7 Math teachers are leaving Richard Montgomerry HS

[Anonymous]

If you want excellence, you hire administrators who themselves were A students. When you recruit administrators who were C students then you see them lowering standards because high standards is seen as "unattainable" by such people. The RM principal is an example of such low caliber people taking an administrator role. For me he is the same caliber of nitwit as Joshua Starr was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want excellence, you hire administrators who themselves were A students. When you recruit administrators who were C students then you see them lowering standards because high standards is seen as "unattainable" by such people. The RM principal is an example of such low caliber people taking an administrator role. For me he is the same caliber of nitwit as Joshua Starr was.

How do you know the grades of specific MCPS administrators?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My RM student reports that the 7 teachers are leaving in protest of certain policies. Nothing specific to IB. They teach other classes too. He did not have enough specifics on the issues for me to repeat. One related to the 50% rule but was not like they were taking a stand and not doing it. I am sure what I heard was not complete or totally accurate.

I would normally ignore this type of thread, but there too many partial truths presented in a misleading manner that shouldn't stand.

The primary issue was over the grading and reporting policy https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/info/grading/0106.18_Grading%20procedures6-12%20(1).pdf and specifically

When using points or percentages, a teacher assigns a grade no lower than 50 percent to the task/assessment. If a student does no work on the task/assessment, the teacher will assign a zero. If a teacher determines that the student did not attempt to meet the basic requirements of the task/assess-ment, the teacher may assign a zero.

Note that this policy was put in place in 2006, and there have been teachers at RM who have disagreed with it ever since. The process many teachers in the math department were using was to put in actual quiz and test scores, even if lower than 50%, and not change it until the end of the quarter. This meant that students, parents, and administrators had no idea what the student's grade would be, and there have been complaints from parents about teachers not following the grading policy. The issue came to a head at the end of 1st semester and teachers were told directly that they must follow the policy and not enter any grade less than 50% in the gradebook. There were hard feelings about it, needless to say.

While people may be freaking about these math teachers because they are well known, you haven't been paying attention that the math department has steadily been turning over several math teachers every year. This isn't unique this year. Anyway besides Ms. McDonald retiring, Mr. Chase is taking a promotion to department head at WJ, and another teacher is moving to Nevada. And perhaps it was time for some of the other teachers to move on to a different school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think "outsiders" realize what it takes for one, let alone seven, teachers to leave a school. The administration has to be beyond toxic...most likely abusive. Its a major major major red flag and it will take at least 5 years (if not more) for the program to recover. Ive been a teacher and an admin and I've seen these things from multiple angles and its just negative all around.

This!

We saw this happen at our ES last year.

Unfortunately, not much you can do. MCPS is a mess and completely dysfunctional.

Yikes!

[Anonymous]

This is an RM student here who has talked to some of the IB teachers that are leaving. There are 7 total teachers who are leaving and not all of them teach IB but the whole entire IB precalculus department is leaving. This means that 95% of the rising sophomore class will have a teacher who is unfamiliar with teaching IB precalculus according to the HL and SL pathways. One of the teachers confirmed that they along with other IB affiliated teachers were leaving because Ms. Goetz was being pushed down from being the department head. We have heard that Ms. Goetz, a great math teacher with tons of experience in the IB curriculum (like all the precalculus teachers that are leaving) will soon be leaving. Students feel confused and frustrated that we’re not getting any straight answers about WHY they’re leaving and what the future of IB math is going to look like, as well as the fact that we feel unsupported in the school. It feels like the administration doesn’t like IB, and it doesn’t feel too great to go to a school where you feel like the outsiders even though you walk in and out of the same doors that kids zoned for RM do. With the new IB administration, there is much confusion about DP pathways and there is not much support when high achievers try to aim high and take rigorous course loads. I guess this is just an insider’s perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is an RM student here who has talked to some of the IB teachers that are leaving. There are 7 total teachers who are leaving and not all of them teach IB but the whole entire IB precalculus department is leaving. This means that 95% of the rising sophomore class will have a teacher who is unfamiliar with teaching IB precalculus according to the HL and SL pathways. One of the teachers confirmed that they along with other IB affiliated teachers were leaving because Ms. Goetz was being pushed down from being the department head. We have heard that Ms. Goetz, a great math teacher with tons of experience in the IB curriculum (like all the precalculus teachers that are leaving) will soon be leaving. Students feel confused and frustrated that we’re not getting any straight answers about WHY they’re leaving and what the future of IB math is going to look like, as well as the fact that we feel unsupported in the school. It feels like the administration doesn’t like IB, and it doesn’t feel too great to go to a school where you feel like the outsiders even though you walk in and out of the same doors that kids zoned for RM do. With the new IB administration, there is much confusion about DP pathways and there is not much support when high achievers try to aim high and take rigorous course loads. I guess this is just an insider’s perspective.

I am sorry this is happening. It must be very demoralizing. I agree that when you have students who are willing to travel long distances and willing to challenge themselves and work hard it is important for the school administration to support and encourage them. It sounds like the former Magnet coordinator (Jennifer Hoover) was a real support to students and teachers.
I am sorry this is happening PP

[Anonymous]

MCPS is sinking faster than the Titanic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:heard the principle wants the teachers to change the grading rule to account for "effort", something like 50% of the grades for trying. The teachers disagree.

This seems pretty unlikely given that MCPS does not allow participation to be included in grades.

Are you serious? It absolutely is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
MCPS is sinking faster than the Titanic.

It has always sucked. It is public schooling. It is bare bones. Bare minimum.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, but get rid of the IB program. Stop dressing up a crappy school and then having all this BS drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My RM student reports that the 7 teachers are leaving in protest of certain policies. Nothing specific to IB. They teach other classes too. He did not have enough specifics on the issues for me to repeat. One related to the 50% rule but was not like they were taking a stand and not doing it. I am sure what I heard was not complete or totally accurate.

I would normally ignore this type of thread, but there too many partial truths presented in a misleading manner that shouldn't stand.

The primary issue was over the grading and reporting policy https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/info/grading/0106.18_Grading%20procedures6-12%20(1).pdf and specifically

When using points or percentages, a teacher assigns a grade no lower than 50 percent to the task/assessment. If a student does no work on the task/assessment, the teacher will assign a zero. If a teacher determines that the student did not attempt to meet the basic requirements of the task/assess-ment, the teacher may assign a zero.

Note that this policy was put in place in 2006, and there have been teachers at RM who have disagreed with it ever since. The process many teachers in the math department were using was to put in actual quiz and test scores, even if lower than 50%, and not change it until the end of the quarter. This meant that students, parents, and administrators had no idea what the student's grade would be, and there have been complaints from parents about teachers not following the grading policy. The issue came to a head at the end of 1st semester and teachers were told directly that they must follow the policy and not enter any grade less than 50% in the gradebook. There were hard feelings about it, needless to say.

While people may be freaking about these math teachers because they are well known, you haven't been paying attention that the math department has steadily been turning over several math teachers every year. This isn't unique this year. Anyway besides Ms. McDonald retiring, Mr. Chase is taking a promotion to department head at WJ, and another teacher is moving to Nevada. And perhaps it was time for some of the other teachers to move on to a different school.

Not the norm. Sorry, but this is evidence of a long unaddressed problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want excellence, you hire administrators who themselves were A students. When you recruit administrators who were C students then you see them lowering standards because high standards is seen as "unattainable" by such people. The RM principal is an example of such low caliber people taking an administrator role. For me he is the same caliber of nitwit as Joshua Starr was.

How do you know the grades of specific MCPS administrators?

New poster, but Starr had a doctorate from Harvard. You may not have liked him, but he’s a smart guy. I didn’t like everything he championed, but I vastly preferred the trajectory the school system was on under his leadership.

[Anonymous]

The basic problem is the kids can't do math. The teachers have been getting more and more frustrated since the kids are just being pushed along with no understanding or consequences. We are talking basic math facts here; like multiplication, division, understanding what an average is. A lot of students never learned properly and don't seem to care due to the lack of consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The basic problem is the kids can't do math. The teachers have been getting more and more frustrated since the kids are just being pushed along with no understanding or consequences. We are talking basic math facts here; like multiplication, division, understanding what an average is. A lot of students never learned properly and don't seem to care due to the lack of consequences.

The RMIB kids don't know basic math facts like multiplication, division, and understanding what an average is? Huh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The basic problem is the kids can't do math. The teachers have been getting more and more frustrated since the kids are just being pushed along with no understanding or consequences. We are talking basic math facts here; like multiplication, division, understanding what an average is. A lot of students never learned properly and don't seem to care due to the lack of consequences.

The RMIB kids don't know basic math facts like multiplication, division, and understanding what an average is? Huh.

This situations seems completely unrelated to IB aside from the fact that the teachers taught some IB classes.