DCI Parent Petition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Please read the letter more carefully. People are upset about a culture of fear and retaliation where people are at risk of losing their jobs if they speak up about unjust practices. There is one small part about clocking in and clocking out, but the larger narrative is about an organization run by power and authority. The DP Coordinator, who is beloved by students, parents, and staff, did not get his contract renewed. Students started a petition to have it reinstated, and it has over 700 signatures. He was let go because he sometimes questioned harmful practices. Ask any individual at the school or any parent or student who worked with him. He is one of the most competent people there. That is the culture of the current leadership. Don't ask questions or you're gone. No matter how effective you are at your job. Teaching is hard enough, people. 94% of voting staff do not have confidence in his leadership! Clearly this is about more than clocking in and clocking out.

If I’m gonna ask for anyone to lose their job, I want a list- a bullet point list- of harmful practices,

No one is being specific, at all.

NINETY-FOUR PERCENT OF THE STAFF VOTED NO CONFIDENCE.

That's lower than the President.

Sure. I’d like an enumerated list of grievances. This is the “verify” part of “trust but verify”

I read the letter from the staff so you don't have to. Or apparently want to. Here's what stood out to me:
- The beloved DP Coordinator's contract was not renewed and 744 students signed a petition to reinstate him
- The MYP Coordinator resigned in February with no succession plan and no communication to families and this directly threatens DCI's IB re-evaluation in 27-28
- 37 special education, EL, counseling, and support staff have left since 2023. Nearly 500 students with IEPs and 504s are affected, and the school may be out of legal compliance
- A senior leader made a racist joke about ICE to his team during a period when staff, students, and families were directly impacted and faced no meaningful accountability
- The ED and another leader received $30K bonuses each while aides took home less pay than last year due to how 'raises' were structured
- Over 125 staff departures since SY23-24

The staff letter also documents a pattern of silencing: staff told to 'stop amplifying complainers,' called 'cynical,' and warned that raising concerns is 'dragging down morale.'

And now the school community has heard that the Director Rosskamm & other leadership gave contracts to his wife & other friends/family, and it's unclear or hasn't been announced what those contracts were for and on what basis friends and family were paid to do work for DCI. And also that Leadership hired an anti-union law firm to try to disrupt the efforts of teachers to unionize, and this was paid for with DCI money. Which apparently is definitely a misuse of funds, but that will have to also be looked into.

If true, the IRS will have something to say about that. Self-dealing as an officer of a 501(c)(3) can get expensive.

Anecdotally, the ED’s spouse runs a consulting firm, and a quick search suggests a DCI senior staff member participated in one of its programs. There is no information on any financial transaction or conflict of interest.

Seriously? You don’t see anything problematic about all of this. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read the letter more carefully. People are upset about a culture of fear and retaliation where people are at risk of losing their jobs if they speak up about unjust practices. There is one small part about clocking in and clocking out, but the larger narrative is about an organization run by power and authority. The DP Coordinator, who is beloved by students, parents, and staff, did not get his contract renewed. Students started a petition to have it reinstated, and it has over 700 signatures. He was let go because he sometimes questioned harmful practices. Ask any individual at the school or any parent or student who worked with him. He is one of the most competent people there. That is the culture of the current leadership. Don't ask questions or you're gone. No matter how effective you are at your job. Teaching is hard enough, people. 94% of voting staff do not have confidence in his leadership! Clearly this is about more than clocking in and clocking out.

If I’m gonna ask for anyone to lose their job, I want a list- a bullet point list- of harmful practices,

No one is being specific, at all.

NINETY-FOUR PERCENT OF THE STAFF VOTED NO CONFIDENCE.

That's lower than the President.

Sure. I’d like an enumerated list of grievances. This is the “verify” part of “trust but verify”

I read the letter from the staff so you don't have to. Or apparently want to. Here's what stood out to me:
- The beloved DP Coordinator's contract was not renewed and 744 students signed a petition to reinstate him
- The MYP Coordinator resigned in February with no succession plan and no communication to families and this directly threatens DCI's IB re-evaluation in 27-28
- 37 special education, EL, counseling, and support staff have left since 2023. Nearly 500 students with IEPs and 504s are affected, and the school may be out of legal compliance
- A senior leader made a racist joke about ICE to his team during a period when staff, students, and families were directly impacted and faced no meaningful accountability
- The ED and another leader received $30K bonuses each while aides took home less pay than last year due to how 'raises' were structured
- Over 125 staff departures since SY23-24

The staff letter also documents a pattern of silencing: staff told to 'stop amplifying complainers,' called 'cynical,' and warned that raising concerns is 'dragging down morale.'

And now the school community has heard that the Director Rosskamm & other leadership gave contracts to his wife & other friends/family, and it's unclear or hasn't been announced what those contracts were for and on what basis friends and family were paid to do work for DCI. And also that Leadership hired an anti-union law firm to try to disrupt the efforts of teachers to unionize, and this was paid for with DCI money. Which apparently is definitely a misuse of funds, but that will have to also be looked into.

If true, the IRS will have something to say about that. Self-dealing as an officer of a 501(c)(3) can get expensive.

Anecdotally, the ED’s spouse runs a consulting firm, and a quick search suggests a DCI senior staff member participated in one of its programs. There is no information on any financial transaction or conflict of interest.

That's not what the IRS and a RESPONSIBLE BOARD (if DCI has one) will need to look into. It's the allegation that DCI contracted with ED's spouse, paid them for some sort of services or work with (obviously) DCI funds. What was that contract for? What was the process of awarding it? What was accomplished? That all needs to be looked into. Not whether a DCI person went to the program of the spouse's consulting firm, unless that too was paid for by DCI money and was clearly not an appropriate use of it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many DCI parents have written to the Board expressing their concerns about the damage Rosskamm is doing.

Here's the letter my husband and I sent:

Dear Members of the Board of Trustees,

We are writing as DCI parents. And as LAMB parents who lived through the events of 2017.

We want to be very direct: We are frustrated and angry to find ourselves in this position again.

Nine years ago, our sons were students at LAMB. Today, our daughter is there and our sons are now at DCI. We are heartbroken that another school community we love is in crisis, that another Board is being asked to choose between an executive and the institution it governs, and that the parents and staff who are sounding the alarm loudly, clearly, and at significant personal risk are once again being met with deflection instead of action.

What we know from living through the LAMB crisis is that the parents who show up in moments like this are not troublemakers. They are the school's most committed advocates, and their urgency is a measure of how much they believe DCI is worth saving. We share that belief completely and we are here, again, because of it.

When Mr. Fernandez was arrested we initially defended the LAMB administration. We believed in the school. We trusted its leaders. We gave them the benefit of the doubt because we could not imagine that the institution we had entrusted with our children had failed so profoundly. That instinct, to protect the school by protecting its leadership, felt like loyalty. It was not. It was blindness.

What changed for us was the evidence other parents and staff shared. The repeated red flags that had been ignored. The staff who had raised concerns and been disregarded. The children who had been harmed while the administration operated from a posture of self-protection rather than accountability. When we finally saw clearly, we joined all the other LAMB parents in demanding that the Board act, independently, decisively, and in the interest of children over institution.

The LAMB Board ultimately did act. They acknowledged that their administrators had failed and they removed the Executive Director. They chose the school over the administrators who had led it astray. LAMB survived and now it thrives.

We are now watching the DCI Board face the same choice LAMB's Board faced and we are watching it make the wrong one.

On the surface the situations are not identical. Mr. Rosskamm has not been accused of criminal conduct. But the pattern is familiar and it is damning: staff raise concerns, leadership dismisses them, the concerns compound, the culture deteriorates, and the Board, the body whose sole obligation is to the mission and to the community, protects the executive instead of the school.

Ninety-four percent of DCI's non-supervisory staff have voted no confidence in Mr. Rosskamm. Over 125 staff have departed since SY23-24. The IB Diploma Coordinator's contract was not renewed. The MYP Coordinator resigned abruptly. These are not personnel inconveniences. These are structural warnings.

And yet the Board's response or lack thereof, especially at the March 19th public meeting and in the communications that have followed, has been to suppress dialogue, deflect accountability, and allow Mr. Rosskamm to manage his own consequence through town halls and listening sessions that result in no change and that his own staff have already declared they do not trust.

We want to be direct about Board Chair Pardo specifically. Her conduct of the March 19th meeting, the deliberate foreclosure of public comment, the alignment with Mr. Rosskamm's framing, the failure to treat the staff's extraordinary vote of no confidence as the serious governance crisis it is, was not neutral. It was a choice. Chair Pardo has not demonstrated the independence this moment demands, and her continued leadership of this board in this crisis is itself a barrier to resolution. We are calling for her to step down as Chair.

We say this not with hostility but with clarity born of experience. At LAMB, the Board's willingness to act over the objections of an administration that had failed is what saved the school. What would have destroyed LAMB was a Board that prioritized protecting leadership over protecting the community it existed to serve.

DCI is a remarkable school. Its IB for All model, its language immersion programs, its diverse and committed community are worth fighting for. We are fighting for them now, as we fought for LAMB then.

The staff have done their part. They documented their concerns. They exhausted every formal channel. They took the extraordinary step of a vote of no confidence at significant personal risk. Nineteen staff members abstained from that vote not because they lacked an opinion, but because they feared retaliation. That is the culture this Board has allowed to take root.

Our daughter is sitting in a LAMB classroom right now. We chose LAMB for her because of what this family of schools represents and because we believed that what we went through in 2017 had made the school stronger and more accountable. We need this board to prove that belief was not misplaced.

You have a decision to make. You can choose, as LAMB's Board ultimately chose, to place the mission above the executive. You can remove Mr. Rosskamm, reconstitute Board leadership, and give this school the chance to rebuild trust and retain the extraordinary educators who have not yet left. Or you can continue on the current path and watch DCI become a cautionary tale told by the next generation of DC education advocates.


We have seen what happens when a Board finds its courage too late. We have also seen what happens when it finds it in time.

A bit too AI sloppy, but I was also there at LAMB back then + DCI now and this also has been a bit triggering.

Still, I'd love to have one of those town halls where the board and admin stand in front of an angry mob of parents and staff and try to explain why they're not doing anything about a major problem.

While I agree with others above that there still aren't enough tangible details as to what this ED has been doing to make the climate so bad, it does seem clear that we're in trouble because we need the top teachers and staff to STAY on board! That is the key ingredient to a good school, which we found out at LAMB. The staff/teachers also turned LAMB upside down when the pandemic ED was there and she wasn't well liked and they began leaving and being pushed out. Thankfully quite a few have returned. Veteran quality teachers MATTER to parents and kids way more than some ED.

AI sloppy or not, I find the letter to be remarkable. It's a very clear-eyed statement from a parent who values the institution and wants it to be better. Of all the letters and petitions so far, this one is most compelling to me -- not angry or antagonistic but a really sincere statement and request for action from an invested parent.

I thought the letter was poorly written and not an accurate representation of what happened at LAMB. I cannot believe they had the nerve to compare staff dissatisfaction dozens of child sex abuse victims and a culture that allowed that.

I read it as comparing the board response not as comparing the incidents. A central question seems to be how does a board respond during a crisis? That's what's being judged. LAMB was obviously a crisis, a horrific tragedy as well crimes against children. DCI is also in crisis though not because of such horrific reasons. I imagine that (some) families and staff are feeling the sense that the DCI board is not treating this as a crisis. Do you think this is a crisis for DCI and that the board response has been adequate?

That's right, so far the DCI Board is NOT treating this as a crisis. To have a staff member announce that with 80% of staff voting, 94% voted "no confidence" and that the ED Rosskamm should leave, and then have the Board Chair allow 10 mins of public comments "because the agenda is full and we need to get through it" sums up perfectly how broken DCI leadership is, and how UNalarmed or UNconcerned the Board Chair was. And no one, not one person on the Board, asked questions or suggested giving anyone in the audience more time, until the audience revolted and demanded more time. Finally a couple of Board members said maybe we should give an additional 10 more minutes.

This is absolutely a crisis for DCI, and no, the Board response has not only not been adequate, the Board Chair has obviously and clearly tried to suppress real information and real concerns from being stated, heard, and addressed. The Board response has been to suppress and not respond, and even these proposed listening circles (which have been done multiple times in this ED's tenure with no meaningful follow up or improvements) are a way to deflect responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Wake up babe, the Board sent an email and you’re not going to like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please read the letter more carefully. People are upset about a culture of fear and retaliation where people are at risk of losing their jobs if they speak up about unjust practices. There is one small part about clocking in and clocking out, but the larger narrative is about an organization run by power and authority. The DP Coordinator, who is beloved by students, parents, and staff, did not get his contract renewed. Students started a petition to have it reinstated, and it has over 700 signatures. He was let go because he sometimes questioned harmful practices. Ask any individual at the school or any parent or student who worked with him. He is one of the most competent people there. That is the culture of the current leadership. Don't ask questions or you're gone. No matter how effective you are at your job. Teaching is hard enough, people. 94% of voting staff do not have confidence in his leadership! Clearly this is about more than clocking in and clocking out.

If I’m gonna ask for anyone to lose their job, I want a list- a bullet point list- of harmful practices,

No one is being specific, at all.

NINETY-FOUR PERCENT OF THE STAFF VOTED NO CONFIDENCE.

That's lower than the President.

Sure. I’d like an enumerated list of grievances. This is the “verify” part of “trust but verify”

I read the letter from the staff so you don't have to. Or apparently want to. Here's what stood out to me:
- The beloved DP Coordinator's contract was not renewed and 744 students signed a petition to reinstate him
- The MYP Coordinator resigned in February with no succession plan and no communication to families and this directly threatens DCI's IB re-evaluation in 27-28
- 37 special education, EL, counseling, and support staff have left since 2023. Nearly 500 students with IEPs and 504s are affected, and the school may be out of legal compliance
- A senior leader made a racist joke about ICE to his team during a period when staff, students, and families were directly impacted and faced no meaningful accountability
- The ED and another leader received $30K bonuses each while aides took home less pay than last year due to how 'raises' were structured
- Over 125 staff departures since SY23-24

The staff letter also documents a pattern of silencing: staff told to 'stop amplifying complainers,' called 'cynical,' and warned that raising concerns is 'dragging down morale.'

And now the school community has heard that the Director Rosskamm & other leadership gave contracts to his wife & other friends/family, and it's unclear or hasn't been announced what those contracts were for and on what basis friends and family were paid to do work for DCI. And also that Leadership hired an anti-union law firm to try to disrupt the efforts of teachers to unionize, and this was paid for with DCI money. Which apparently is definitely a misuse of funds, but that will have to also be looked into.

If true, the IRS will have something to say about that. Self-dealing as an officer of a 501(c)(3) can get expensive.

Anecdotally, the ED’s spouse runs a consulting firm, and a quick search suggests a DCI senior staff member participated in one of its programs. There is no information on any financial transaction or conflict of interest.

That's not what the IRS and a RESPONSIBLE BOARD (if DCI has one) will need to look into. It's the allegation that DCI contracted with ED's spouse, paid them for some sort of services or work with (obviously) DCI funds. What was that contract for? What was the process of awarding it? What was accomplished? That all needs to be looked into. Not whether a DCI person went to the program of the spouse's consulting firm, unless that too was paid for by DCI money and was clearly not an appropriate use of it?

I thought Trump was the greatest grifter I'd seen but Rosskamm is truly giving him a run for the money with all of this.

[Anonymous]

So Rosskamm and Pardo's MO is to come into schools, decimate them, and make as much money as possible in the process?

https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/185902/behind-the-consulting-firm-raking-in-millions-from-dc-charter-schools/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, the Board sent an email and you’re not going to like it.

So the Board & Director are going to spend more DCI money to hire another law firm to "investigate" but they're running the whole thing and then THEY will share the findings? That's like a certain government agency committing crimes in public that everyone catches on phone videos, but then taking all the evidence, driving away, and promising to "investigate" it themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, the Board sent an email and you’re not going to like it.

So the Board & Director are going to spend more DCI money to hire another law firm to "investigate" but they're running the whole thing and then THEY will share the findings? That's like a certain government agency committing crimes in public that everyone catches on phone videos, but then taking all the evidence, driving away, and promising to "investigate" it themselves.

I can hear shredders at DCI shredding contracts right now. Or whatever the digital equivalent of trying to purge files before anyone other than their own hired lawyers gets their hands on anything

[Anonymous]

There appear to be a couple of DCI parents on the Board. How can they not be seriously concerned about an escalating crisis that is likely affecting their own children, or are they concerned but have their hands tied?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There appear to be a couple of DCI parents on the Board. How can they not be seriously concerned about an escalating crisis that is likely affecting their own children, or are they concerned but have their hands tied?

I bet they volunteered in good faith and had no idea what they were signing up for under these monsters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wake up babe, the Board sent an email and you’re not going to like it.

So the Board & Director are going to spend more DCI money to hire another law firm to "investigate" but they're running the whole thing and then THEY will share the findings? That's like a certain government agency committing crimes in public that everyone catches on phone videos, but then taking all the evidence, driving away, and promising to "investigate" it themselves.

It's damning that they didn't list the "3rd party law firm" or how they were able to make such an important selection so quickly....

[Anonymous]

Rosskamm and Pardo are cooked chat. If they hired an inside firm there will be consequences. If. they hired a legit firm there will be consequences.

[Anonymous]

It’s interesting that some of these same issues existed when Mary was ED. For example, forcing people out who are perceived to be outspoken or making their working conditions terrible through retaliation so they leave on their own. Since there’s a new ED and these problems still exist, even with a union, who is truly behind this hostile work culture? Is it the board?

I also wonder how those retention numbers are calculated. Maybe they don’t include people who positions were randomly cut or people who were let go/fired. Retention has always been an issue since DCI moved to the new building and grew too fast and those numbers always appeared inflated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rosskamm and Pardo are cooked chat. If they hired an inside firm there will be consequences. If. they hired a legit firm there will be consequences.

Who has the money and the attorneys to find out the deal with the firm they hired and to make sure there is enough daylight shining on their "investigation" that the truth comes out no matter what? I think that's the big question now, but I hope you're right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that some of these same issues existed when Mary was ED. For example, forcing people out who are perceived to be outspoken or making their working conditions terrible through retaliation so they leave on their own. Since there’s a new ED and these problems still exist, even with a union, who is truly behind this hostile work culture? Is it the board?

I also wonder how those retention numbers are calculated. Maybe they don’t include people who positions were randomly cut or people who were let go/fired. Retention has always been an issue since DCI moved to the new building and grew too fast and those numbers always appeared inflated.

My kids have been in "Mary-led institutions" or "Mary-founded institutions" for 16 years now. It is absolutely not true that "the same issues existed when Mary was ED." That is exactly why this is such a big deal: DCI has fallen so much and the big exodus of some of the best staff is since she left, not also while she was there.

Not saying there were no problems at DCI under her as Director - of course there were. There are always problems. But there was nothing like the decisions and negative impacts being made now. And also from what I've heard, Mary never took a bonus like Rosskamm took, and I've never heard of Mary hiring her own family or friends as contractors or her hiring an anti-labor law firm with DCI money. Or failing to continue the contract of an excellent, essential and beloved IB lead staff.