Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Pp. Do you understand that Brent didn't always have the bells and whistles you describe above? Parents enrolled kids despite that. When I visited the school the spring before I enrolled, the School looked horrible, the AP had is feet up on the desk just chilling, the office staff was surly and as I waited to speak to the principal a sobbing 2nd grade girl wandered into the office with a bloody nose because another girl had punched her and sat on her and her teacher wouldn't help so she came to the office for help. No nurses, no joy, certainly no outfitted band room or brand new playground. Test scores in the tank. But I trusted the principal and her vision for moving the school forward: for BOTH the families who were already there and the neighborhood parents who were enrolling kids and starting to fundraise and build gardens.

Fair enough everyone who started at LT and didn't trust or feel included in the vision and priorities of the principal.

But for those of you looking for all the bells and whistles to happen BEFORE you invest your blood sweat and tears, it ain't gonna happen.

The leadership is key and I hope this new leader is a true professional who can bridge the divide.


Re: bolded. I have zero desire to invest in a school that does not already meet the criteria I have so I moved out of Ward 6 (much as I loved living on the Hill) when I had children to somewhere else where schools were already up to my specifications. I think it's pretty appalling that in the vast majority of DCPS schools, it is the norm for the parents to fight the administration and school reality in order to improve the school (or just give up and go elsewhere or put up with a bad education). That's insane to me! I am not a teacher or a school administrator (and I imagine most people on this board are not) so it is not my job to improve a school, any more than it is the job of my DS' teacher to come to my office and help me with my work or make the business I work for run more efficiently. L-T clearly is not serving the neighborhood (whether it is serving the largely OOB population or not) - and in a system with neighborhood schools, I would imagine the priority should be on serving the neighborhood and making the school most attractive to people who live there, whatever that may take. The fact that L-T cannot do that and that parents are expected to improve the school if they want any results is ridiculous.

It is absolutely your job, as a parent, to improve schools. You are a major stakeholder in the school that educates your child. That is not insane. What is insane, though, is you think there is an equivalence in your son's teacher coming to do your work. Your son's teacher doesn't have a vested interest in your job.

A teacher could have a vested interest in a lot of parents’ jobs – police (helping the area to have less crime is good for everyone, her included), medicine (what if she or her family member get sick – having a hospital be more efficient is beneficial to all), various Government agencies (regulations affect us all) etc, and yet nobody expects a teacher to help a policewoman, a doctor or a Government employee do their jobs. My job, as a parent, is to educate my child outside of school on how to behave properly, to ensure he gets proper activities (sports, enrichment etc) to benefit his growth, and to send him to school that does an adequate job teaching him the basics (and to pay taxes to ensure schools are properly funded if the school is public; and pay proper tuition if the school is private). It is not my job to improve the school (to use another, somewhat equivalent example – it is certainly beneficial to me and directly afects me to have a plumber and an electrician to know what they are doing when they work on my house – so I hire knowledgeable professionals, I am not expected to hire incompetent ones and get them up to speed). DH and I are both a product of two different public school systems in different states (and, at one point, different countries). In none of those schools was it expected or necessary for parents to drag the school kicking and screaming into functionality (and no, having a good school with a PTA that raises money through bake sales is not an equivalent of what parents are expected to do to ‘improve’ DCPS schools). Parents of children in NoVa, MoCo or Ward 3 are expected to be involved in their children’s education and possibly help PTA with the above-mentioned fundraising, but it’s a far cry from what parents in most of DCPS are supposed to do to ‘improve’ the schools – which is basically become a teacher/administrator/booster/everything else with little expectation of success. To me, that means that DCPS beaurocracy is broken. (And before anyone gets into ‘Ward 3/NoVa/MoCo have different demographics’ argument – true but (a) L-T inbounds demographic is hardly impoverished and (b) I would think children whose parents have less choice about moving somewhere better deserve even more help from DCPS than the typical DCUM poster but they do not get it.

Debating with this poster is like debating with a stop sign. His/Her concepts and analogies are really twisted and exaggerated. He/She has an inability to view this issue for any perspective but their own.

[Anonymous]

^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

Curse you, autocorrect! Try = they; t=it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I can respect this. What would annoy me is if you stayed where you were and whined about the neighborhood school because they weren't begging you to come the way some posters do on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

1. In general people in places with "good" demographics and good schools do not need major involvement to have a good school. As PP said above, bake sales, chaperoning field trips is a far cry from the effort to turn a school around

2. That said, I think in bad schools with "bad" demographics in troubled systems, the reality is that much larger parental involvment is needed. Thats not just DC - I think it applies to many inner city school systems. In our own region, I imagine it plays a big role in PG County and in City of Alexandria as well.

3. That said, far more parents will make that commitment for major involvement, if they see the school system is encouraging it by doing SOMETHING for neighborhood families, and esp if the principal is encouraging of it.

4. That said, DCPS probably DOES have bigger fish to fry right now than LT, or the Hill in general. In particular the transition of Hardy and its feeders to IB, the reopening of Mcfarland, the construction of new middle schools EOTP, addressing and encouraging steady transition in several EOTP schools, managing the relationship to charters, and addressing the many low performing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

I educate my kids through supplementals (music lessons, trying to instill love of reading, discussing history, helping with homework, getting tutors if necessary). It is not my job to be the one teaching basic curriculum because the school cannot as the other kids in class cannot read in middle school, or making sure discipline is maintained in school otherwise there would be brawls in hallways. If it was, I'd homeschool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

I educate my kids through supplementals (music lessons, trying to instill love of reading, discussing history, helping with homework, getting tutors if necessary). It is not my job to be the one teaching basic curriculum because the school cannot as the other kids in class cannot read in middle school, or making sure discipline is maintained in school otherwise there would be brawls in hallways. If it was, I'd homeschool.

But I don't think anyone here is arguing (at least, not credibly) that LT isn't teaching basic curriculum effectively -- people are complaining because there's no chess club, or because they can't kick back and relax at fundraising galas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

Yes, different poster here, but I think the point is that this poster, as well as myself, would prefer to spend my valuable time educating my children in our own way instead of improving a struggling school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

I educate my kids through supplementals (music lessons, trying to instill love of reading, discussing history, helping with homework, getting tutors if necessary). It is not my job to be the one teaching basic curriculum because the school cannot as the other kids in class cannot read in middle school, or making sure discipline is maintained in school otherwise there would be brawls in hallways. If it was, I'd homeschool.

But I don't think anyone here is arguing (at least, not credibly) that LT isn't teaching basic curriculum effectively -- people are complaining because there's no chess club, or because they can't kick back and relax at fundraising galas.

I actually think L-T gets a somewhat unfair rep at DCUM (as opposed to a lot of truly horrible DCPS schools nobody talks about much). It’s clearly teaching its target audience – disadvantaged OOB kids – well, if the DC-CAS scores are anything to go by. It’s not a neighborhood school and does not reflect neighborhood demographics, but that’s another issue entirely. I am just puzzled by all the posters in this thread who either think that if you want a good school you must work hard to make a school that is not to your liking into one that is or, alternatively, think that people should be OK with sending their children to a school the parents don’t like (however irrational the reason for the dislike may be). I happen to think that if you can afford it (and many posters clearly can), you should stop beating your head against a rock and move somewhere where the schools are fine “as is” and you don’t need to either work hard to fix them to your liking or seethe impotently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp. Do you understand that Brent didn't always have the bells and whistles you describe above? Parents enrolled kids despite that. When I visited the school the spring before I enrolled, the School looked horrible, the AP had is feet up on the desk just chilling, the office staff was surly and as I waited to speak to the principal a sobbing 2nd grade girl wandered into the office with a bloody nose because another girl had punched her and sat on her and her teacher wouldn't help so she came to the office for help. No nurses, no joy, certainly no outfitted band room or brand new playground. Test scores in the tank. But I trusted the principal and her vision for moving the school forward: for BOTH the families who were already there and the neighborhood parents who were enrolling kids and starting to fundraise and build gardens.

Fair enough everyone who started at LT and didn't trust or feel included in the vision and priorities of the principal.

But for those of you looking for all the bells and whistles to happen BEFORE you invest your blood sweat and tears, it ain't gonna happen.

The leadership is key and I hope this new leader is a true professional who can bridge the divide.

Re: bolded. I have zero desire to invest in a school that does not already meet the criteria I have so I moved out of Ward 6 (much as I loved living on the Hill) when I had children to somewhere else where schools were already up to my specifications. I think it's pretty appalling that in the vast majority of DCPS schools, it is the norm for the parents to fight the administration and school reality in order to improve the school (or just give up and go elsewhere or put up with a bad education). That's insane to me! I am not a teacher or a school administrator (and I imagine most people on this board are not) so it is not my job to improve a school, any more than it is the job of my DS' teacher to come to my office and help me with my work or make the business I work for run more efficiently. L-T clearly is not serving the neighborhood (whether it is serving the largely OOB population or not) - and in a system with neighborhood schools, I would imagine the priority should be on serving the neighborhood and making the school most attractive to people who live there, whatever that may take. The fact that L-T cannot do that and that parents are expected to improve the school if they want any results is ridiculous.

You gotta love entitled Prima Donnas .

This mom (or dad) sounds like an entirely reasonable, rational person. We most likely just lost an active neighbor, who was smart and with it. I wish I could do the same, but it is not in the cards for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

Yes, different poster here, but I think the point is that this poster, as well as myself, would prefer to spend my valuable time educating my children in our own way instead of improving a struggling school.

two are not related whatsoever, nor are they mutually exclusive. if you think your child's education is entirely on the school you are wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^ Exactly. There's nothing wrong wrong having educational standards. At least that's what people who exceed think. And there's also nothing wrong with expecting bureaucrats to do their jobs; that's what they get paid for!

Amen. But that runs counter to the past 30-40 yrs of the way this city has been run. However, it is not going to be a fight as much as people think. It will change. It is changing, and it will continue to. One day, DC will have good schools. It is the highest # of PhD's per capita. It is simply inevitable. The tough part is what people do in the mean time, and that is where it is messy.....

Enjoy it while it lasts, DCPS freeloaders!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

Yes, different poster here, but I think the point is that this poster, as well as myself, would prefer to spend my valuable time educating my children in our own way instead of improving a struggling school.

two are not related whatsoever, nor are they mutually exclusive. if you think your child's education is entirely on the school you are wrong.

Um no, clearly my point was neither of the above. What is limited is my TIME. How I choose to spend my time is my choice, and I choose not to spend it on a low-SES school that desperately needs my time, my income, my intelligence, my effort. Outta luck on this one!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^ I happen to believe people should do the jobs try are paid for competently, without needing help from others. If they cannot do that, it means they are not doing a good job. Feel free to disagree - I am just stating my position, not burning to convert you.

I moved somewhere with good schools because I don't view t as my job to improve a school. You are equally free to live where you want and to work on improving a school if you so desire. Freedom of choice is wonderful. DCPS beaurocracy is not.

I hate to break it to you, but educating your kids is YOUR job too. Schools don't provide everything, even the best ones. This notion that a school should be a panacea reflects some really questionable parenting

Yes, different poster here, but I think the point is that this poster, as well as myself, would prefer to spend my valuable time educating my children in our own way instead of improving a struggling school.

two are not related whatsoever, nor are they mutually exclusive. if you think your child's education is entirely on the school you are wrong.

Um no, clearly my point was neither of the above. What is limited is my TIME. How I choose to spend my time is my choice, and I choose not to spend it on a low-SES school that desperately needs my time, my income, my intelligence, my effort. Outta luck on this one!

In case it is not obvious, I will spend as much of my time on my children as possible. I will not spend time on a school that does not meet my standards, nor do I want to spend time teaching against the bad habits my children would pick up in such an environment. Jump all over me, there you go, but that is simply the truth.