Churchill Getting a New Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm interested in what the teachers/staff thought of her. From a parent's perspective, there's absolutely no reason to demote her, at least so early in her tenure. I wonder if there was a real problem between her and the teachers?

She came in and ticked off the staff on day one when she started, and I think her first year was bad with growing pains, but I don't think she deserves being demoted to an AP at another school if that's what's happening and it seems unfair to be judged on a first year and then a pandemic year which, on the whole, I think she handled reasonably well. But at the same time I question how the academic standards have been lowered, but again that's hard to gauge relative to a year when you're working through a pandemic. Bottom line, if she's being demoted I don't think it's fair. I personally had no love for her, but at the same time I think she was trying and deserved more time to get into the job.

Something that I personally didn't witness but was shared with me by a number of colleagues was her dissing Joan Benz. She seemed to deliberately want to dissociate herself from Dr. Benz, and didn't seem to want her in the building or have anything to do with her. If this is an accurate reflection of how she was acting (again, I didn't see this), then that was a huge mistake. Joan is tied to the community, has friends at MCPS, and no matter what one may think of her (I personally liked her a lot, but I thought it was time for her to retire), she deserved respect and a certain degree of solicitude, and the word was out that this was very much lacking on the part of Brandi. Brandi was more interested in what was happening on her phone (a constant thing with her, really, she was as bad as a student and being principal she was getting away with it) than in being smart about how she treated Benz.

So on the whole I'd say that there was a measure of immaturity on Brandi's part, and I think that, more than anything else, was likely the reason for the change. I don't think she was necessarily given a fair chance to grow into the job, but then Churchill is a high-vis position, a tough crowd vis-a-vis the parents, and there were things which were bringing negative attention to the school in the last two years which, to some degree, Brandi had control over which she handled poorly.

FWIW people on this forum seem to haste Benz too.There have been multi-page threads going on and on about her ineffectiveness. Now I have no idea if any of this was warranted. People here like to complain.

In terms of Benz, we lived through 6 years of her. I'm sorry, but when the principal stands in the entry during arrival and doesn't know more than handful of kids, has no real connection to the students in the school, that's a problem. Her car may have been in the parking lot quite a bit of the time, but at least when we were there the last few years of her tenure, she wasn't really "present".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The principal of Hoover sucks yet they push out the Churchill one who folks liked. Politics

Staff didn’t like her because she tried fixing science and math departments that had major staff problems. Bad teachers still on board. Heckert out.

There are "bad" teachers in Math and Science? Really? Who and why are they "bad"? Ernst in bio, gone - an idiot from the getgo, and his interactions with female students was beyond the pale. Sanford in chemistry, where he should never have been sent to begin with, was constantly not there for one reason or another, and was thought to be drunk in the building at least once - gone. So that's 2 out of many 20, where else is there "rot"?

You can just check the many other Churchill threads to see criticisms of the math department. They aren't against one teacher, although my kid had a teacher who had to be consistently corrected during class by the students on math he was doing wrong all semester long. I'm glad to hear that Heckert was addressing issues in the math department and can't imagine that was the reason she was ousted.

[Anonymous]

There were serious problems but confidential matters. I personally think that it was more than just one thing that led to Heckert’s departure.

Regardless of why, Dr. Moran should be developing a plan to give the new Principal on day 1 to fix what is broken at Churchill. Had Heckert had more support and supervision, perhaps she wouldn’t have made the mistakes she made. Perhaps she got the blame for what people underneath her were doing.

To move things in a positive direction, before school starts, it would be great to hear from the new Principal on the priorities and what is going to be done to fix problems.

Ultimately, MCPS knows what happened and can’t just keep setting people up to fail.

[Anonymous]

My daughter had a math teacher that wouldn’t teach. He gave the students packets then took naps in class. The kids thought he was nice but stoned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter had a math teacher that wouldn’t teach. He gave the students packets then took naps in class. The kids thought he was nice but stoned.

OMG...I think my DS had the same teacher!

[Anonymous]

At 3:20pm today, Churchill sends out a Zoom link for a Restorative Justice Processing Circle scheduled for 3:00pm today. They really are trying hard to get student input on the Asian American hate social media post.

This should have been done in the school year. Who is reading Churchill emails in the summer?

The big picture, the school will keep playing Whack a Mole with hate instances and bullying if they keep focusing on individual racial and demographic groups at a time. All student groups have been targeted by bullying in one way or another. Respect for each other should be the focus. When a serious incident happens, carve out time during the school day for everyone to participate in an assembly or Zoom discussion. The message is falling silent on the ones who need it most - the students doing the bullying - by calling for a “Restorative Justice” meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At 3:20pm today, Churchill sends out a Zoom link for a Restorative Justice Processing Circle scheduled for 3:00pm today. They really are trying hard to get student input on the Asian American hate social media post.

This should have been done in the school year. Who is reading Churchill emails in the summer?

The big picture, the school will keep playing Whack a Mole with hate instances and bullying if they keep focusing on individual racial and demographic groups at a time. All student groups have been targeted by bullying in one way or another. Respect for each other should be the focus. When a serious incident happens, carve out time during the school day for everyone to participate in an assembly or Zoom discussion. The message is falling silent on the ones who need it most - the students doing the bullying - by calling for a “Restorative Justice” meeting.

This is why that school needs its boundary adjusted to be more diverse and help foster a more inclusive environment. So glad the BoE is prioritizing diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 3:20pm today, Churchill sends out a Zoom link for a Restorative Justice Processing Circle scheduled for 3:00pm today. They really are trying hard to get student input on the Asian American hate social media post.

This should have been done in the school year. Who is reading Churchill emails in the summer?

The big picture, the school will keep playing Whack a Mole with hate instances and bullying if they keep focusing on individual racial and demographic groups at a time. All student groups have been targeted by bullying in one way or another. Respect for each other should be the focus. When a serious incident happens, carve out time during the school day for everyone to participate in an assembly or Zoom discussion. The message is falling silent on the ones who need it most - the students doing the bullying - by calling for a “Restorative Justice” meeting.

This is why that school needs its boundary adjusted to be more diverse and help foster a more inclusive environment. So glad the BoE is prioritizing diversity.

I’m not sure you have all of your facts straight. Churchill is less than 50% white:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04602.pdf

Maybe you’re thinking of some other high schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At 3:20pm today, Churchill sends out a Zoom link for a Restorative Justice Processing Circle scheduled for 3:00pm today. They really are trying hard to get student input on the Asian American hate social media post.

This should have been done in the school year. Who is reading Churchill emails in the summer?

The big picture, the school will keep playing Whack a Mole with hate instances and bullying if they keep focusing on individual racial and demographic groups at a time. All student groups have been targeted by bullying in one way or another. Respect for each other should be the focus. When a serious incident happens, carve out time during the school day for everyone to participate in an assembly or Zoom discussion. The message is falling silent on the ones who need it most - the students doing the bullying - by calling for a “Restorative Justice” meeting.

This is why that school needs its boundary adjusted to be more diverse and help foster a more inclusive environment. So glad the BoE is prioritizing diversity.

I’m not sure you have all of your facts straight. Churchill is less than 50% white:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04602.pdf

Maybe you’re thinking of some other high schools?

+1 Boundary changes will not affect how the administrators are mishandling incidents when they occur. Ignoring problems and groups of students who had complaints for months only fosters the climate problems within the school. At the end of the day, bullying is bullying no matter the skin color of the victim. Churchill administrators do not know how to handle bullying when it is reported at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't need to go onto instagram to see the racism. Just read this thread in full. A thread focused on hiring a new principal turned into a thread of parents complaining that their kids were being taught not to be racist.

The IG page is worth going to for the racism in the school, faculty (names are called out) and the student body.

No question there's racism here, but those are the parents - the IG page is a clear indication that the apples don't fall far from the tree, but the faculty, that's a problem. Things have been said and done by faculty which clearly indicate that there's a problem.

That said, I haven't a clue to what extent the issues pointed out in the IG page were ever addressed with the faculty, instead ALL of the faculty gets to go through awareness training (last year's professional training was only about equity and race) and MCPS imposes Student Learning Objectives to help us see our problems with students of color and to track them (you gotta love the idiot at MCPS who came up with that, where the acronym is SLO - students identified in a teacher's SLO are the SLOW students, I mean perfectly idiotic on the part of MCPS and that no one has addressed this with them, and here I'm assuming, is telling - you track poorly performing students, with specific emphasis on FARMS and minority, who may or may not have academic problems but you're supposed to track them using MyMCPS data which helps teachers not one bit. It does provide for an excellent pencil whipping drill twice a semester for ALL teachers, though.)

Can’t blame MCPS for this one. SLOs are state mandated.

https://sites.google.com/site/marylandsloengagement/slosinmd

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't need to go onto instagram to see the racism. Just read this thread in full. A thread focused on hiring a new principal turned into a thread of parents complaining that their kids were being taught not to be racist.

The IG page is worth going to for the racism in the school, faculty (names are called out) and the student body.

No question there's racism here, but those are the parents - the IG page is a clear indication that the apples don't fall far from the tree, but the faculty, that's a problem. Things have been said and done by faculty which clearly indicate that there's a problem.

That said, I haven't a clue to what extent the issues pointed out in the IG page were ever addressed with the faculty, instead ALL of the faculty gets to go through awareness training (last year's professional training was only about equity and race) and MCPS imposes Student Learning Objectives to help us see our problems with students of color and to track them (you gotta love the idiot at MCPS who came up with that, where the acronym is SLO - students identified in a teacher's SLO are the SLOW students, I mean perfectly idiotic on the part of MCPS and that no one has addressed this with them, and here I'm assuming, is telling - you track poorly performing students, with specific emphasis on FARMS and minority, who may or may not have academic problems but you're supposed to track them using MyMCPS data which helps teachers not one bit. It does provide for an excellent pencil whipping drill twice a semester for ALL teachers, though.)

Can’t blame MCPS for this one. SLOs are state mandated.

https://sites.google.com/site/marylandsloengagement/slosinmd

There are many problems at Churchill. No doubt. One of the never talked about and never addressed is this discord between staff and parents.

The PP says Churchill parents are racists. The problem with the students are the parents.

The parents say the problems in the school is the staff. Some teachers are not effective in teaching the curriculum. Administrators don’t deal with bullying and drugs. Teaching standards dropped to an all time low during online learning. A parent feels the tension and is sometimes treated with rudeness when reaching out to the school for help with their child.

Whomever is hired needs to rebuild unity for all within Churchill. The focus should be how to improve the school climate, not belittle one another. The moment parents and staff become advisories, the students loose. I hope a fresh face will bring a new perspective to support all in the community.

[Anonymous]

The divide between parents and school staff go beyond the walls of Churchill. An example of this is an update to staff when interviews could not take place on June 18th but no update went out to Churchill families.

MCPS doesn’t foster collaborative relationships with families. They sit back and take the accolades when students achieve but blame families when students struggles. Meanwhile, Churchill parents are the ones paying for tutors when a child has gaps from a broken curriculum and instruction.

[Anonymous]

How successful has Dr. Moran been with the Churchill cluster? He started three years ago at the same time as Mrs. Heckert. He was supposed to mentor Mrs. Heckert. Then there’s the problems at Hoover.

I do find the timing of Ms. Heckert’s departure odd. Seriously, half her tenure at Churchill was during online learning. Was online learning a bigger disaster at Churchill than other high schools? Again, where was Dr. Moran’s support for the community?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How successful has Dr. Moran been with the Churchill cluster? He started three years ago at the same time as Mrs. Heckert. He was supposed to mentor Mrs. Heckert. Then there’s the problems at Hoover.

I do find the timing of Ms. Heckert’s departure odd. Seriously, half her tenure at Churchill was during online learning. Was online learning a bigger disaster at Churchill than other high schools? Again, where was Dr. Moran’s support for the community?

I find this strange, too. My family has had 4 years at Churchill and heading into 7 more. Of course, online learning was not good in general. But I found the Churchill-specific problems to essentially go away this year-- probably *because* of online learning. My AA kids didn't face direct racism (since they weren't sitting side-by-side other kids who often say racist things). They didn't face profiling by teachers, at least that they conveyed to me (and yes, every other year I've heard specific examples). There weren't vaping/drug/fighting problems since no one was in the building. On the other hand, the communication from the school was enormously better than it was under Benz.

This must be an issue between principal and staff because the types of student-related issues that can be explosive in a normal year weren't even possible this year.

[Anonymous]

Heckert had a different supervisor when she started. He left after her first year.