Protest at Mundo on P street

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Did the protest at Cook happen too?

The flyer at the twitter link says:
Enough is Enough
Our kids deserve better
3rd grade caregivers are writing to demand a response. We asking for:
Two adults in all 3rd grade classrooms for the remainder of SY 22/23
Commitment to at least 2 hour of actual instruction in Math and ELA each day for the remainder of SY 22/23
Additional academic support (tutoring, summer programming, after care enrichment, etc) specifically for 3rd grade students
An additional teacher (or aide) for each teaching pair for SY 23/24

Okay, hold on now. I'm no MV booster (far from it!), but how many schools have two teachers/aides per classroom in third grade? What does an additional teacher/aide for each teaching pair mean? A third adult in the classroom half of the time? How many charters provide tutoring, summer academics, and academics in after care?

Without context this seems like a lot to ask from a charter school, and even DCPS when it comes to having two adults in the classroom. Is this a post-pandemic issue with third grade (who did K and 1st virtually)? Has there not been enough intervention to get those kids caught up? Are classrooms totally out of control that they need 2-3 adults in third grade every day? I deleted my Twitter, but can anyone see the comments to see (hopefully) more details?

I'd really love more information because I came here fully ready to pile on MV, but it's a charter school, not DCPS, they don't HAVE to offer all of the bells and whistles if they don't want to.

Re the bolded above, Inspired Teaching has at minimum a lead teacher and an assistant teacher or teaching resident in each classroom.

I will say "assistant teacher" is a term ITS uses when other schools might call the person an aide. Teaching residents are in half the classrooms or less.

ITS does have a high adult-child ratio, and it keeps teacher salaries low, for sure. But that feels fair to me. If ITS went to a more DCPS-like staffing model, they could pay more DCPS-like salaries.

ITS teacher salaries are higher than Mundo.

I'm not sure if that's true, how did you find out?

It seems like MV was founded on the idea that parents would be willing to contribute enough money to make the budget support the kind of school that they wanted. And that's not crazy-- it's basically how Ward 3 operates. But the Achilles heel of that model is when parents get dissatisfied, the fundraising tanks, and then you're in a bad situation and enter that bad budget situation of having empty seats so less money coming in. It's hard to pull out of that kind of spiral.

MV expects families to contribute financially to the school? Outside of regular PTA fundraising?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Did the protest at Cook happen too?

The flyer at the twitter link says:
Enough is Enough
Our kids deserve better
3rd grade caregivers are writing to demand a response. We asking for:
Two adults in all 3rd grade classrooms for the remainder of SY 22/23
Commitment to at least 2 hour of actual instruction in Math and ELA each day for the remainder of SY 22/23
Additional academic support (tutoring, summer programming, after care enrichment, etc) specifically for 3rd grade students
An additional teacher (or aide) for each teaching pair for SY 23/24

Okay, hold on now. I'm no MV booster (far from it!), but how many schools have two teachers/aides per classroom in third grade? What does an additional teacher/aide for each teaching pair mean? A third adult in the classroom half of the time? How many charters provide tutoring, summer academics, and academics in after care?

Without context this seems like a lot to ask from a charter school, and even DCPS when it comes to having two adults in the classroom. Is this a post-pandemic issue with third grade (who did K and 1st virtually)? Has there not been enough intervention to get those kids caught up? Are classrooms totally out of control that they need 2-3 adults in third grade every day? I deleted my Twitter, but can anyone see the comments to see (hopefully) more details?

I'd really love more information because I came here fully ready to pile on MV, but it's a charter school, not DCPS, they don't HAVE to offer all of the bells and whistles if they don't want to.

Re the bolded above, Inspired Teaching has at minimum a lead teacher and an assistant teacher or teaching resident in each classroom.

I will say "assistant teacher" is a term ITS uses when other schools might call the person an aide. Teaching residents are in half the classrooms or less.

ITS does have a high adult-child ratio, and it keeps teacher salaries low, for sure. But that feels fair to me. If ITS went to a more DCPS-like staffing model, they could pay more DCPS-like salaries.

ITS teacher salaries are higher than Mundo.

I'm not sure if that's true, how did you find out?

It seems like MV was founded on the idea that parents would be willing to contribute enough money to make the budget support the kind of school that they wanted. And that's not crazy-- it's basically how Ward 3 operates. But the Achilles heel of that model is when parents get dissatisfied, the fundraising tanks, and then you're in a bad situation and enter that bad budget situation of having empty seats so less money coming in. It's hard to pull out of that kind of spiral.

MV expects families to contribute financially to the school? Outside of regular PTA fundraising?

No, in the normal fundraising. Plus whatever the board members ante up. That's really normal for DCPS and charter schools both. But when a school's model is premised on full enrollment and robust parent fundraising, it's doubly vulnerable to parent dissatisfaction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the third grade class has experienced serious issues with teacher attrition this year as well as last year, to the point where kids have been without a teacher for long periods of time.

I think that's why their requests for teachers for this year seem excessive -- the issue is that kids have had short term subs and been stuck with virtual learning aids for significant portions of this year, and the families want the school to prioritize getting teachers in those classrooms NOW to address learning loss that has happened this year and last due to the school's inability to retain teachers.

I also suspect that is what the request for summer programming is for -- not just regular summer school/camp, but extra services for these specific kids to address deficiencies in their experience over the last two years from teacher attrition.

I feel bad for the kids who are struggling through this. I know a kid at another immersion charter who had a bunch of teacher losses this year and it's so hard on the kids. A school should be able to, at a minimum, provide kids with continuity in teaching during the duration of the school year. The fact that multiple teachers are bailing in the middle of the year is really bad.

What do you mean? In school virtual learning with subs?

Is MV8 really not having these issues? If it's about pay and structural issues with MV, why wouldn't MV8 teachers be having the same problems?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the third grade class has experienced serious issues with teacher attrition this year as well as last year, to the point where kids have been without a teacher for long periods of time.

I think that's why their requests for teachers for this year seem excessive -- the issue is that kids have had short term subs and been stuck with virtual learning aids for significant portions of this year, and the families want the school to prioritize getting teachers in those classrooms NOW to address learning loss that has happened this year and last due to the school's inability to retain teachers.

I also suspect that is what the request for summer programming is for -- not just regular summer school/camp, but extra services for these specific kids to address deficiencies in their experience over the last two years from teacher attrition.

I feel bad for the kids who are struggling through this. I know a kid at another immersion charter who had a bunch of teacher losses this year and it's so hard on the kids. A school should be able to, at a minimum, provide kids with continuity in teaching during the duration of the school year. The fact that multiple teachers are bailing in the middle of the year is really bad.

What do you mean? In school virtual learning with subs?

Is MV8 really not having these issues? If it's about pay and structural issues with MV, why wouldn't MV8 teachers be having the same problems?

Calle Ocho only had its first year of 3rd grade PARCC testing this year, so people haven't yet had a chance to be dismayed by the scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the third grade class has experienced serious issues with teacher attrition this year as well as last year, to the point where kids have been without a teacher for long periods of time.

I think that's why their requests for teachers for this year seem excessive -- the issue is that kids have had short term subs and been stuck with virtual learning aids for significant portions of this year, and the families want the school to prioritize getting teachers in those classrooms NOW to address learning loss that has happened this year and last due to the school's inability to retain teachers.

I also suspect that is what the request for summer programming is for -- not just regular summer school/camp, but extra services for these specific kids to address deficiencies in their experience over the last two years from teacher attrition.

I feel bad for the kids who are struggling through this. I know a kid at another immersion charter who had a bunch of teacher losses this year and it's so hard on the kids. A school should be able to, at a minimum, provide kids with continuity in teaching during the duration of the school year. The fact that multiple teachers are bailing in the middle of the year is really bad.

What do you mean? In school virtual learning with subs?

Is MV8 really not having these issues? If it's about pay and structural issues with MV, why wouldn't MV8 teachers be having the same problems?

I mean, it's not even clear that this is a problem with all of Cooke campus, or just specific to the 3rd grade cohort. I can see a situation where these kids came out of Covid virtual school, lost a teacher last year maybe mid-year, got a new teacher but had lag time in between, the new teacher had a huge hill to climb because the kids really had not had consistent instruction since pre-Covid, and that led that teacher to quit, too.

(I have serious questions about any teacher who will quit mid-year, it's something I've never understood unless your job is actually abusive or you have extenuating circumstances in your life -- I would stick it out until the end of the year if I could for the kids, but it happens).

Anyway, it's unclear if this is a school-wide issue or just a series of unfortunate circumstances for this class. Either way, the school is responsible to these kids for fixing it, obviously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Did the protest at Cook happen too?

The flyer at the twitter link says:
Enough is Enough
Our kids deserve better
3rd grade caregivers are writing to demand a response. We asking for:
Two adults in all 3rd grade classrooms for the remainder of SY 22/23
Commitment to at least 2 hour of actual instruction in Math and ELA each day for the remainder of SY 22/23
Additional academic support (tutoring, summer programming, after care enrichment, etc) specifically for 3rd grade students
An additional teacher (or aide) for each teaching pair for SY 23/24

Okay, hold on now. I'm no MV booster (far from it!), but how many schools have two teachers/aides per classroom in third grade? What does an additional teacher/aide for each teaching pair mean? A third adult in the classroom half of the time? How many charters provide tutoring, summer academics, and academics in after care?

Without context this seems like a lot to ask from a charter school, and even DCPS when it comes to having two adults in the classroom. Is this a post-pandemic issue with third grade (who did K and 1st virtually)? Has there not been enough intervention to get those kids caught up? Are classrooms totally out of control that they need 2-3 adults in third grade every day? I deleted my Twitter, but can anyone see the comments to see (hopefully) more details?

I'd really love more information because I came here fully ready to pile on MV, but it's a charter school, not DCPS, they don't HAVE to offer all of the bells and whistles if they don't want to.

Re the bolded above, Inspired Teaching has at minimum a lead teacher and an assistant teacher or teaching resident in each classroom.

I will say "assistant teacher" is a term ITS uses when other schools might call the person an aide. Teaching residents are in half the classrooms or less.

ITS does have a high adult-child ratio, and it keeps teacher salaries low, for sure. But that feels fair to me. If ITS went to a more DCPS-like staffing model, they could pay more DCPS-like salaries.

ITS teacher salaries are higher than Mundo.

I'm not sure if that's true, how did you find out?

It seems like MV was founded on the idea that parents would be willing to contribute enough money to make the budget support the kind of school that they wanted. And that's not crazy-- it's basically how Ward 3 operates. But the Achilles heel of that model is when parents get dissatisfied, the fundraising tanks, and then you're in a bad situation and enter that bad budget situation of having empty seats so less money coming in. It's hard to pull out of that kind of spiral.

The annual reports on the charter board website with teacher salary (starting, average, max). Mundo also has their pay online.

[Anonymous]

Parent fundraising is never enough to move the needle (and I don't think it was ever really part of the model), though it certainly paid for some 'nice to have' stuff.

I think the biggest problem at Mundo (and Two Rivers, actually) is that expansion stretched things that were already thin/tenuous to the breaking point, and then the pandemic shattered whatever was left.

At the time Mundo was planning its expansion, there was a HUGE outpouring of concern from families (I think dozens and dozens wrote letters to the PCSB), but no one listened, the expansion was approved, and here we are.

Some (and maybe the PCSB) would argue that Mundo is still better than lots of other schools in DC so it's better that it exist in this form than not. But that's a pretty grim perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My understanding is that the third grade class has experienced serious issues with teacher attrition this year as well as last year, to the point where kids have been without a teacher for long periods of time.

I think that's why their requests for teachers for this year seem excessive -- the issue is that kids have had short term subs and been stuck with virtual learning aids for significant portions of this year, and the families want the school to prioritize getting teachers in those classrooms NOW to address learning loss that has happened this year and last due to the school's inability to retain teachers.

I also suspect that is what the request for summer programming is for -- not just regular summer school/camp, but extra services for these specific kids to address deficiencies in their experience over the last two years from teacher attrition.

I feel bad for the kids who are struggling through this. I know a kid at another immersion charter who had a bunch of teacher losses this year and it's so hard on the kids. A school should be able to, at a minimum, provide kids with continuity in teaching during the duration of the school year. The fact that multiple teachers are bailing in the middle of the year is really bad.

What do you mean? In school virtual learning with subs?

Is MV8 really not having these issues? If it's about pay and structural issues with MV, why wouldn't MV8 teachers be having the same problems?

Calle Ocho only had its first year of 3rd grade PARCC testing this year, so people haven't yet had a chance to be dismayed by the scores.

PP is asking about teachers leaving, why are you talking about PARCC scores?

As far as I am know MV8 is not having the same issues. But I really don't know every parent and every teacher at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher attrition at charters, especially dual language charters, has been REALLY bad this year. I think it's always been an issue when you need teachers with an extra skill set, but it's particularly bad now.

Pay at charters like Mundo is not good enough. This is a game the charters played to establish themselves: spend money on administration, marketing, and facilities, cheap out on teachers, assume it will work in the end. It doesn't! And it's not like these schools have amazing facilities either. So really they are spending all of their money (taxpayer money!) on administration and marketing themselves to PK parents. It is a house of cards and it's no wonder it's falling apart. There are a bunch of schools in DC in this bind. Not every charter (some are better run than others, some pay teachers more or allocate money better) but a number of them.

I feel compelled to also state that DCPS also sucks in a variety of ways, but teacher quality and making sure classrooms are staffed with teachers is generally not one of them. DCPS pays teachers very well and it helps them retain very high quality teachers even when other aspects of the district are a huge PITA.

I agree with a lot of what you said but please don’t say DCPS is appropriately staffed. So many parents aren’t getting their special Ed services because dcps cannot hire people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is there a public school charter board if they can’t ensure students are taught the basics?

They should all be fired and replaced. Pathetic.

As for Mundo, I’ll let the parents decide what they want to do with the administration.

This is like a money laundering operation with taxpayer money.

The PCSB is beyond useless! All the issues with SSMA, LAMB, etc. and nothing was done. I have no idea what their purpose is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher attrition at charters, especially dual language charters, has been REALLY bad this year. I think it's always been an issue when you need teachers with an extra skill set, but it's particularly bad now.

Pay at charters like Mundo is not good enough. This is a game the charters played to establish themselves: spend money on administration, marketing, and facilities, cheap out on teachers, assume it will work in the end. It doesn't! And it's not like these schools have amazing facilities either. So really they are spending all of their money (taxpayer money!) on administration and marketing themselves to PK parents. It is a house of cards and it's no wonder it's falling apart. There are a bunch of schools in DC in this bind. Not every charter (some are better run than others, some pay teachers more or allocate money better) but a number of them.

I feel compelled to also state that DCPS also sucks in a variety of ways, but teacher quality and making sure classrooms are staffed with teachers is generally not one of them. DCPS pays teachers very well and it helps them retain very high quality teachers even when other aspects of the district are a huge PITA.

Yes but Mundo is the unionized charter. Wasn't unionization supposed to resolve the issues of pay and working conditions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher attrition at charters, especially dual language charters, has been REALLY bad this year. I think it's always been an issue when you need teachers with an extra skill set, but it's particularly bad now.

Pay at charters like Mundo is not good enough. This is a game the charters played to establish themselves: spend money on administration, marketing, and facilities, cheap out on teachers, assume it will work in the end. It doesn't! And it's not like these schools have amazing facilities either. So really they are spending all of their money (taxpayer money!) on administration and marketing themselves to PK parents. It is a house of cards and it's no wonder it's falling apart. There are a bunch of schools in DC in this bind. Not every charter (some are better run than others, some pay teachers more or allocate money better) but a number of them.

I feel compelled to also state that DCPS also sucks in a variety of ways, but teacher quality and making sure classrooms are staffed with teachers is generally not one of them. DCPS pays teachers very well and it helps them retain very high quality teachers even when other aspects of the district are a huge PITA.

Yes but Mundo is the unionized charter. Wasn't unionization supposed to resolve the issues of pay and working conditions?

Working conditions maybe, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of the school's budget not covering good salaries as well as all the other things people want. As long as they aren't filling all of their seats, budget will be hard. And as long as test scores are low, filling seats will be hard. And as long as teacher turnover is high, test scores will be low. Teacher working conditions is one piece of the puzzle but a union doesn't change a lot of the fundamentals. It's really, really hard to sort out these interconnected problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is there a public school charter board if they can’t ensure students are taught the basics?

They should all be fired and replaced. Pathetic.

As for Mundo, I’ll let the parents decide what they want to do with the administration.

This is like a money laundering operation with taxpayer money.

The PCSB is beyond useless! All the issues with SSMA, LAMB, etc. and nothing was done. I have no idea what their purpose is.

They won't intervene unless the test scores get too low. Because that's what truly matters. The school has to devolve for a few years first.

[Anonymous]

The expansion was fully irresponsible. Every single family knew that. They couldn’t keep up with the expansion that had already occurred. But they didn’t care.

[Anonymous]

I had a child in third grade when the second campus was proposed and was part of the "better before bigger" contingent arguing to the school and the charter board against expansion. Why? Because my child had a revolving door of teachers, too. I've never seen so many teachers quit mid-year as I did at the school. This is not an isolated incident.

Lots of parents of younger kids playing the lottery then thought we were trying to pull the ladder up after us, but there were serious problems at the school that created a really shaky foundation for growth. And now those younger parents are experiencing the same thing we did. You can't say they weren't warned...