Apparently some of the SSMA Board met with the SSMACA (PTA) Board last night, and by accounts it was a productive and open conversation. That is a positive step in the right direction.

For all of the issues this year, the Board does seem to be much more engaged over the last six weeks. They've emailed the parents several times and the Board chair is actively participating in the family FB group. It isn't perfect and a lot of work is still needed, but this gives me a bit of hope that things will improve. (Though we're being quite realistic about the long-term.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently some of the SSMA Board met with the SSMACA (PTA) Board last night, and by accounts it was a productive and open conversation. That is a positive step in the right direction.

For all of the issues this year, the Board does seem to be much more engaged over the last six weeks. They've emailed the parents several times and the Board chair is actively participating in the family FB group. It isn't perfect and a lot of work is still needed, but this gives me a bit of hope that things will improve. (Though we're being quite realistic about the long-term.)

That is great. But how did they account for that rather nasty letter?

We are not at SSMA but at our school, we found it is really all about the Board. Somehow getting them to listen and do their jobs, as well as often changing and adding new members who are more neutral or parents seems to be the one viable pathway at the moment to improvement.

Also remember, if your goal is to get them to eventually fire the ED, documentation is key and the grievances need to be fairly serious.