Navy Elementary - Principal Resignation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

[Anonymous]

He had to have done something terribly wrong for them to decide to ask him to leave this early in the year. This is all such a mess!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is the root of the problem. The parents were complaining because the 6th grade situation has been pretty terrible. It looked like things would be improving but now he has resigned, which is surprising because many of us were for starting to feel hopeful about the changes being put into place. He also seemed pretty upbeat and positive last week so I don't know what happened this week to change that. The kids all seemed to like him, so as usual, that's who will be negatively affected.

This. 6th grade parents were strongly advocating for an actual teacher after the sub left that class in shambles. Every 6th grade parent I know was absolutely thrilled with the principal’s decision to have the new teacher take over, as he is not only an experienced 6th grade teacher, but also beloved by the kids. I thought this would be a huge win and a positive PR boost for the principal. I also felt like he was finally starting to feel comfortable in his role. Then he resigned. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t blame him one bit. Navy would have been a challenging environment for even the most experienced principal. A brand new one never stood a chance.

Except perhaps it was the higher ups who forced him to make that plan or came up with the idea. And look how long it took for this plan to be developed. This should have been the plan as soon as they realized the long term sub wasn’t working. They let that class fester for 6 weeks. Was the team working together to support the sub? Was admin working with the team to support the sub? Why wasn’t there oversight into what was going on? The buck stops with the admin and they failed to fix it.

Here’s what I think happened: the principal was telling the team to figure it out in terms of supporting the sub, and they were probably overwhelmed with their own stuff and rightfully felt like that was putting his responsibility on them. He didn’t seem to want the buck to stop with him. I have heard of other situations where teachers were being told to do things that are admin’s job.

This happens at every school though. When there is a long term sub, the team is expected to step up and help with the plans for that sub. It sucks for all but that’s life. I sort of think the team had to be told to help and were sour about it. I also think because of the vacancy in the gen Ed SS/Sci position, there weren’t any concrete plans or material to work with to provide the sub with easily. Except science lessons are already made by the county - so not sure what the deal is there. I also think the master schedule wasn’t correct to begin with in terms of instructional times for subjects. The principal is overall responsible for the master schedule and approving the schedules the teachers make though. Perhaps with a different admin the team would have helped out more? I don’t know. The admin should have ensured the team was working together and provided more oversight.

There’s stepping in as a team to fill a gap, and there’s being asked to coach and/or police a colleague when they aren’t doing their job properly. I think the problems come in with the latter. If there’s a problem if’s on admin to step in, not tell a team to handle it and blame them when it isn’t going well. That creates a poor climate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is the root of the problem. The parents were complaining because the 6th grade situation has been pretty terrible. It looked like things would be improving but now he has resigned, which is surprising because many of us were for starting to feel hopeful about the changes being put into place. He also seemed pretty upbeat and positive last week so I don't know what happened this week to change that. The kids all seemed to like him, so as usual, that's who will be negatively affected.

This. 6th grade parents were strongly advocating for an actual teacher after the sub left that class in shambles. Every 6th grade parent I know was absolutely thrilled with the principal’s decision to have the new teacher take over, as he is not only an experienced 6th grade teacher, but also beloved by the kids. I thought this would be a huge win and a positive PR boost for the principal. I also felt like he was finally starting to feel comfortable in his role. Then he resigned. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t blame him one bit. Navy would have been a challenging environment for even the most experienced principal. A brand new one never stood a chance.

Except perhaps it was the higher ups who forced him to make that plan or came up with the idea. And look how long it took for this plan to be developed. This should have been the plan as soon as they realized the long term sub wasn’t working. They let that class fester for 6 weeks. Was the team working together to support the sub? Was admin working with the team to support the sub? Why wasn’t there oversight into what was going on? The buck stops with the admin and they failed to fix it.

Here’s what I think happened: the principal was telling the team to figure it out in terms of supporting the sub, and they were probably overwhelmed with their own stuff and rightfully felt like that was putting his responsibility on them. He didn’t seem to want the buck to stop with him. I have heard of other situations where teachers were being told to do things that are admin’s job.

This happens at every school though. When there is a long term sub, the team is expected to step up and help with the plans for that sub. It sucks for all but that’s life. I sort of think the team had to be told to help and were sour about it. I also think because of the vacancy in the gen Ed SS/Sci position, there weren’t any concrete plans or material to work with to provide the sub with easily. Except science lessons are already made by the county - so not sure what the deal is there. I also think the master schedule wasn’t correct to begin with in terms of instructional times for subjects. The principal is overall responsible for the master schedule and approving the schedules the teachers make though. Perhaps with a different admin the team would have helped out more? I don’t know. The admin should have ensured the team was working together and provided more oversight.

There’s stepping in as a team to fill a gap, and there’s being asked to coach and/or police a colleague when they aren’t doing their job properly. I think the problems come in with the latter. If there’s a problem if’s on admin to step in, not tell a team to handle it and blame them when it isn’t going well. That creates a poor climate.

I’m the PP and I do agree with this. Ultimately it’s the admin’s responsibility here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is the root of the problem. The parents were complaining because the 6th grade situation has been pretty terrible. It looked like things would be improving but now he has resigned, which is surprising because many of us were for starting to feel hopeful about the changes being put into place. He also seemed pretty upbeat and positive last week so I don't know what happened this week to change that. The kids all seemed to like him, so as usual, that's who will be negatively affected.

This. 6th grade parents were strongly advocating for an actual teacher after the sub left that class in shambles. Every 6th grade parent I know was absolutely thrilled with the principal’s decision to have the new teacher take over, as he is not only an experienced 6th grade teacher, but also beloved by the kids. I thought this would be a huge win and a positive PR boost for the principal. I also felt like he was finally starting to feel comfortable in his role. Then he resigned. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t blame him one bit. Navy would have been a challenging environment for even the most experienced principal. A brand new one never stood a chance.

I generally agree with this. However, the experienced 6th grade teacher was only set to be there for this week. After that it’s resource teachers and a different one for each section. Not sure the resource teachers have ever taught science before.

They are very experienced teachers. I’m sure they can figure out how to teach 6th grade science.

I’ve seen the 6th grade science lessons and they actually can be difficult if you don’t have a science background. Just like math can be for people not math oriented. I don’t know that an ESOL teacher will be the best fit to be a science teacher, but we will see!

They are. But I’ll take someone with solid pedagogy background/experience over a random person any day. Also, the ESOL teachers aren’t teaching science. They’re teaching writing.

Go back to the principal’s email to review the plan. He clearly states that 3 resource teachers (including an ESOL) teacher will be starting a science unit on 10/28.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

In such shambles that there are ongoing investigations into some pretty horrible things that happened under her watch. Or lack thereof.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

With the high teacher turnover from last year, navy is getting a taste of what it’s like at an FCPS title one. We get hot mess subs and teacher trainees all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

Ok great. No need to be snarky to me. The point remains that it’s not just parents being upset that there’s a long term sub, like PP tried to imply. I am on your side here.

I hope you don’t speak like this to the people you need on your side in order to fix the situation. They’re not going to feel very sympathetic to you if you’re being an a-hole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

Ok great. No need to be snarky to me. The point remains that it’s not just parents being upset that there’s a long term sub, like PP tried to imply. I am on your side here.

I hope you don’t speak like this to the people you need on your side in order to fix the situation. They’re not going to feel very sympathetic to you if you’re being an a-hole.

I am a new poster. I want to add that last year there was a long term sub for one of the grades and she had lesson plans. All was well and she was well liked. This year what the previous person said was true. They didn't learn much and the class was chaotic. My kid was coming home with migraines daily and overly stressed by the behaviors of some really problematic kids. The problem was not the sub but the lack of plans and support and expectations. The buck stops with admin but the current situation does sadden me as we are all human and I feel like mistakes were made and I wish there was a different outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

Ok great. No need to be snarky to me. The point remains that it’s not just parents being upset that there’s a long term sub, like PP tried to imply. I am on your side here.

I hope you don’t speak like this to the people you need on your side in order to fix the situation. They’re not going to feel very sympathetic to you if you’re being an a-hole.

I am just explaining the situation. Didn’t you also say “parents were crying over the long term sub for one subject?” That’s not nice either.

[Anonymous]

per the PTO there is meeting tonight with Dr. Tyson.

Also there will a written response to the 63 questions asked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

Ok great. No need to be snarky to me. The point remains that it’s not just parents being upset that there’s a long term sub, like PP tried to imply. I am on your side here.

I hope you don’t speak like this to the people you need on your side in order to fix the situation. They’re not going to feel very sympathetic to you if you’re being an a-hole.

I am a new poster. I want to add that last year there was a long term sub for one of the grades and she had lesson plans. All was well and she was well liked. This year what the previous person said was true. They didn't learn much and the class was chaotic. My kid was coming home with migraines daily and overly stressed by the behaviors of some really problematic kids. The problem was not the sub but the lack of plans and support and expectations. The buck stops with admin but the current situation does sadden me as we are all human and I feel like mistakes were made and I wish there was a different outcome.

Lack of plans was because the previous teacher who taught SS/Sci had left. There was no one to provide those plans to the sub to begin with. Whose responsibility was it to provide plans to the sub? Why wasn’t everyone working together on it from day 1?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

Ok great. No need to be snarky to me. The point remains that it’s not just parents being upset that there’s a long term sub, like PP tried to imply. I am on your side here.

I hope you don’t speak like this to the people you need on your side in order to fix the situation. They’re not going to feel very sympathetic to you if you’re being an a-hole.

I am a new poster. I want to add that last year there was a long term sub for one of the grades and she had lesson plans. All was well and she was well liked. This year what the previous person said was true. They didn't learn much and the class was chaotic. My kid was coming home with migraines daily and overly stressed by the behaviors of some really problematic kids. The problem was not the sub but the lack of plans and support and expectations. The buck stops with admin but the current situation does sadden me as we are all human and I feel like mistakes were made and I wish there was a different outcome.

Lack of plans was because the previous teacher who taught SS/Sci had left. There was no one to provide those plans to the sub to begin with. Whose responsibility was it to provide plans to the sub? Why wasn’t everyone working together on it from day 1?

They should have all come together to support the sub and make sure she had adequate plans. Instead our kids suffered. The team and admin did not work together here it seems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Its common at other schools for classes to have long term subs for the entire school year.
So parents were crying about a long term
sub for just one subject?

Two subjects, but yes.

I thought the problem was that there was no sub. The long term sub they had hired quit after like a week. And since then there has been no one filling that role. That’s why parents have been upset.

You don’t know the facts obviously. First sub quit after 3 weeks. She was never supposed to be there long term anyway. Then they had a 2nd sub (a warm body) for a week. No one could even understand her. Then they got a long term sub who was there for 6 weeks and left the class in shambles. While there, she loosely threw some SS materials at them but it was absolute chaos in her class. Not a drop of science was taught.

Ok great. No need to be snarky to me. The point remains that it’s not just parents being upset that there’s a long term sub, like PP tried to imply. I am on your side here.

I hope you don’t speak like this to the people you need on your side in order to fix the situation. They’re not going to feel very sympathetic to you if you’re being an a-hole.

I am a new poster. I want to add that last year there was a long term sub for one of the grades and she had lesson plans. All was well and she was well liked. This year what the previous person said was true. They didn't learn much and the class was chaotic. My kid was coming home with migraines daily and overly stressed by the behaviors of some really problematic kids. The problem was not the sub but the lack of plans and support and expectations. The buck stops with admin but the current situation does sadden me as we are all human and I feel like mistakes were made and I wish there was a different outcome.

The sub was also clearly not a teacher. There was no behavior management program in place in her room and I think she just threatened to call the principal for every infraction the kids would make. She had zero control or authority over the class. She would call kids up to read outloud social studies passages. That’s not a lesson. But that’s all she was given.