DCI Parent Petition
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Anonymous
Need you to complete your sentences Pardo in order to respond. But you already know this detail. Regardless, it’s a damning number no matter how you cut the data. |
Anonymous
Sorry but I’m not Pardo whoever that is. Just a DCI parent who is trying to give you some constructive criticism that throwing out numbers with no context or details is not helpful. If you have 500 staff members for instance and you lose 40 staff a year, that is just 8% turnover and no those numbers are not damning. |
Anonymous
lol. You’re clearly not a DCI parent then if you don’t know 1) who Pardo is and 2) how many staff members there are. Buh. Bye. |
Anonymous
Wow, rude much. Actually I am a DCI parent but whatever. If you really are a staff and this is how you act when critical questions are asked, then best of luck to you. |
Anonymous
Wait, Mr Nace left?? My kids are alums and they adored him. The connection he made with such a tough crowd (teens) is Really admirable given his physique, quirks, voice… shoes… He would have been eaten alive in the bad old days. |
Anonymous
Sure. I’d like an enumerated list of grievances. This is the “verify” part of “trust but verify” |
Anonymous
Yes moved to north to New England area and got an ED position per his email to families. But hey, I am allegedly not a DCI parent who was the one questioning the numbers above. |
Anonymous
Yes. Rosskamm forced him out |
Anonymous
I read the letter from the staff so you don't have to. Or apparently want to. Here's what stood out to me: - The beloved DP Coordinator's contract was not renewed and 744 students signed a petition to reinstate him - The MYP Coordinator resigned in February with no succession plan and no communication to families and this directly threatens DCI's IB re-evaluation in 27-28 - 37 special education, EL, counseling, and support staff have left since 2023. Nearly 500 students with IEPs and 504s are affected, and the school may be out of legal compliance - A senior leader made a racist joke about ICE to his team during a period when staff, students, and families were directly impacted and faced no meaningful accountability - The ED and another leader received $30K bonuses each while aides took home less pay than last year due to how 'raises' were structured - Over 125 staff departures since SY23-24 The staff letter also documents a pattern of silencing: staff told to 'stop amplifying complainers,' called 'cynical,' and warned that raising concerns is 'dragging down morale.' |
Anonymous
Really and yet the letter said that he would be in contact with Rosskamm and work with him and see how the 2 schools might support each other in a partnership. If he was pushed out, why would he want to do that? |
Anonymous
To be fair points 1 and 2, I read somewhere or maybe it was said at the board meeting, I can’t remember but these responsibilities and role were filled with staff. Point 3 SPED positions are hard to fill and not unique to DCI. I would want to know if there was some restructuring of SPED dept and if some of these positions were let go and duties re-assigned and what was the reason for some of the staff that left. Point 4 the person was suspended so not sure what you mean by no accountability. Point 5 - what is the structure of ED and staff pay. Is this structured separately? Also the school had to structure those staff pay differently I read somewhere and they could not be salaried. Need more details on this. Also is the school budget less with less funding and they had to do budget cuts? Point 6 - so that’s about 40 staff a year which BTW was not detailed if teachers at all and details on which staff position and percentages per year of overall staff. |
Anonymous
A bit too AI sloppy, but I was also there at LAMB back then + DCI now and this also has been a bit triggering. Still, I'd love to have one of those town halls where the board and admin stand in front of an angry mob of parents and staff and try to explain why they're not doing anything about a major problem. While I agree with others above that there still aren't enough tangible details as to what this ED has been doing to make the climate so bad, it does seem clear that we're in trouble because we need the top teachers and staff to STAY on board! That is the key ingredient to a good school, which we found out at LAMB. The staff/teachers also turned LAMB upside down when the pandemic ED was there and she wasn't well liked and they began leaving and being pushed out. Thankfully quite a few have returned. Veteran quality teachers MATTER to parents and kids way more than some ED. |
Anonymous
1&2) The MYP and DP coordinators are a general teaching vacancy you backfill with a warm body. Those roles are among the most specialized roles in an IB school. They require IB-specific training and certification, deep familiarity with IB standards and practices, and years of experience managing the program's assessments, unit planning, and external evaluations. The DP Coordinator specifically oversees the Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge, and the full diploma candidacy process - work that directly determines whether students earn IB diplomas. The MYP Coordinator manages Personal and Community Projects, which are IB requirements, not optional programming. You cannot just redistribute these responsibilities to existing staff who are already stretched. The letter specifically says the replacement MYP posting adds unrelated coaching duties that will impede the coordinator's actual IB work. Filling a seat isn't the same as maintaining program integrity, especially with an IB re-evaluation coming in 27-28, where the school will have to demonstrate it has been running the program with fidelity. 3) Sure SPED is hard to fill everywhere but 37 departures from one department at one school since 2023 is not a national trend. That's a retention crisis. And given how hard those roles are to fill, should be even more of a retention priority. And the letter isn't just about vacancies, it's about legal compliance. IEP triennial evaluations only happening when case managers catch the oversight themselves is a liability issue, full stop. 4) A short administrative leave after a racist ICE joke, then returned to their position, is not accountability. It's optics. 5) The letter is explicit. The ED and a colleague took $30K bonuses each. Aides had hours cut so that negotiated raises were effectively nullified. DCI has posted multi-million dollar surpluses. This isn't a budget crisis, it's the ED's choice. 6) 125 departures over roughly two years at a school of DCI's size is significant attrition by any HR benchmark. The composition matters too, and the letter does specify: IB coordinators, language teachers, SPED staff, counselors, social workers. These aren't interchangeable roles. |
Anonymous
Because he's a professional? Who cares about the institution he gave years to? If Rosskamm truly forced Nace and Miller out, that's all I needed to hear. Mike's gotta GO. How could you have staff members like that and not see their value? Only if you're a shit executive. My kids (DCI alumni) say that Miller's non-renewal has fired up their socials and gotten them back in touch with people from HS out of sheer fury. |
Anonymous
| Certainly the kids are fired up. They've all signed this petition even the younger ones. |