Letter from Cancellor re moving schools - opps - I got caught moving my kid?

[Anonymous]

How about the DC City Council hold a hearing and ask him a few more questions. Would put an end to this whole tragic affair real quick.

I really do feel this latest event feels like part of a tragic story than yet another eff-up: New Chancellor comes in, stupidly picks the wrong neighborhood to live in, then starts breaking rules when he finds out the schools are even worse than he could have imagined, then keeps quiet about it until he is found out. The entire organization is so cursed, it curses the new leader before he even starts. That's tragedy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not over yet.


For Immediate Release: February 17, 2018
Contact: Rebekah Caruthers, Communications Director: [phone]; [e-mail]

Councilmember Robert White Calls for Resignation of DCPS Chancellor Wilson

Washington, DC—Today, Councilmember Robert White calls for the resignation of DC Public Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson."I have lost confidence in our DC Public Schools leadership. Just months after Chancellor Antwan Wilson helped write a policy to prohibit public officials from obtaining discretionary school transfers, he has broken that policy, and with it, the trust of our DCPS parents and students. This violation comes just days after an internal investigation revealed a widespread culture of passing students who had not met the DCPS requirements, which led to 34% of students graduating with the assistance of policy violations, in all but two DCPS high schools.

As a member of the DC Council, I have seen no accountability within DCPS central office. With a persistent achievement gap, high teacher turnover, and mounting education scandals, the cornerstones for rebuilding our schools must be public trust and accountability. Without these, the future of our public schools is in jeopardy.
We expect DCPS leadership to follow its own policies and to report accurate data. It has done neither. I do not believe Chancellor Wilson can rebuild the confidence of the community or the Council with this latest breach of trust and, therefore, he must resign."

Put White in as chair of the Education Committee of the Council. Grosso is lost!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about the DC City Council hold a hearing and ask him a few more questions. Would put an end to this whole tragic affair real quick.

I really do feel this latest event feels like part of a tragic story than yet another eff-up: New Chancellor comes in, stupidly picks the wrong neighborhood to live in, then starts breaking rules when he finds out the schools are even worse than he could have imagined, then keeps quiet about it until he is found out. The entire organization is so cursed, it curses the new leader before he even starts. That's tragedy.

Their performance hearing is March 1 if he lasts that long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about the DC City Council hold a hearing and ask him a few more questions. Would put an end to this whole tragic affair real quick.

I really do feel this latest event feels like part of a tragic story than yet another eff-up: New Chancellor comes in, stupidly picks the wrong neighborhood to live in, then starts breaking rules when he finds out the schools are even worse than he could have imagined, then keeps quiet about it until he is found out. The entire organization is so cursed, it curses the new leader before he even starts. That's tragedy.

Why not just move, rent an apartment, he can afford it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The mayor was at eastern market today collecting petition signatures and I asked her about this. She said while she can't condone what Wilson did, she thinks that having stability in DCPS leadership is important and there shouldn't be a change during the school year. I asked if that means he'd be leaving at the end of the year and she wouldn't say. She did say that other than this one mistake he is a good chancellor.

"Stability in leadership" means having a leader who can lead - with followers. If your followers won't follow, then you cannot lead any longer. And the stability is gone.

She would be in a much stronger position if she would just fire him. There is a good saying: Hire slow, fire fast.

That is one of the most absurd sayings ever. There are so many situations where firing fast is a huge mistake, or at least has a huge risk of making a huge mistake.

And there is a LOT to be said for stability during the school year, with all that has to be accomplished during a school year.

This is a big deal what Wilson did, but I've actually been impressed so far with how publicly and how directly he's handled major scandals like Ballou and Dunbar. This was a grave mistake this thing with his kid's transfer, but I don't think it's worth firing him for before the school year is over.

Not to mention, who in their right mind would step in to lead at this point, with Ballou and now this? It *is* important to have a functional leader of a school system, and while this was a major major screw up on Wilson's part, I don't think it amounts to "fire fast". Or fire at all right now.

[Anonymous]

You can't be the leader of a school system if you can't follow its own rules.

[Anonymous]

This is a great opportunity for Grosso to step down and devote his expertise to leading DCPS as the new Chancellor. Let him bask in the glory of a heroic rescue. I'm not kidding. He wouldn't be worse than what we've got.

[Anonymous]

Given the fraught history under Kaya Henderson, why in the world didn't the DCPS executive team proactively work the details of Wilson's school enrollment plan with him before he turned up for work?

I made my own enrollment plans on a week-long visit to DC several months before uprooting my family from the West Coast. I visited a dozen schools, got up to speed on the lottery system, and rented a modest place IB for a DCPS I liked. Six months later, I bought a home to access the IB school without renting. The process just wasn't that hard for a professional couple like us to navigate.

Come on, the man earns almost twice as much as the best paid Federal employees sending their children to DC public schools (like me). He had the world of choice. No need to live in Brookland.

[Anonymous]

Good question.

Do they ever plan ahead, other than to renovate buildings?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of pressure must Wilson’s wife have applied to the deputy mayor for her to essentially compromise her reputation forever? The DM has to have known that this situation would be discovered. The wife must have held something over her head right?

I'm amazed it went on as long as it did. I'm sure the first time the kid walked through the doors at Wilson there were raised eyebrows.

But don’t kids move in and out of the schools all year long? Not sure general public would have known. They might have thought she was on a waitlist and a space opened up...

Not at WOTP schools. They're like roach motels in reverse, kids move out but they don't move in, because of the way the lottery works. If you spend any time on these boards you know that a lot of parents are hyper-aware of suspected cheats.

And the response from DCPS to suspected cheating is "call the tip hotline." Maybe somebody did just that.

Parents call the tip hotline and, as a result, sometimes succeed in getting suspected cheaters investigated and busted. How would you prefer to have the investigations work? Vigilante parents playing CSI run the show?

Parents being "hyper-aware of suspected cheats" can mean that innocent in-boundary families, and those who lottery in OOB, are harassed as the targets of whispering campaigns and downright stalking. I can point to a couple of recent cases at our DCPS.

We are friends with an in-boundary single mom who is quietly renting out her home while renting a studio apt, also in-boundary. Other parents gossip about her without knowing, or perhaps caring, that she does this because she lost her job and has had difficulty finding another that pays well.

Come on. No one is harassed. On the off chance someone actually investigates, it should be quite easy for someone who actually lived in bounds (or properly had an OOB spot, through lottery or otherwise), to provide proof of their right to the spot.

The alternative is to never investigate, allow rampant cheating, and make those of us who follow the rules feel like schmucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Robert White just called for the resignation of Wilson.

Nice job. I like him.

Every council member who wants to be Mayor now has to follow suit. He's gone.

I agree others may call for his resignation. But I am not sure this will lead him to leave or the mayor to force him out.

[Anonymous]

The big picture is that Bowser is going to have a hard time defending her leadership abilities when it comes to DCPS. I predict a decent candidate is gonna take a run at her.

[Anonymous]

I’ve concluded he must be either dumb (buy in Brookland if he was not planning to go IB- Optics!) or lacking scruples (was always planning on skirting the system). Does anyone know if he bought his house pre or post lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve concluded he must be either dumb (buy in Brookland if he was not planning to go IB- Optics!) or lacking scruples (was always planning on skirting the system). Does anyone know if he bought his house pre or post lottery?

If his address is accurate from a public record search, he is renting on HAREWOOD RD NE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve concluded he must be either dumb (buy in Brookland if he was not planning to go IB- Optics!) or lacking scruples (was always planning on skirting the system). Does anyone know if he bought his house pre or post lottery?

He only has a 2-year contract. Would be dumb to buy.