Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ Total BS. Cobbs didn't want to deal with pesky uber educated middle-class parents living around the corner challenging her on this or that, including her refusal to consider pullout groups in the upper grades. She never saw her job as building a true neighborhood school, explaining why so many in-boundary parents have privately cheered her departure. Good riddance.

I'd be surprised if the new principal cares what's posted here. They aren't paid to attract or retain in-boundary families.

I'm just an outside observer curious about why this string is still going. It's like watching a train wreck. You can't completely look away. Some of the posts are almost unbelievable--and sad. Your response (as well as others) says to me--an outsider--that the former principal was dealing with some very difficult and very "entitled" forces. I saw the test scores. They couldn't be that high without her closing the gap to some degree. That's the sign of a good school and a good leader. Some of you keep harping on this "neighborhood school thing". My kids attend a Ward 3 school with a large population of OOBs kids. We view ourselves as 1 community whether you're IB or OOB, black or white, top or bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum.

If you would replace your emphasis on neighborhood with an emphasis on community, then you wouldn't have all this nastiness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Total BS. Cobbs didn't want to deal with pesky uber educated middle-class parents living around the corner challenging her on this or that, including her refusal to consider pullout groups in the upper grades. She never saw her job as building a true neighborhood school, explaining why so many in-boundary parents have privately cheered her departure. Good riddance.

I'd be surprised if the new principal cares what's posted here. They aren't paid to attract or retain in-boundary families.

I'm just an outside observer curious about why this string is still going. It's like watching a train wreck. You can't completely look away. Some of the posts are almost unbelievable--and sad. Your response (as well as others) says to me--an outsider--that the former principal was dealing with some very difficult and very "entitled" forces. I saw the test scores. They couldn't be that high without her closing the gap to some degree. That's the sign of a good school and a good leader. Some of you keep harping on this "neighborhood school thing". My kids attend a Ward 3 school with a large population of OOBs kids. We view ourselves as 1 community whether you're IB or OOB, black or white, top or bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum.

If you would replace your emphasis on neighborhood with an emphasis on community, then you wouldn't have all this nastiness.

X1000!!

[Anonymous]

Spare me on the lack of importance of neighborhood schools. Must be DCPS trolls. For the person who discounts the impact on home values, let me know when you're actually living in DC and no longer renting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Total BS. Cobbs didn't want to deal with pesky uber educated middle-class parents living around the corner challenging her on this or that, including her refusal to consider pullout groups in the upper grades. She never saw her job as building a true neighborhood school, explaining why so many in-boundary parents have privately cheered her departure. Good riddance.

I'd be surprised if the new principal cares what's posted here. They aren't paid to attract or retain in-boundary families.

I'm just an outside observer curious about why this string is still going. It's like watching a train wreck. You can't completely look away. Some of the posts are almost unbelievable--and sad. Your response (as well as others) says to me--an outsider--that the former principal was dealing with some very difficult and very "entitled" forces. I saw the test scores. They couldn't be that high without her closing the gap to some degree. That's the sign of a good school and a good leader. Some of you keep harping on this "neighborhood school thing". My kids attend a Ward 3 school with a large population of OOBs kids. We view ourselves as 1 community whether you're IB or OOB, black or white, top or bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum.

If you would replace your emphasis on neighborhood with an emphasis on community, then you wouldn't have all this nastiness.

Let me have your spots in that Ward 3 school and I'll give you my spots here on the Hill. Then you can act all high and mighty......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spare me on the lack of importance of neighborhood schools. Must be DCPS trolls. For the person who discounts the impact on home values, let me know when you're actually living in DC and no longer renting.

Again...Nastiness. I did not say neighborhood schools aren't important. However, some folk are placing far too much emphasis on "neighborhood" and completely missing the fact that if the families at your school can come together with a shared goal in mind, you can create an incredible community that's strong and vibrant and beneficial to all. Reference any HRCS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spare me on the lack of importance of neighborhood schools. Must be DCPS trolls. For the person who discounts the impact on home values, let me know when you're actually living in DC and no longer renting.

PP here -- I've owned a home in the CH Historic District for >10 years and I have kids enrolled in DCPS. I never said neighborhood schools don't have value -- pretty classic strawman argument. Who needs to make s@!# up when yours reeks so fiercely?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Total BS. Cobbs didn't want to deal with pesky uber educated middle-class parents living around the corner challenging her on this or that, including her refusal to consider pullout groups in the upper grades. She never saw her job as building a true neighborhood school, explaining why so many in-boundary parents have privately cheered her departure. Good riddance.

I'd be surprised if the new principal cares what's posted here. They aren't paid to attract or retain in-boundary families.

I'm just an outside observer curious about why this string is still going. It's like watching a train wreck. You can't completely look away. Some of the posts are almost unbelievable--and sad. Your response (as well as others) says to me--an outsider--that the former principal was dealing with some very difficult and very "entitled" forces. I saw the test scores. They couldn't be that high without her closing the gap to some degree. That's the sign of a good school and a good leader. Some of you keep harping on this "neighborhood school thing". My kids attend a Ward 3 school with a large population of OOBs kids. We view ourselves as 1 community whether you're IB or OOB, black or white, top or bottom of the socioeconomic spectrum.

If you would replace your emphasis on neighborhood with an emphasis on community, then you wouldn't have all this nastiness.

Let me have your spots in that Ward 3 school and I'll give you my spots here on the Hill. Then you can act all high and mighty......

I'm not acting high and mighty. I'm simply offering that the disturbing comments and attitudes expressed on this string are counterproductive to the school's success.

And no, I would never trade schools because I can't point to one person in our school's COMMUNITY that has expressed the kind of vitriol that I have read here-- not in person, and not even anonymously on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spare me on the lack of importance of neighborhood schools. Must be DCPS trolls. For the person who discounts the impact on home values, let me know when you're actually living in DC and no longer renting.

Not PP and also not a renter. I own a home, but I wasn't stupid enough to pay big bucks for a house in the L-T boundary and then whine INCESSANTLY about how the school sucks and how families who pay XYZ in taxes and have these higher degrees should have a new program delivered to them before they will consider enrolling their gifted and advanced toddlers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spare me on the lack of importance of neighborhood schools. Must be DCPS trolls. For the person who discounts the impact on home values, let me know when you're actually living in DC and no longer renting.

Not PP and also not a renter. I own a home, but I wasn't stupid enough to pay big bucks for a house in the L-T boundary and then whine INCESSANTLY about how the school sucks and how families who pay XYZ in taxes and have these higher degrees should have a new program delivered to them before they will consider enrolling their gifted and advanced toddlers.

Well said.

[Anonymous]

Much too easy to blame in-boundary parents for their alleged stupidity. Some of us bought when Cobbs' predecessor was on his way out, a time when LT's prospects as a true neighborhood school looked better than Maury's. Reading the tea leaves on the development tragectories of DCPS Hill elementary schools has been an inexact science in the past decade. Just ask parents who bought in-boundary for the Cluster before DCPS yanked SWS and Cap Hill Montessori out.

Pushing for a more upper middle income/neighborhood friendly school culture at LT isn't whining, it's pretty darn reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much too easy to blame in-boundary parents for their alleged stupidity. Some of us bought when Cobbs' predecessor was on his way out, a time when LT's prospects as a true neighborhood school looked better than Maury's. Reading the tea leaves on the development tragectories of DCPS Hill elementary schools has been an inexact science in the past decade. Just ask parents who bought in-boundary for the Cluster before DCPS yanked SWS and Cap Hill Montessori out.

Pushing for a more upper middle income/neighborhood friendly school culture at LT isn't whining, it's pretty darn reasonable.

+ 1,0000 !!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Agree. If the teachers/staff are so great at teaching their cohort perhaps THEY should go to the 80% OOB kids vs. trucking them in. It makes little sense when the IB folks are clamoring for change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much too easy to blame in-boundary parents for their alleged stupidity. Some of us bought when Cobbs' predecessor was on his way out, a time when LT's prospects as a true neighborhood school looked better than Maury's. Reading the tea leaves on the development tragectories of DCPS Hill elementary schools has been an inexact science in the past decade. Just ask parents who bought in-boundary for the Cluster before DCPS yanked SWS and Cap Hill Montessori out.

Pushing for a more upper middle income/neighborhood friendly school culture at LT isn't whining, it's pretty darn reasonable.

Agreed I think complaining on an anonymous forum will totally produce the results you want.

[Anonymous]

I feel sorry for the new principal. Some of you people are disgusting. I was trying to find a better word but disgusting pretty much sums it up.

[Anonymous]

^^ I think it is a very small number of people in real life and on this board who are so clueless that they want that list of changes before they even consider enrolling their kids. It is not a big group, not a trend. It is a few families driven mad by the DCPS school circus. It kills them that some neighbors have Brent, some have SWS and some have Maury. What they don't understand is that these schools/communities were made--not given in exchange for tax dollars.

My experience over the last decade and a half in Capitol Hill is that it is full of generous, open, accepting and highly energetic people who understand that we live in a troubled and changing city and that all kids from all parts of the city deserve a decent education.

They just aren't on here spouting nonsense and venting their frustration.