Ludlow-Taylor principal suddenly leaving?

[Anonymous]

Pulling this post out of the general principals thread:

The Ludlow-Taylor principal just announced he was leaving to take a job as the instructional coach at Randle Highlands. What on earth? The demotion? The timing? The AP is also leaving. This is a disaster. I wonder if something happened or he was non-renewed and somehow kept it under wraps (but I don’t think he would have done that to the school if it was certain) or what the deal is?


Does anyone know what the story is?

[Anonymous]

Being a principal sucks. It is a lot easy to be an Instructional Coach. Maybe he was tired of being the person who everyone hates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being a principal sucks. It is a lot easy to be an Instructional Coach. Maybe he was tired of being the person who everyone hates.

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone hates him. I think parents at the school range from thinking he's amazing to thinking he's basically fine. It's really the timing that bothers me. If this was really just a personal decision with no extenuating circumstances, it's a really crappy thing to do to the school. Especially when we don't even have a new AP even though the current one announced she was leaving months ago to give the school plenty of time to find a replacement.

[Anonymous]

Do any of you realize that principals are human beings? They work harder in one year than many people work in a lifetime. I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, just to say that it is an all-consuming job that is emotionally and physically exhausting, demanding in every sense, and one that requires immense sacrifice from their loved ones. He was an incredible leader who did many good things for the school and deserves to be able to make decisions about his life and career without being shamed for it. Thank you, Principal Smith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you realize that principals are human beings? They work harder in one year than many people work in a lifetime. I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, just to say that it is an all-consuming job that is emotionally and physically exhausting, demanding in every sense, and one that requires immense sacrifice from their loved ones. He was an incredible leader who did many good things for the school and deserves to be able to make decisions about his life and career without being shamed for it. Thank you, Principal Smith.

I don’t think OP was shaming. As originally described, this seemed like a totally bizarre move and so raised questions about whether it was totally voluntary. Turns out it was. In his goodbye email, he didn’t divulge that he’s also going to work for an educational consulting company that has DCPS as clients. I wish him well. He was a really good principal. But this is terrible timing for the school and leaves an especially bitter taste for many families when you consider that he lacked urgency in getting the AP replaced and just embarked on a complicated afterschool plan in his own vision that a new principal may not want to be saddled with. In short, he did not act as a responsible steward of the school’s interests for the last few months if he was on the way out the door.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you realize that principals are human beings? They work harder in one year than many people work in a lifetime. I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, just to say that it is an all-consuming job that is emotionally and physically exhausting, demanding in every sense, and one that requires immense sacrifice from their loved ones. He was an incredible leader who did many good things for the school and deserves to be able to make decisions about his life and career without being shamed for it. Thank you, Principal Smith.

I don’t think OP was shaming. As originally described, this seemed like a totally bizarre move and so raised questions about whether it was totally voluntary. Turns out it was. In his goodbye email, he didn’t divulge that he’s also going to work for an educational consulting company that has DCPS as clients. I wish him well. He was a really good principal. But this is terrible timing for the school and leaves an especially bitter taste for many families when you consider that he lacked urgency in getting the AP replaced and just embarked on a complicated afterschool plan in his own vision that a new principal may not want to be saddled with. In short, he did not act as a responsible steward of the school’s interests for the last few months if he was on the way out the door.

Not a LT parent, but curious how he can be a DCPS employee and work for “an educational consulting company that has DCPS as clients” at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you realize that principals are human beings? They work harder in one year than many people work in a lifetime. I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, just to say that it is an all-consuming job that is emotionally and physically exhausting, demanding in every sense, and one that requires immense sacrifice from their loved ones. He was an incredible leader who did many good things for the school and deserves to be able to make decisions about his life and career without being shamed for it. Thank you, Principal Smith.

I don’t think OP was shaming. As originally described, this seemed like a totally bizarre move and so raised questions about whether it was totally voluntary. Turns out it was. In his goodbye email, he didn’t divulge that he’s also going to work for an educational consulting company that has DCPS as clients. I wish him well. He was a really good principal. But this is terrible timing for the school and leaves an especially bitter taste for many families when you consider that he lacked urgency in getting the AP replaced and just embarked on a complicated afterschool plan in his own vision that a new principal may not want to be saddled with. In short, he did not act as a responsible steward of the school’s interests for the last few months if he was on the way out the door.

Not a LT parent, but curious how he can be a DCPS employee and work for “an educational consulting company that has DCPS as clients” at the same time.

Not all of DCPS. Van Ness, specifically. Also a few charters. I guess there’s no rule against it for staff without any control over these things — I.e., an instructional coach?

[Anonymous]

Maybe he was tired of trying to deal with planning for school during Covid-19 and social distancing. Or maybe he didn’t want to worry about being vulnerable at school as principal.

[Anonymous]

Who knows what his motives were for letting the school community down like this, or what he does next, but fact is that he's leaving at very short notice, a total drag. This will be, what, Ludlow's 4th principal in six years?

Now the L-T parents and DCPS are left scrambling to find a strong replacement in just one or two months. Not a good situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who knows what his motives were for letting the school community down like this, or what he does next, but fact is that he's leaving at very short notice, a total drag. This will be, what, Ludlow's 4th principal in six years?

Now the L-T parents and DCPS are left scrambling to find a strong replacement in just one or two months. Not a good situation.

I mean, he's said what he's doing next, but I agree that it's the timing that's really awful and I'm surprised he did it. But he's been principal (and a good one) for 4 years, so the leadership of the school has felt very stable for awhile now. For the bulk of the school community, this won't feel like principal churn. It's a pretty attractive school to become the principal of for a number of ressons, so I hope we attract some good external to DC candidates or some high quality APs who werent otherwise planning to try to move up yet.

[Anonymous]

Good for him! Better he step aside if he’s not up to the task. I had a DCPS principal quit mid year & that is awful! June in better than January

[Anonymous]

I'm not seeing a silver lining here. From what I've seen over the years in this neighborhood, it's tough to bring a capable new head on board in DCPS in the best of circumstances, with at least six months lead time.

This situation isn't looking too hot for in-boundary Ludlow parents. Let's not be naive or passive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not seeing a silver lining here. From what I've seen over the years in this neighborhood, it's tough to bring a capable new head on board in DCPS in the best of circumstances, with at least six months lead time.

This situation isn't looking too hot for in-boundary Ludlow parents. Let's not be naive or passive.

Miner got really lucky with their forced last minute hire. Maybe L-T will get equally lucky? But, yes, I agree. This is a big problem, especially without an AP in place, let's not kid ourselves.

[Anonymous]

+100. No rose-colored glasses, please. We had a good head; the next may not be.

[Anonymous]

Its a tough situation but I would rather principals leave on their own at the end of the year than mid-year or forced out altogether.