Letter from Cancellor re moving schools - opps - I got caught moving my kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“I wish I could go back and look up and talk to as many people as I could about the challenge I was facing,” Wilson, who spent the weekend apologizing to council members, said in an interview Monday. “I failed miserably. It wasn’t a mistake out of anything other than trying to ensure that my daughter’s well-being was taken care of.” -- WP

That, sir, is what we are ALL trying to do. Every parent in DC.

Do you think he means the crappy choices for his kid or that the DC challenges were too much for him in general?

more specifically, his perception of Dunbar is a terribly damning. It's especially tone deaf coupled with his earlier pleas for parents to enroll in Fall 2017 (from WCP)

"Sometimes I see families obsessing over ‘My kid has to be in this school or that school or they won’t make it.’" he observed. "And what I say to a parent is, ‘You make the difference, you send your child to this DCPS school, you spend time meeting with school leaders and getting involved with the PTA or the local school government council, you and your neighbors come to our parent cabinet meetings together, and your child will be successful.’”

Dear lord what hypocrisy. That is really something.

[Anonymous]

No one forced him to take the job. I feel sorry for him and his family but he made a couple of big mistakes - breaking his own ethics rule and not even looking into the Ballou attendance and graduation scandal when the whistleblowers had clearly contacted him first. I really don't think he was up to the job and should never have been hired in the first place. He clearly did a bad job in Oakland too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a DCPS teacher - this saddens me. He was a teachers advocate and was focused on social emotional learning and the welfare of all students.

No reason SEL can't continue to be a focus. But you can't be successful if you have lost all credibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one forced him to take the job. I feel sorry for him and his family but he made a couple of big mistakes - breaking his own ethics rule and not even looking into the Ballou attendance and graduation scandal when the whistleblowers had clearly contacted him first. I really don't think he was up to the job and should never have been hired in the first place. He clearly did a bad job in Oakland too.

Also, he shouldn't have bought a house that fast. Any political appointee in DC can tell you that!

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure it was hypocrisy. DCPS is almost unique in the depth and breadth of its disfunction. He probably thought the challenges would be similar to the ones he saw in Oakland. But once his daughter couldn't cope at Ellington, which is not even near the bottom of DCPS high schools, he panicked. Just like many parents in DC do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a DCPS teacher - this saddens me. He was a teachers advocate and was focused on social emotional learning and the welfare of all students.

Just curious... how exactly did he advocate for teachers? Are you talking about the new contract because I'm pretty sure any new chancellor would have done that to get the teachers on his or her side

[Anonymous]

Besides, I'm not sure dcps teachers understand how hard the parent community took this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Besides, I'm not sure dcps teachers understand how hard the parent community took this

The level of anger clearly took the Council by surprise. On Fri/Sat you could tell that Grosso thought this would blow over. He did a complete reversal. I do admire him for responding to what the voters want, but his original posturing shows how much he doesn't get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one forced him to take the job. I feel sorry for him and his family but he made a couple of big mistakes - breaking his own ethics rule and not even looking into the Ballou attendance and graduation scandal when the whistleblowers had clearly contacted him first. I really don't think he was up to the job and should never have been hired in the first place. He clearly did a bad job in Oakland too.

I won't argue with Oakland being a questionable resume builder. The Ballou/graduation scandal was fully formed by the time he arrived. You can fairly criticize the response but I don't think he owns the scandal.

Whatever mistakes happened on his watch he was tossed for getting his daughter reassigned outside of his own rules. I can think of a dozen things Henderson and Rhee did that bother me more (hey - no teacher contract for 4.5 years anyone?).

I'm not convinced he'd have succeeded but I think his removal was premature. They'd better hope the interim chancellor works out because they are going to have an awfully hard slog recruiting for this position

[Anonymous]

He resigned, or the mayor asked for his resignation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a DCPS teacher - this saddens me. He was a teachers advocate and was focused on social emotional learning and the welfare of all students.

Just curious... how exactly did he advocate for teachers? Are you talking about the new contract because I'm pretty sure any new chancellor would have done that to get the teachers on his or her side

I've also had positive feedback from several school admins that he was far more supportive than his predecessors and a big advocate of SEL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He resigned, or the mayor asked for his resignation.

that's just code for fired. He serves at her discretion in addition to being subject to termination due to cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure it was hypocrisy. DCPS is almost unique in the depth and breadth of its disfunction. He probably thought the challenges would be similar to the ones he saw in Oakland. But once his daughter couldn't cope at Ellington, which is not even near the bottom of DCPS high schools, he panicked. Just like many parents in DC do.

That's what Maryland is for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides, I'm not sure dcps teachers understand how hard the parent community took this

The level of anger clearly took the Council by surprise. On Fri/Sat you could tell that Grosso thought this would blow over. He did a complete reversal. I do admire him for responding to what the voters want, but his original posturing shows how much he doesn't get it.

I find this very troubling. Lottery cheating is a "big deal" because the state of most DCPS school is atrocious-- so bad that people bend over backwards to find ways to enroll at the very few good schools we have. Additionally, the overcrowding in those good schools is a secondary but nonetheless real issue as well. Either they are not seeing the forest through the trees or they don't have kids in school today and don't know what it feels like when your child has but one shot at a decent education.

[Anonymous]

This is awful. I feel sorry for him and his family. But I don’t see a way he could have stayed.