Associate superintendent leaving MCPS

[Anonymous]

MCPS central office apparently went after principals and admin over their standardized test scores...this sent admins into panic mode and they started taking it out on the teachers. Things are really bad right now. My entire building wants to quit. MCPS is collapsing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a situation where I really would’ve wanted Dr. Sarah Sirgo to stay in MCPS. She was a great principal and cluster director, very motivational in her words, respected across the system. Now she’s a Chief of Staff for FCPS (following Dyson) bc their deputy superintendent is out the door soon, stewing over not getting the superintendency permanently. She obviously wants to succeed him in a couple of years.

MCPS has to do a better job with leadership and succession planning. They’ve lost so much since COVID. Who would even want this associate superintendent role?

She was one of the few people in central office I thought did a good job.

I loved her. She saw the mess MCPS was becoming, saw that McKnight probably didn’t think of her favorably (for whatever reason she’s always had her own inner circle), and decided to become an advisor to a superintendent in a calm county politically while protecting her future. What a great job of playing the game and rightfully focusing on your own ambitions while doing right by kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS central office apparently went after principals and admin over their standardized test scores...this sent admins into panic mode and they started taking it out on the teachers. Things are really bad right now. My entire building wants to quit. MCPS is collapsing.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that A&S meeting. Of course, central office doesn’t know that raising scores is a years-long process that depends on factors such as, oh, I don’t know, not changing the curriculum more than you change clothes, giving kids wraparound support, respecting teachers and modernizing the profession based on recent trends, I could go on …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS central office apparently went after principals and admin over their standardized test scores...this sent admins into panic mode and they started taking it out on the teachers. Things are really bad right now. My entire building wants to quit. MCPS is collapsing.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that A&S meeting. Of course, central office doesn’t know that raising scores is a years-long process that depends on factors such as, oh, I don’t know, not changing the curriculum more than you change clothes, giving kids wraparound support, respecting teachers and modernizing the profession based on recent trends, I could go on …

Wraparound support with accountability for bad behavior is what I meant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS central office apparently went after principals and admin over their standardized test scores...this sent admins into panic mode and they started taking it out on the teachers. Things are really bad right now. My entire building wants to quit. MCPS is collapsing.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that A&S meeting. Of course, central office doesn’t know that raising scores is a years-long process that depends on factors such as, oh, I don’t know, not changing the curriculum more than you change clothes, giving kids wraparound support, respecting teachers and modernizing the profession based on recent trends, I could go on …

Sounds like my staff meeting we had this week. Whole group instruction should not only be differentiated to meet the individual needs of 35 students in the class, it should only be 15 minutes max. Homogeneous grouping is where students learn! Except ya know, it's 2023 and everyone in education should know at this point "tracking" is absolutely not considered best practice. Less class time and more independent time is not where it's at for these kids. They can barely function with someone sitting directly next to them telling them exactly what to do. No one innovative is running this district or these schools. If you're admin, you should know best practices and actually practice them. I'm done after this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS central office apparently went after principals and admin over their standardized test scores...this sent admins into panic mode and they started taking it out on the teachers. Things are really bad right now. My entire building wants to quit. MCPS is collapsing.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that A&S meeting. Of course, central office doesn’t know that raising scores is a years-long process that depends on factors such as, oh, I don’t know, not changing the curriculum more than you change clothes, giving kids wraparound support, respecting teachers and modernizing the profession based on recent trends, I could go on …

Sounds like my staff meeting we had this week. Whole group instruction should not only be differentiated to meet the individual needs of 35 students in the class, it should only be 15 minutes max. Homogeneous grouping is where students learn! Except ya know, it's 2023 and everyone in education should know at this point "tracking" is absolutely not considered best practice. Less class time and more independent time is not where it's at for these kids. They can barely function with someone sitting directly next to them telling them exactly what to do. No one innovative is running this district or these schools. If you're admin, you should know best practices and actually practice them. I'm done after this year.

DP-but yes. It's pathetic. We had admin acting like they know our students better than we do because they "took the time to build a relationship with them by asking their favorite color." In. March. I don't know what is going on this year, but I've been in MCPS 10+ years and this year has been a disaster, 2020 looks like a breeze compared to this shitshow. We need new leadership immediately. Just checking boxes doesn't count. The teacher's union voted no confidence this time last year. Maybe people should have listened.

[Anonymous]

Anyone heard anything about climate surveys or the results of the diversity audit? I heard from my kid that his school got practically a failing grade. Are school leaders getting chastized for for those results? He also says the principal is screaming in the halls at everyone and tension is through the roof.

[Anonymous]

The principal at my high school was mad that the average for 2nd quarter was only a C and that minorities had much lower grades. Data chat after data chat department heads said it was because of attendance issues, and students taking advantage of the grading system if they already had a passing grade first term. It seems like the school often has no middle. Students with supports and plans in life are getting A’s and B’s. Other students are struggling to show up and are perfectly fine passing with a D thanks to the 50% rule. There is literally no policy preventing this. There are rumors that the board of Ed is going to tweak the grading or attendance rules to discourage this situation, but I think it won’t be very strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone heard anything about climate surveys or the results of the diversity audit? I heard from my kid that his school got practically a failing grade. Are school leaders getting chastized for for those results? He also says the principal is screaming in the halls at everyone and tension is through the roof.

Which school is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS central office apparently went after principals and admin over their standardized test scores...this sent admins into panic mode and they started taking it out on the teachers. Things are really bad right now. My entire building wants to quit. MCPS is collapsing.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that A&S meeting. Of course, central office doesn’t know that raising scores is a years-long process that depends on factors such as, oh, I don’t know, not changing the curriculum more than you change clothes, giving kids wraparound support, respecting teachers and modernizing the profession based on recent trends, I could go on …

I'm starting to see more and more why so many school-level leaders have bad relationships with central office. CO is only considered with the optics of things, not the messy reality and downstream implications of change, evolution and transformation.

[Anonymous]

So who becomes associate superintendent now? Mullenholz? Jones? Which director moves up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone heard anything about climate surveys or the results of the diversity audit? I heard from my kid that his school got practically a failing grade. Are school leaders getting chastized for for those results? He also says the principal is screaming in the halls at everyone and tension is through the roof.

How would a student know this information? The antiracist audit results shared the raw data as percentages. They didn’t give each school a grade.

This is the point in the year that is always very challenging as school staff. Everyone is ready for spring break and no one is following school rules at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone heard anything about climate surveys or the results of the diversity audit? I heard from my kid that his school got practically a failing grade. Are school leaders getting chastized for for those results? He also says the principal is screaming in the halls at everyone and tension is through the roof.

How would a student know this information? The antiracist audit results shared the raw data as percentages. They didn’t give each school a grade.

This is the point in the year that is always very challenging as school staff. Everyone is ready for spring break and no one is following school rules at this point.

His teacher told a bunch of kids.

[Anonymous]

She will go to the next job and end any equity issues forever!
She will increase SPED graduation rates! And part the Red Sea again!

Just look at what the last MCPS bigwig under McKnight was able to accomplish in Frederick county when she left MCPS in under a year!

https://www.fcps.org/about/news/1761370/frederick-county-public-schools-releases-2022-graduation-and-dropout-rates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Based on this quote from the announcement, I wonder what she did at MCPS.

“Dr. Floyd-Cooper is an accomplished leader with wide experience in helping districts build data-informed systems designed to advance the professional learning of educators and improve academic outcomes for students.”

If she was that high up, all she did was work on the anti-racist audit. That seems to be the only focus at the top right now.