A quarter of the teachers at Lakewood Elementary are leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did you get from "I know at least two of them are leaving" to "A quarter of the teachers are leaving"?

There are 9 out of 40 teachers leaving and more to follow, including some 20+ year long term teachers. The new principle is toxic.

That's 22.5%

So 2.5% short of a quarter makes it acceptable?

The principle also made 8 out 18 grade teachers to change grade next year, plus the ones leaving, which would make more than half of the grade teachers new to the grades they will teach next year.

No you fool, 22.5% is not a QUARTER. it is ALMOST a quarter, NEARLY a quarter but not a QUARTER.

Anonymous wrote:You seem rigid...

Damn you, Poe's Law!

[Anonymous]

Two posts mention the principal's new diversity/inclusion initiatives, but what is she actually doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved to this neighborhood because of the school district. I've really liked the teachers my son has had; they have all been helpful, caring and communicative with me. But I know at least two of them are leaving! When I heard that, I told my husband that we should just sell our house, move to a condo and send the kinds to private school.

I'm told the new principal is making it a toxic workplace. Does anyone know what the f*** is going on?

Different school but ES had turnover in the 30% range. Covid and school closures destroyed education.

Not many teachers left during covid for Lakewood. A quarter left after one year of new principle.

It’s principal, not principle. Is that really so hard?

[Anonymous]

Its always a mistake to move for the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two posts mention the principal's new diversity/inclusion initiatives, but what is she actually doing?

Yeah, I want to know too. These inclusion initiatives come from the county, and from what I've experienced, they're pretty harmless and seem little more than using inclusive texts with diverse characters and acknowledging the existence of some people.

I don't want to dismiss any valid concerns about the principal, but really, what is the actual problem? What is she doing that is driving these staff members out? I have taught in schools with toxic leadership. Examples of what made those leaders toxic would be that they did things like: intentionally move teachers to different grades in consecutive years despite clear requests for stability, berate teachers in front of students, use teacher requests for guidance as evidence of incompetence, request meetings/phone calls with staff members on weekends/during breaks, make unilateral decisions that affected the whole school without taking staff input into account, challenge legitimate leave requests and demand excessive evidence of need for sick leave, showing blatant favoritism for big big decisions, etc. Those types of things make a toxic environment and drive staff away. Conflicting personalities and expecting staff to adjust to new county policies and procedures generally do not.

So, what's the tea here? Why is this principal such a nightmare?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are leaving all over the country

You did this as parents.

Book banners, screaming, etc stop blaming the schools. The religious right extremism did this.

Wake up.

Religious right in montgomery county? What are there 6?
They are a tiny tiny tiny percentage of the population. No way they control the public schools.

[Anonymous]

I’m at a HS and a quarter of the teachers are leaving. Same reason- toxic administrators.
It sucks.

[Anonymous]

This has been happening at my ES for the last 5 years since we were given our horrible principal. No other school wanted to hire her but we were lucky enough to get her placed at our school. Large amounts of the best teachers are leaving year and year. The principal has been hiring warm bodies to fill their vacancies. The school is falling apart and nobody cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers are leaving all over the country

You did this as parents.

Book banners, screaming, etc stop blaming the schools. The religious right extremism did this.

Wake up.

Religious right in montgomery county? What are there 6?
They are a tiny tiny tiny percentage of the population. No way they control the public schools.

They don’t but they are trying

They are trying to get on the school boards

They are pushing utter crap and lies on Next Door the threads there are insane

Moms 4 Liberty are hyper focused on crossing the river to us. Bethany Mandel and her idiot band of hate has been emailing all schools in MOCO.she’s been pushing an agenda at her home school boundary even though her kids are homeschooled

They are filing up the religious moron parents that want religion in schools .

Funny thing about that is they can’t decide on which religion that would be 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We moved to this neighborhood because of the school district. I've really liked the teachers my son has had; they have all been helpful, caring and communicative with me. But I know at least two of them are leaving! When I heard that, I told my husband that we should just sell our house, move to a condo and send the kinds to private school.

I'm told the new principal is making it a toxic workplace. Does anyone know what the f*** is going on?

Different school but ES had turnover in the 30% range. Covid and school closures destroyed education.

Not many teachers left during covid for Lakewood. A quarter left after one year of new principle.

I’m a veteran teacher, elementary.
Teaching don’t tend to leave schools as a snap decision. The job is structured such that there is one time a year to make that change. And mcps doesn’t make it easy. My point is, this didn’t happen overnight and there is likely more than the new principal playing a role here.
Many, many of us are done. You cannot overestimate how soul crushing March 2020-June 2021 were. Those that didn’t quit after those years have tried to stick with it but not all have been able to bounce back. I would guess that the principal is more like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

[Anonymous]

The school I'm at has had 40-50% leaving several times so thats not so bad....

[Anonymous]

Same situation at Wyngate. Lovely school but horribly toxic principal who is finally leaving. Hoping it resolves next year but some of the best staff are leaving because of her. And guess who put these awful principals in these positions to fire and hire- MCPS central staff and the board. Once again, they are the root of the problem. The directors and the learning and achievement specialists are god awful and as tax payers, we should demand transparency from them and understand how these people that are still working from home many days are making well into the 6 figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did you get from "I know at least two of them are leaving" to "A quarter of the teachers are leaving"?

There are 9 out of 40 teachers leaving and more to follow, including some 20+ year long term teachers. The new principle is toxic.

That's 22.5%

So 2.5% short of a quarter makes it acceptable?

The principle also made 8 out 18 grade teachers to change grade next year, plus the ones leaving, which would make more than half of the grade teachers new to the grades they will teach next year.

No you fool, 22.5% is not a QUARTER. it is ALMOST a quarter, NEARLY a quarter but not a QUARTER.

Grow up.

[Anonymous]

High teacher turnover at Bradley Hills every year. Principal seems nice enough with the parents and students. Not sure if thats the case with teachers, if not I dont get the reason for high turnover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two posts mention the principal's new diversity/inclusion initiatives, but what is she actually doing?

When talking about issues with diversity/inclusive initiatives you have to be kind of careful because it may come across the wrong way.

First it's as I tell people, I support a lot of the movements that's been going on. I've always hated the word "allies" because I always saw that as some sort of virtue signalling. You either live the life or you don't.

But this new principal came in beating that drum like, "I'm going to teach you all to be anti racist"

One thing people have to be aware of is that Lakewood is about 50 percent Asian. And a common accusation or narrative is that Asians are the most racist, especially against Black people. You can look at the Black on Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, Kanye's rants against Asians, going back to the hostility that lead to the LA Riots. Jada Pinkett Smith did a Red Table Talk about it too:
https://www.facebook.com/redtabletalk/videos/230734652152832/

So you have this principal seemingly come marching in saying, "I'm going to teach you all to be not racist..." How does that come across?

Here's her mission statement for the school:

Vision: We aspire to establish an anti-racist, culturally responsive, inclusive, collaborative learning environment by building positive self-identities and relationships where scholars and staff thrive.

Mission: We strive to cultivate data-driven instruction through an inclusive, engaging and antiracist community. We will develop a foundation for social-emotional learning in a safe and nurturing environment that value and meets the diverse needs of ALL scholars and staff, every day.

Here's a mission statement, from another school, where the principal is Black as well:

community values a positive emotional, professional and physical environment that fosters a joy of learning where students, staff, and parents are dedicated to creating a rigorous, nurturing educational experience for all learners.

You see how they kind of both encourage a positive and nurturing atmosphere? But the second one manages to do it without sounding accusatory.

So you combine this with issues that parents had where it sounded like there were instances where the principal cancelled recess to give an assembly to talk about slavery. I had to dig into my kids a little bit to find out what was going on. In one instance, it sounds like it came from an incident where the n word was used. In that type of incident I would fully support what the principal did. Where one of the concerns that we had about the area was that it wasn't really diverse and there's not really a lot of representation among all groups. But a major issue was that there was no communication from the principal on what was going on. So you only have that knowledge of her coming in making a big deal how she was going to "teach" the community to be antiracist, then hearing how she was cancelling recess and holding these assemblies.

Then her other statement, " All student-scholars, with a focus on African-American and Hispanic student-scholars..."

What's the other narrative about Asians? Asians are good at academics and don't need help and support. One of the reasons why we chose the Lakewood community was for the strong representation of Asians and we thought we could trust that our kids wouldn't get overlooked and get the support they need.

And it's like I said, when you grow up, live and work in diverse environments, you see the inequities and have to support the movements that's been going on. But I also believe that the pendulum can swing too far to the other way and there's better ways of going about it. I don't think that this principal has been going about it the right away and also is not sensitive to the community as well. There are a lot of other issues besides the diversity/inclusivity initiatives with the principal. The lack of communication about the assemblies is just one example of the principal's lack of communication. But my main issue with the principal is how she's going about her mission to foster an antiracist community. Again, I'm not against equity/inclusivity initiatives but I think she's going about it the wrong way.