School Without Walls Principal

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The SWW principal appears to be a terrible administrator, a terrible speaker, and is not liked or respected by most students, parents, or teachers at the school. It is amazing that the top performing high school in the city is led by someone of this caliber. Does anyone know how she keeps her job?

OP- Do you have a child at Walls? How have your experiences as a parent and your DC have been impacted by the principal? Are their any specific examples that you encountered and could share where the principal really negatively impacted the situation?

Not OP, but I can say that the way the principal is running the school is one of the reasons we declined a seat at Walls.

In favor of private or another public?

Another public.

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05/05/2025 16:08

Subject: School Without Walls Principal

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Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn’t even apply to Walls because of the principal. Instead my kid applied and got into Banneker but it was ultimately too regimented for them, so we went with JR.

This seems shortsighted. The principal is not in the classroom teaching your kid.

We’ve had a great experience so far with the teachers for core subjects at Walls. Electives have been a little spotty.

Principals wield a lot of power in DCPS. It's shortsighted not to take note of that.

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05/05/2025 16:52

Subject: School Without Walls Principal

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Anonymous

What makes a principal loved, a good one, or stellar- within a large public school system? How do principals get evaluated for their performance- What are the criteria?

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05/05/2025 18:13

Subject: School Without Walls Principal

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Anonymous

Experiences have been very positive! I've seen her resolve situations with teachers in short order. Now I do feel like SWW needs new teachers. Too many are just awful. I'm sure finding motivated and quality teachers is not easy. I've heard some teachers don't want to teach at a school like SWW because the kids do challenge you. That seems like a bad teacher.

It seems some think that SWW is a private school and should function as one. It's part of DCPS and the leadership does have a manager also. Go talk to her if you have an issue.

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05/06/2025 22:02

Subject: School Without Walls Principal

quote

Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn’t even apply to Walls because of the principal. Instead my kid applied and got into Banneker but it was ultimately too regimented for them, so we went with JR.

The issue of problematic principals is also at JR. I wish there was a way to convince DCPS to change course with their approach to principal selection and oversight. It’s very damaging, at least at the schools I’m familiar with. There is a lot of potential in DCPS that is left on the table due to poor, petty leadership.

The previous JR principal was fairly outspoken, which was sometimes good and sometimes bad.

She implemented the “honors for all” during freshman year which just resulted in dumbed down honors classes for all.

She tried to implement AP for all which meant all juniors were automatically enrolled in I think AP English and history, but DCPs shot her down because of costs…since they pay for every DCPS student to take the AP test, so now it went from maybe 150 taking those two AP tests to 500 x 2 taking those AP tests.

Totally agree, honors for all is definitely not honors-level work. Freshman year classes at JR are mostly a joke in terms of rigor. It’s all a performance.

And the former principal is the one who, in her capacity as instructional superintendent, hired the current principal. At least she is KIPP’s “asset” now.