oyster

[Anonymous]

I received a message from a newspaper reporter who is working on a story about the inside scoop at Oyster. Anyone else receive such a call? Haven't returned the call yet but feel like maybe I should. Anyone ready to go public out there?

[Anonymous]

What's strange about Oyster is I read all this stuff on DCUM then when I see Oyster parents socially (we were there for eight years, my child is in high school now and many of his cohorts have younger siblings there) everyone says everything's fine! The one exception was someone I bumped into over the winter. I was just speaking with satisfied Oyster parents this evening.

[Anonymous]

From what I've heard, it depends upon if you're talking about grades up to 4 or 5, or about 6 on up where so many devoted families leave for Deal. But even among the tide of departures the parents will not utter a critique. It's an unspoken understanding that the ousting of the former principal would have resulted in a better school if time was indulged in shopping from a competent replacement. So, you're likely to find more "satisfired"Oyster parents in lower grades.

[Anonymous]

That's what parents said about the former principal, and the principal before that. Perhaps Oyster community needs to realize it's never going to find the perfect principal and stop expecting one person to lift the school to some higher level, of what I don't know.

[Anonymous]

That's very true. That being said, from my experience with the former principal she was wonderful at navigating the 'jungle' that is downtown. She would jump in her car and head down there and squeeze people to retain staff, push through paperwork, etc. She knew the system was dysfunctional and was savvy enough to get what the school needed. I know that she had her own dysfunction, but she did earn my respect for her feisty willingness to go to bat for the school downtown.

[Anonymous]

9:08 here. The former principal was tireless, she did the job of eight people, I think if if she'd stayed the upper school would be much farther along. Did you know that she floated the idea of separate English and Spanish classrooms and the teachers nixed it. The teachers could not nix the current principal's proposal considering Rhee was right there in the community. Anyway, we had eight great years there. I did go through drama withdrawal when we left!

[Anonymous]

The Million Dollar Quesion is: While Rhee is taking her own two daughters out (younger to Lafayette, older to Deal) when she's never paid any serious attention to gentle inquiries about the weak Monica Liang-Aguirre, it brings to me, that all POLITICS ARE LOCAL. We can talk about Gray and Fenty all day and how neither is that fantastic. But, in my experience as an Oyster parent since Rhee came on board the school has plummeted in many areas. Why is this principal not given the boot? What is the justification for not digging into the issue of why so many families are FAILURE and no one will attest to this.

[Anonymous]

How old (as in what grades) are her daughters? Believe me I can understand why Oyster parents would be upset about Rhee pulling out of the school. However, it sounds as though they (especially the older one if she's going into Deal) started immersion pretty late. I think it would be really hard to come into a situation like that as an older child, it would really hurt on a daily basis to feel so far behind your peers and I can imagine that having sad consequences for an older child.

[Anonymous]

If Oyster were not an immersion school, I'd wonder. But it is.

[Anonymous]

let us all remember that the decision to pull the kids out of oyster is only 50% Rhee's. her ex-husband is a factor here.

[Anonymous]

Those girls were too old for immersion.

[Anonymous]

not the younger one...I agree that the middle school is not fulfilling the needs of many parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:not the younger one...I agree that the middle school is not fulfilling the needs of many parents

What grade was she when she started, (as in: how many years behind her classmates was she)?

[Anonymous]

Immersion doesn't work for everyone. At Oyster there are tons of kids who start bilingual. It's hard if no one speaks Spanish at home.

[Anonymous]

Rhee has just finished her third year at DCPS, so the older child headed to Deal in 6th would have done 3,4,5 at Oyster. The younger probably started in 1st or 2nd at Oyster???