MoCo schools ranked by staff morale

[Anonymous]

It's all here, if you are curious: http://sharedaccountability.mcpsmd.org/SurveyResults/content.php

[Anonymous]

What they really should measure and share is staff retention. It might shock people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What they really should measure and share is staff retention. It might shock people.

Correct, but there are plenty of other data points to look at to get another picture of the school. What do the students and parents say about the school? The parent survey I believe asks a question about what grade they would give the school?

Staff morale is a pretty good indicator of the climate of a school.

[Anonymous]

You know, my child goes to a middle school with pretty low staff morale on these surveys, and I can tell why because I don't love the administration myself, but my kid honestly doesn't know any of this or care about it. He likes all his teachers and friends and classwork. So I'm not sure this degree of nitpicking really matters.

[Anonymous]

It does if the good teachers leave!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What they really should measure and share is staff retention. It might shock people.

My school has a miserable climate for staff, but I can't find another position in my specialty without a 45-60 minute commute and mine is currently 15 minutes.

I went online and looked at the climate survey for my school and it wasn't as bad as I would have thought but then I remembered one of the major reasons why the climate is bad---if you're on the principal's inner circle then the climate is awesome. There are around 10 people in this group who are close with the principal and they receive perks that others do not. They are held to a much lower standard as well and get away with things that others would be written up for in a heartbeat. It's not that large of a staff, so those ten people skewed the results of what it's like for the majority of staff members. There are also staff members who don't trust the anonymity of the survey and others who don't believe that anything will change, so they don't bother to fill it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What they really should measure and share is staff retention. It might shock people.

My school has a miserable climate for staff, but I can't find another position in my specialty without a 45-60 minute commute and mine is currently 15 minutes.

I went online and looked at the climate survey for my school and it wasn't as bad as I would have thought but then I remembered one of the major reasons why the climate is bad---if you're on the principal's inner circle then the climate is awesome. There are around 10 people in this group who are close with the principal and they receive perks that others do not. They are held to a much lower standard as well and get away with things that others would be written up for in a heartbeat. It's not that large of a staff, so those ten people skewed the results of what it's like for the majority of staff members. There are also staff members who don't trust the anonymity of the survey and others who don't believe that anything will change, so they don't bother to fill it out.

This. Yes. Our climate survey wasn’t the worst, and when they shared the results at a staff meeting I was shocked the results weren’t worse. So was everyone else. At least those who are not in that inner circle you refer to, anyway. We’re not at the same middle school because Im at a huge one. I think We know we have to just deal. How much can go wrong before someone pays attention? It seems like a whole lot. We have some terrible teachers and the principal makes everyone else deal with it. We pretend everything is okay and do we what need to do, but the leadership doesn’t do any leading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What they really should measure and share is staff retention. It might shock people.

Staff turnover alone doesn't tell a full story. Sometimes new administration comes in and deals with a stagnant staff hiding some teachers who haven't changed their practice in 20 years. Teachers get uncomfortable and bail out and newer, better trained, more enthusiastic teachers are hired. Sometimes a great school with great administration and great morale can have a steady stream of great teachers leave, because they are taking positions of higher responsibility in other schools. Some teachers try to change schools every 5-7 years. New teachers may need to take the first job they can get, and then after 3-4 years will switch schools more in line with what they want. With MCPS expanding, there's a lot of opportunity each year for shifting around in the system, which I think is a good thing. You have to be in a particular school to know really what is going on with turnover.

[Anonymous]

I agree with that, and I am the poster who was surprised morale scores weren’t lower at my school. But even factoring all of that in, retention numbers tell a story. you won’t have a 20-30 percent staff turnover because of even all those positive factors combined. Personally, I think the supervisors at the level above principal should be walking the schools and talking to lay staff. Not just the admin. I don’t think I could even tell you who that person is, and I don’t think he’s talked to any of my colleagues either. Obviously people won’t complain to that person about their principal, but there are ways to get a sense of the land. Then they can give useful feedback to the principal. There will always be complainers who are never satisfied, but then there’s a whole bigger group of teachers who could give honest and fair assessments of how the school is functioning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with that, and I am the poster who was surprised morale scores weren’t lower at my school. But even factoring all of that in, retention numbers tell a story. you won’t have a 20-30 percent staff turnover because of even all those positive factors combined. Personally, I think the supervisors at the level above principal should be walking the schools and talking to lay staff. Not just the admin. I don’t think I could even tell you who that person is, and I don’t think he’s talked to any of my colleagues either. Obviously people won’t complain to that person about their principal, but there are ways to get a sense of the land. Then they can give useful feedback to the principal. There will always be complainers who are never satisfied, but then there’s a whole bigger group of teachers who could give honest and fair assessments of how the school is functioning.

I agree. I’m 17:11 and my principal’s boss apparently loves visiting our school because my principal always has a big spread of food for the bigwigs. One of our preservice mornings is a breakfast where a lot of bigwigs are invited and principal hides out for days prepping for it. We’re stuck for two hours having to watch the brown nosing. Meanwhile no one understood the new arrival and dismissal procedures and principal wouldn’t respond to any emails about pressing issues related to the first week of school. But there were three kinds of French toast, so I guess that’s more important.

It’s the biggest crock of shit that the community sups are only dealing directly with the principals behind closed doors. My principal can put on a great show for those meetings and then go back to their MO of nepotism and being unresponsive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with that, and I am the poster who was surprised morale scores weren’t lower at my school. But even factoring all of that in, retention numbers tell a story. you won’t have a 20-30 percent staff turnover because of even all those positive factors combined. Personally, I think the supervisors at the level above principal should be walking the schools and talking to lay staff. Not just the admin. I don’t think I could even tell you who that person is, and I don’t think he’s talked to any of my colleagues either. Obviously people won’t complain to that person about their principal, but there are ways to get a sense of the land. Then they can give useful feedback to the principal. There will always be complainers who are never satisfied, but then there’s a whole bigger group of teachers who could give honest and fair assessments of how the school is functioning.

I agree. I’m 17:11 and my principal’s boss apparently loves visiting our school because my principal always has a big spread of food for the bigwigs. One of our preservice mornings is a breakfast where a lot of bigwigs are invited and principal hides out for days prepping for it. We’re stuck for two hours having to watch the brown nosing. Meanwhile no one understood the new arrival and dismissal procedures and principal wouldn’t respond to any emails about pressing issues related to the first week of school. But there were three kinds of French toast, so I guess that’s more important.

It’s the biggest crock of shit that the community sups are only dealing directly with the principals behind closed doors. My principal can put on a great show for those meetings and then go back to their MO of nepotism and being unresponsive.

Would be great to be able to somehow know if anyone in MCPS central reads this board and hears this request. It really is a good one and would be good for morale overall. Anyone out there? Not really sure otherwise how to make this point...would parents ever make this kind of suggestion? The school board?

[Anonymous]

Guess not!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting index. Also interesting: BCC is number 22 on the list and Einstein, much derided on DCUM, is 6.

Not sure about BCC, but I know Einstein has an awesome principal. Staff moral is often closely tied to the leadership.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting this. It’s nice to see confirmation of how happy the teachers in DD’s school are to be working there. They always look happy, but now I know they aren’t just faking for us parents. I think morale is so important when it comes to teachers. I’m glad they take these surveys. Wonder what kind of follow-up they to help struggling schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2017 Survey - Staff Moral - % that Strongly Agreed or Agreed with Question 2: Staff morale is positive in this school. (this is the same measure used to order the high schools in the article)

1. Rosa Parks - 87.5%
2. Lakelands - 83.3%
3. Julius West - 83.1%
4. Cabin John - 82.4%
5. MLK - 73.9%
6. Takoma Park - 72.6%
7. Wood - 70.1%
8. Forest Oak - 67.3%
9. Rocky Hill - 66.1%
10. Tilden 65.7%
11. Frost - 65.3%
12. Farquar - 62.1%
13. Eastern - 61.5%
14. Key - 58.5%
15. Parkland - 56.2%
16. Pyle - 54.5%
17. Hallie Wells - 54%
18. Redland - 53.5%
19. North Bethesda - 52.2%
20. Westland - 50.6%
21. Argyle - 48.1%
22. Silver Spring - 45.7%
23. Kingsview - 42.8%
24. Briggs Chaney - 42.2%
25. Poole - 39.4%
26. White Oak - 38.3%
27. Sligo - 37.8%
28. Hoover - 37.7%
29. Lee - 36.8%
30. Loiderman - 35.9%
31. Newport Mill - 33.9%
32. Gaithersburg 28.6%
33. Banneker - 25.4%
34. Redland - 25%
35. Ridgeview - 25%
36. Baker 23.3%
37. Shady Grove - 20.5%
38. Neelsville - 15.5%
39. Clemente - 11.3%
40. Montgomery Village - 10.3%

KNowing what I know about the Montgomery Village administration I'm not surprised the morale is so low.