Annandale Band Director Claims Racism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He sounds passive agressive.

No, in the WTOP article he sounds furious. That's not passive aggressive at all.

Look at his social media. He needed to partner with parents, not attack them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:there is a lot more to this story. for instance, the Poe Middle School teacher making things up and disparaging the Annandale teacher and band kids. Holmes band teacher was also logging complaints because he wanted the high school kids treated like middle school kids. this is only a fraction of the crazy crap. lol the Poe teacher then interviewed for the position but didn’t get it.

Ouch.

[Anonymous]

Watching his videos on Facebook... he sure uses a lot of words to say very little!

I think he uses his Facebook videos to give himself talk therapy. He'd be better served by talking to a trained therapist rather than his cell phone camera.

Also, he says "Back in March, I went live on CNN to ask Gov. Glenn Youngkin if he agreed that there was an unspoken culture of racism and implicit bias against teachers of color in school districts nationwide." What kind of pointless question is that? Did he think Youngkin was going to say that there IS a culture of racism and bias against teachers of color? Makes me think this guy is not too smart, and just wants to get his 15 secs of time at the microphone.

Another quote from his self-therapy video:

"We are never meant to be in one place forever so understand that it's important to know when it's time to go.
Staying in your season beyond your departure time will spoil you just like food past its expiration date. And in order for you to be fresh and nutritious to others you serve, you have to make sure that you are not saturated and diluted and spoiled in your mind body and spirit. So it's important to know when its time to go, and when that feeling hits you, you need to dip."

I mean.....????? He's not really representing the value of a degree from Tarleton State U.

[Anonymous]

WELL it looks like everyone has the facts and already made up their minds! Everyone knows Fairfax County is a mess. Are you really surprised?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WELL it looks like everyone has the facts and already made up their minds! Everyone knows Fairfax County is a mess. Are you really surprised?!?

Are you reading a different thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think in general people like softer teachers these days. I just see it as a style that parents weren't going well for.

This is probably it. A lot of marching band directors have the whole football/basketball coach attitude, lots of yelling, throwing stuff, and it can escalate very quickly to singling out certain kids and playing favorites/scapegoats. At the same time, that attitude might have worked well at a previous school that takes marching band more “seriously,” but doesn’t work at every school and some schools and programs prioritize a relaxed and positive environment vs. more competitive and stressed. Sounds like maybe it was a bad fit all around.

There isn’t a shortage of HS music teachers and specials teachers in general. These are the open positions that can get hundreds of applicants or they can easily pull someone up from a middle or elementary school - ES not for band but for strings, orchestra, vocal music yes. It sounded like it was just a bad fit and they wanted to take their chances with someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Watching his videos on Facebook... he sure uses a lot of words to say very little!

I think he uses his Facebook videos to give himself talk therapy. He'd be better served by talking to a trained therapist rather than his cell phone camera.

Also, he says "Back in March, I went live on CNN to ask Gov. Glenn Youngkin if he agreed that there was an unspoken culture of racism and implicit bias against teachers of color in school districts nationwide." What kind of pointless question is that? Did he think Youngkin was going to say that there IS a culture of racism and bias against teachers of color? Makes me think this guy is not too smart, and just wants to get his 15 secs of time at the microphone.

Another quote from his self-therapy video:

"We are never meant to be in one place forever so understand that it's important to know when it's time to go.
Staying in your season beyond your departure time will spoil you just like food past its expiration date. And in order for you to be fresh and nutritious to others you serve, you have to make sure that you are not saturated and diluted and spoiled in your mind body and spirit. So it's important to know when its time to go, and when that feeling hits you, you need to dip."

I mean.....????? He's not really representing the value of a degree from Tarleton State U.

These are all really good points. He's also pretty young (probably late 20's) and needed some more guidance/coaching from a more experienced teacher or principal. He doesn't seem like a bad guy, but he clearly has an agenda that needs to be left out of school and should think about his social media and other comments as a teacher and who and how it impacts others.

He seems ok as a teacher. He certainly doesn't stand out nor do a lot of teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in general people like softer teachers these days. I just see it as a style that parents weren't going well for.

This is probably it. A lot of marching band directors have the whole football/basketball coach attitude, lots of yelling, throwing stuff, and it can escalate very quickly to singling out certain kids and playing favorites/scapegoats. At the same time, that attitude might have worked well at a previous school that takes marching band more “seriously,” but doesn’t work at every school and some schools and programs prioritize a relaxed and positive environment vs. more competitive and stressed. Sounds like maybe it was a bad fit all around.

There isn’t a shortage of HS music teachers and specials teachers in general. These are the open positions that can get hundreds of applicants or they can easily pull someone up from a middle or elementary school - ES not for band but for strings, orchestra, vocal music yes. It sounded like it was just a bad fit and they wanted to take their chances with someone else.

For the upper level music, it isn't easy to find one that good and skilled. We have had sports coaches yell and it really made my kid want to stop the sport but stuck it out knowing they'd only be with that coach a limited time and we couldn't afford music and sports if we went someone else for the sports. It really made my child not want to participate and now with the coach change they are greatly improving and enjoying it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in general people like softer teachers these days. I just see it as a style that parents weren't going well for.

This is probably it. A lot of marching band directors have the whole football/basketball coach attitude, lots of yelling, throwing stuff, and it can escalate very quickly to singling out certain kids and playing favorites/scapegoats. At the same time, that attitude might have worked well at a previous school that takes marching band more “seriously,” but doesn’t work at every school and some schools and programs prioritize a relaxed and positive environment vs. more competitive and stressed. Sounds like maybe it was a bad fit all around.

There isn’t a shortage of HS music teachers and specials teachers in general. These are the open positions that can get hundreds of applicants or they can easily pull someone up from a middle or elementary school - ES not for band but for strings, orchestra, vocal music yes. It sounded like it was just a bad fit and they wanted to take their chances with someone else.

There are some very good local HS marching band programs where the band directors know how to mentor kids without being screaming dictators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The article said that the year before he received an effective rating. 31 out of 40. I know nothing about how FCPS rates teachers, but 31 out of 40 does not seem very high to me.
Could some teachers weigh in on this?

There is likely a lot on both sides of this issue that we do not know.

The ratings are needs improvement, effective, highly effective. Highly effective is extremely rare. Needs improvement as an overall score is not common and usually results in a PIP but doesn’t have to for a teacher within the 1st 3 years. Effective is the score for 80%+ of teachers. Highly effective is a score of 35-40. 31 is a very good score. Needs improvement is down around 20, I believe.

Depending on the subject taught, a good quality teacher can get a needs improvement in a sub-rating category just because enough students didn’t score high enough on one single score measure. Imagine teaching at a Title 1 school with high absences and getting a needs improvement sub score because 74% of students made expected progress instead of 75%.

These evaluations are only as valid as the relationship between the evaluator and evaluatee. If they want you gone, you’re gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There has to be more to this story. It's not ok to scream and yell, but being strict with a large group of kids is not a bad thing and probably needed. We've had lots of activities, including music and you need strict and structured, especially for music but one issue we see in MS/HS band is the lack of teaching and kids need to know the instrument or be in private music lessons to be successful as in ES they teach individual instruments but not in MS/HS so many kids struggle.

For a band director, yes, it's ok. Otherwise chaos and mediocrity.

My child is in private orchestra and there is no yelling or screaming. It's not ok. He's to focused on being a digital content creator and its not ok to be filming his classes and broadcasting them. He's not screaming in what I saw but he's pretty flat and bland and putting on a show for the camera. He's not making the classes fun or engaging. And, not much instruction, a few comments and that's it.

Well, orchestra is inside while marching band is outside with literal moving pieces/students and isn’t marching band twice as big as orchestra.

Screaming outside is a bit different so kids can hear vs. scream and being negative. From what he posted there was very little engagement with the students and he was very flat. Ideally marching bad should have 100-200 kids if it's fun and engaging.

A lot of FCPS schools REQUIRE kids in symphonic band to be in the marching band. They can’t get a lot of kids to join, so to go to the higher level classes they have to join. Consequently, their musical performances often outshine schools from other districts who take students at all ability levels. I don’t know the policy at Annandale. But if you’ve got a lot of kids who don’t want to be there in the first place, who are then treated strictly, they will turn on you in an instant.

[Anonymous]

The teacher’s social media posts really rub me the wrong way, but he may be a great teacher and band director. Do most young teachers post cringeworthy material on social media personal accts? It may be a generational thing. I graduated from college 15 years ago so may be oblivious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The teacher’s social media posts really rub me the wrong way, but he may be a great teacher and band director. Do most young teachers post cringeworthy material on social media personal accts? It may be a generational thing. I graduated from college 15 years ago so may be oblivious.

This might be it. I have run across quite a few social media accounts from youngish teachers that seem to be questionable or oversharing. Well meaning but what I would consider inappropriate. Maybe just a generational difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teacher’s social media posts really rub me the wrong way, but he may be a great teacher and band director. Do most young teachers post cringeworthy material on social media personal accts? It may be a generational thing. I graduated from college 15 years ago so may be oblivious.

This might be it. I have run across quite a few social media accounts from youngish teachers that seem to be questionable or oversharing. Well meaning but what I would consider inappropriate. Maybe just a generational difference.

I've seen a couple of twitter accounts that stun me on how they are sharing so much information. I would never have done that when I was teaching. TMI.

[Anonymous]

Being demanding and tough on kids yet apparently wanting validation from total strangers on social media is not a combination that’s going to elicit a ton of sympathy. Shawn DeRose is supposed to be a smart guy, so maybe he knew things likely were going to get worse, not better, unless they cut their losses now.