Faking the Grade -- Columbia Heights Education Campus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there not truancy laws? Why aren’t kids and their parents reported after the max number of absences?

Schools are supposed to call CFSA after so many absences. Parents can get in trouble for educational neglect, in theory. But in reality: how can you force a 16 year old to go to school?

I’ve seen kids in juvenile detention for less.

In DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting comment from Reddit. Does anyone remember the post here about the teacher who left CHEC after two months this fall?

Columbia Heights Educational Campus is an absolutely disaster of a school and I have no idea how DCPS doesn’t do something about it. The principal is a horrible woman with a bad reputation who works her teachers with ridiculous demands and is constantly going against the contract. Their turnover is ridiculous. I know of 3 teachers who left this year before winter break alone. They also have huge gang problems, lots of issues between the ms13 kids and 18th street kids yet the administrators (all young and inexperienced) pretend that nothing is wrong. About half of the students speak no English yet are forced to take AP English language and AP English Lit and teachers cannot fail them. The students know this and take advantage. All of the ESL students have to pass their classes, teachers have been punished for failing more than 5% of their students, even though they don’t turn in work, don’t understand what’s going on, and miss 1-2 days a week. Tons of drugs too. A student was apparently caught using synthetic drugs and tried to throw herself in traffic right in front of the school a few months ago. I would love to see someone do an exposé on what really goes on at Columbia Heights.

there was a whole website blog about CHEC around 2010, posted lots of emails showing how awful this place was (DC urbanteacher blog I think). Was there an investigation, no Tukeva won principal of the year! Just like Ballou and other schools DCPS rewards principals who do their bidding and don't spill the beans! Previous cheating at McKinley tech reported in the post maybe about 4 years ago, same thing the principal who was accused became principal of the year a couple of years later! It's all a sick joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting comment from Reddit. Does anyone remember the post here about the teacher who left CHEC after two months this fall?

Columbia Heights Educational Campus is an absolutely disaster of a school and I have no idea how DCPS doesn’t do something about it. The principal is a horrible woman with a bad reputation who works her teachers with ridiculous demands and is constantly going against the contract. Their turnover is ridiculous. I know of 3 teachers who left this year before winter break alone. They also have huge gang problems, lots of issues between the ms13 kids and 18th street kids yet the administrators (all young and inexperienced) pretend that nothing is wrong. About half of the students speak no English yet are forced to take AP English language and AP English Lit and teachers cannot fail them. The students know this and take advantage. All of the ESL students have to pass their classes, teachers have been punished for failing more than 5% of their students, even though they don’t turn in work, don’t understand what’s going on, and miss 1-2 days a week. Tons of drugs too. A student was apparently caught using synthetic drugs and tried to throw herself in traffic right in front of the school a few months ago. I would love to see someone do an exposé on what really goes on at Columbia Heights.

there was a whole website blog about CHEC around 2010, posted lots of emails showing how awful this place was (DC urbanteacher blog I think). Was there an investigation, no Tukeva won principal of the year! Just like Ballou and other schools DCPS rewards principals who do their bidding and don't spill the beans! Previous cheating at McKinley tech reported in the post maybe about 4 years ago, same thing the principal who was accused became principal of the year a couple of years later! It's all a sick joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

+1000

And the McKinley principal then got a promotion to superintendent, so he gets to oversee half the high schools

[Anonymous]

Bets on which school is next to have this “breaking news”? Dunbar would be my best guess.

[Anonymous]

NathanBacaABC7 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If these keep making news during college application season, do you think it will affect the acceptances for students at these schools? What about other DCPS high schools?

The students' transcripts are sent to the college with the application. The colleges will see exactly what the reporters saw. So no, a student with good grades, matching SAT and AP scores, and a transcript that does not show months of unexcused absences will not be tarnished by this.

I'm not certain that attendance reports are sent along with transcripts. Those are two different documents. It's up to the school to cross-check the two, not the colleges.

My child's transcript from middle school, sent to private schools, does show attendance. Are the high school transcripts different? They come from the same computer system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NathanBacaABC7 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why didn't they fake attendance? Why aren't kids kicked out of the school when they have so many unexcused absences? I can see plenty of parents walking them right back in the next day.

DCPS policy states after 10 absences a class, they get a "failure from absence" grade. 30 unexcused absences in a year nets a final failing grade. But those records are not cross-checked with transcipts to see if those policies are being violated. The Chancellor says that changed after the story broke and is in effect this school year.

So we should expect to see faking of attendance records in the future.

Yes, we already have this. If a student puts a foot in the door, then walks out they have to be marked present. In fact this is a good issue to ask our reporter to follow up on... please get clarification from DCPS on how long a student must remain in a class to be marked present. We are all now required to mark attendance in the first 5 mins of class period, if the student walks out and doesn't come back they are still considered present!

Whereas the kid who is late because they stayed behind to talk to the prior class teacher along with too many other kids to get his question answered, but is in the class for the whole period of actual substance, is marked absent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NathanBacaABC7 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why didn't they fake attendance? Why aren't kids kicked out of the school when they have so many unexcused absences? I can see plenty of parents walking them right back in the next day.

DCPS policy states after 10 absences a class, they get a "failure from absence" grade. 30 unexcused absences in a year nets a final failing grade. But those records are not cross-checked with transcipts to see if those policies are being violated. The Chancellor says that changed after the story broke and is in effect this school year.

So we should expect to see faking of attendance records in the future.

Yes, we already have this. If a student puts a foot in the door, then walks out they have to be marked present. In fact this is a good issue to ask our reporter to follow up on... please get clarification from DCPS on how long a student must remain in a class to be marked present. We are all now required to mark attendance in the first 5 mins of class period, if the student walks out and doesn't come back they are still considered present!

Whereas the kid who is late because they stayed behind to talk to the prior class teacher along with too many other kids to get his question answered, but is in the class for the whole period of actual substance, is marked absent.

No they wouldn't, at most high schools they would get a pass from the teacher, so this is not an issue! But it is an issue that students can enter a class for minutes or walk in and out and be marked present!!! Reporter are you still out there?

[Anonymous]

Nothing will happen to Tukeva. In fact she may even get an award for an unrelated thing. This is his DCPS and DC Charters work for insiders.

[Anonymous]

How does this and related issues at Ballou and elsewhere (discovered and undiscovered) not implicate the union and their behavior? They can say intimidation or whatever but at some point plenty of actual humans knew what was actually happening, the actual rules, and actual noncompliance, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does this and related issues at Ballou and elsewhere (discovered and undiscovered) not implicate the union and their behavior? They can say intimidation or whatever but at some point plenty of actual humans knew what was actually happening, the actual rules, and actual noncompliance, right?

Different rules for different schools. It's happening so much more in charter high schools but they are not even being mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does this and related issues at Ballou and elsewhere (discovered and undiscovered) not implicate the union and their behavior? They can say intimidation or whatever but at some point plenty of actual humans knew what was actually happening, the actual rules, and actual noncompliance, right?

What?

It was teachers, union members, that blew he whistle. Tried to ell the chancellor that the results were bogus. He admitted he was told that and didn’t follow up.

So the teachers are hen fired. And go to WAMU/NPR.

These teachers, supported by their union, are the heroes in this case.

[Anonymous]

There is a lot of pressure on teachers to pass students and make sure most kids have As and Bs. Impact scores for teachers go down if 90% of kids don’t have As and Bs. The central office does not like to see Fs as then students may not graduate on time and it makes DCPS look bad. They don’t care if kids actually learn the material or if they fail out of college. DCPS Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs are obsessed with the stats looking good. Unless changes are made close to the top, I’m not sure anything can change. DCPS Office of Talent & Culture is completely disfunctional. They delayed my school hiring date by months because they kept losing some of my paperwork. This meant that I missed essential summer training and entered the classroom a week late even though I received an offer late June. This is a common story unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does this and related issues at Ballou and elsewhere (discovered and undiscovered) not implicate the union and their behavior? They can say intimidation or whatever but at some point plenty of actual humans knew what was actually happening, the actual rules, and actual noncompliance, right?

The unions file grievances, but DCPS does nothing until it hits the media. They are legal procedures that they usually win, but by then teachers have left, principals are in other positions, and DCPS keeps changing the filing rules!

[Anonymous]

A few union heroes but a system full of people not complying with the law, right? Like a couple complainers vs probably hundreds who knew the law and didn’t obey? If the union made its grievance years ago and the Ballou or CHEC stories wasn’t actual news to Grosso or the public point me to a public source dated 2016 or earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few union heroes but a system full of people not complying with the law, right? Like a couple complainers vs probably hundreds who knew the law and didn’t obey? If the union made its grievance years ago and the Ballou or CHEC stories wasn’t actual news to Grosso or the public point me to a public source dated 2016 or earlier.

The attendance policy, grading changes and related makeup policies were only changed in the last 3 years.

Before that the graduation rate was lower.

The policies changed to make it harder to fail students—and lo and behold the graduation rate went up.