New principal: how to improve Oyster-Adams

[Anonymous]

What would you like the new principal to achieve at Oyster-Adams? What are your concerns? Let's be positive and keep our language polite. Hopefully the new principal will read our comments.

[Anonymous]

So there is a new principal?

[Anonymous]

Have a vision and plan for improving Adams, especially if the new boundary revisions don't go through and Deal remains an option.

Have the capacity to effectively oversee two campuses that are not right near one another.

Deal with overcrowding - ensure that families who move OOB who received their a slot IB are not allowed to stay.

[Anonymous]

I suggest she hires a good assistant principal for the Oyster campus and moves her main office to Adams where more attention is needed to improve grades 4-8.

[Anonymous]

In response to PP, yes, we have new principal. Her name is Mayra Canizales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suggest she hires a good assistant principal for the Oyster campus and moves her main office to Adams where more attention is needed to improve grades 4-8.

Specifics please. What, EXACTLY, are the problems (as you see it) in grades 4-8?

[Anonymous]

I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

[Anonymous]

Congrats Oyster-Adams. She sounds great!
http://www.checdc.org/mayra-canizales-teacher-of-the-year.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

Ok, but more specifics will be helpful. What type of bullying are you talking about? Are these mean girls (and boys) gossiping and spreading rumors about one another? Or are kids getting beat up in the bathroom and stuffed into lockers?

Do the "unchallenging academics" boil down to the fact that Adams offers Algebra I in 8th grade, as opposed to Algebra II? If so, that seems like a pretty easy fix under a new (and presumably willing) principal. If the academic problems, from your perspective, simply boil down to the level of Algebra, that seems pretty petty. Please give us more example of Adams', alleged, mediocre academic offerings.

[Anonymous]

I am curious if those on the principal selection panel for Oyster-Adams can tell us what they think of her. Was she the top choice? Is she experienced enough to be able to manage both campuses and put in place the leadership (especially in terms of high-quality APs) needed?

[Anonymous]

Panel members can't say how she was ranked (that is confidential), but they were thrilled that she accepted to be our principal. Personally, I am very hopeful for the future of our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

Really? I have heard just the opposite from many middle school parents. They tell me that their bright kids have been sufficiently challenged at Adams. If the middle school preparation is so mediocre, I wonder why Adams routinely sends it's graduates to Sidwell, WIS, School Without Walls and Banneker. Perhaps, like most things, perspective is based upon where you sit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would you like the new principal to achieve at Oyster-Adams? .

She can tell the DCPS historians to stop saying that the Adams building was named after Henry Adams when the building plainly says "John Quincy Adams" on top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would like to hear the specifics, too. My child is OOB (already bilingual/biliterate) and has a high spot on the waiting list for Adams. We will seriously consider moving, but I'd like to hear more about any issues from current parents. Is it mostly a matter of being a small school--i.e., an underdeveloped extracurricular program? Or are there weak academics or social issues in the school?

We left Adams because of widespread behavior problems, including bullying, and unchallenging academics. Extracurricular programs are nice, but that's really not what has been missing from Adams.

I'd like to see (effective) emphasis on appropriate behavior and much more serious commitment to differentiated learning for strong students. I'd also like a dialing back of the self-congratulatory rhetoric that keeps Adams mediocre. Bilingual education is a very good thing, and the education itself should continue, but let's not put the cart before the horse! The phrase "commitment to bilingual education" gets used as an automatic deflector to excuse Oyster Adams from all other responsibilities that a school responsive to the needs of its strongest students ought to fulfill.

Ok, but more specifics will be helpful. What type of bullying are you talking about? Are these mean girls (and boys) gossiping and spreading rumors about one another? Or are kids getting beat up in the bathroom and stuffed into lockers?

Do the "unchallenging academics" boil down to the fact that Adams offers Algebra I in 8th grade, as opposed to Algebra II? If so, that seems like a pretty easy fix under a new (and presumably willing) principal. If the academic problems, from your perspective, simply boil down to the level of Algebra, that seems pretty petty. Please give us more example of Adams', alleged, mediocre academic offerings.

Here's my take as the parent of an Adams MS student:

- We think Adams MS is MUCH, MUCH better than Oyster ES (through 5th grade) was. I know many parents are very happy with Oyster, and maybe we just had bad luck with teachers 4 years in a row, but we were very unhappy with Oyster. Adams has been totally different --- expectations are very clear, feedback is provided via JupiterGrades and DC is engaged in a way that he never was at Oyster. The Spanish instruction at Adams is, in my opinion, also much better.

- The very limited "bullying" that I have seen or heard of is mean boy/girl stuff. Mean boy/girl stuff is not good, but I am not aware of any hitting by students that is not dealt with by the administration, and the counselors try to control the mean kids stuff too. Keep in mind that this is a small school with short periods between classes and lots of adults everywhere. The opportunities for kids getting stuffed in lockers are pretty limited, and I've never seen or heard of anything like that within the last 3 years.

- As for challenging academics... meh. DC is very engaged by his classes, is always reading something interesting and seems to be learning a lot of math in school (unlike at Oyster where he had to learn outside of class). I know others want their kids to be several years ahead of grade level in math, and that's fine. That's not really critical to us (both parents with graduate degrees working in technical fields). I guess am a little concerned that DC gets excellent grades without doing much of homework or studying much, but I also do not think hours of homework every day is not productive.

My suggestion would be for the new principal to look at what she can do to create a clear, transparent infrastructure to support teachers, students and parents in an orderly progression toward growth and learning. The OA community is great, and everyone pulls together in times of crisis to get things done, but it often feels like every school year is an ongoing series of self-created crises for absolutely no reason. Everything from scheduling parent teacher conferences to requesting help with field trips to getting kids to athletic events is almost inevitably a last minute scramble, and there is no reason for it. Eliminating the crises will make more time for things like differentiated instruction.

Some ideas include:

-Create processes for routine things like scheduling conferences, mandate that everyone use it and be done --- don't leave it to teachers to invent multiple new, competing processes every year at the last minute. Ditto with field trips and sporting events --- create a master calendar that is available on the Web, publish it and build lead times for asking for help into it. Stop all the last-minute appeals to parents.

- Create a Web site that is easy to update and use it as a primary means of communication that is updated daily. There is new content on the site, but much is outdated (the calendar on the site is from 2012) and the design is very hard to use. Implement an immediate redesign that is focused on the information to be conveyed rather than endless discussions about look and feel of the homepage. Pick a simple, very usable design, build it and move forward. Make it mobile-friendly since almost everyone who doesn't have a home computer has a web-enabled smart phone and print pages from the site for parents who don't have computer access (rather than creating totally documents through a separate process).

- Try to look at the school as an outsider would and fix low hanging fruit that give a bad impression. For example, when parents are walking around the school looking lost, instruct faculty and staff not to walk by with their eyes lowered --- first impressions are everyone's job.