Accountability and Charter Schools

[Anonymous]

It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

I know many parents that have recently bailed from Haynes and CMI for other local DCPS schools in the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you're happy OP. But I find your timing questionable.
It seems kind of mean to post this on the first day of school, long after families had to make the best decision they could about where to send their kids to school this fall. At this point, it's too late for most of them to do anything about it. Why make them feel bad about their choice right now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm glad you're happy OP. But I find your timing questionable.
It seems kind of mean to post this on the first day of school, long after families had to make the best decision they could about where to send their kids to school this fall. At this point, it's too late for most of them to do anything about it. Why make them feel bad about their choice right now?

Because waitlists move pretty fast this time of year and a lot of offers go out until the first week of October. It's not too late at all.

[Anonymous]

Sorry about the timing. I'd been meaning to post earlier but it slipped my mind. I was only reminded of it because it's the first day of school and -- I did think about parents with kids on the waiting list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

Not sure why you are throwing the entire Charter Sector in on this. It's not really about accountability--as if DCPS central office had enough accountability to keep things going last year in most schools. Seems to me it's more about EL Haynes in particular..

The DC Charter Board actually has very stringent oversite and accountability metrics. I've been impressed. You can look up each and every charter schools and the details of their oversight, reopening plans etc, yearly evaluations, etc. here:

https://dcpcsb.org/school-profiles

[Anonymous]

OP, Curious if this means you are happier at Barnard than ELH? What's your IB DCPS?

Regardless of what school you're at, if you're no longer there, how would you know what protocols or input a school did or didn't implement? You're no longer a parent there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

Not sure why you are throwing the entire Charter Sector in on this. It's not really about accountability--as if DCPS central office had enough accountability to keep things going last year in most schools. Seems to me it's more about EL Haynes in particular..

The DC Charter Board actually has very stringent oversite and accountability metrics. I've been impressed. You can look up each and every charter schools and the details of their oversight, reopening plans etc, yearly evaluations, etc. here:

https://dcpcsb.org/school-profiles

I’m not a fan of Central Office by any means (I’m a DCPS parent in Ward 4), and DCPS did a mediocre job opening schools last year, but many charters barely opened or didn’t open at all. Parents had zero recourse to pressure their schools to provide more opportunities for IPL. To be quite honest, most charters don’t serve their student populations any better or worse than DCPS schools, except of course for the ones deemed acceptable by UMC parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

Not sure why you are throwing the entire Charter Sector in on this. It's not really about accountability--as if DCPS central office had enough accountability to keep things going last year in most schools. Seems to me it's more about EL Haynes in particular..

The DC Charter Board actually has very stringent oversite and accountability metrics. I've been impressed. You can look up each and every charter schools and the details of their oversight, reopening plans etc, yearly evaluations, etc. here:

https://dcpcsb.org/school-profiles

I’m not a fan of Central Office by any means (I’m a DCPS parent in Ward 4), and DCPS did a mediocre job opening schools last year, but many charters barely opened or didn’t open at all. Parents had zero recourse to pressure their schools to provide more opportunities for IPL. To be quite honest, most charters don’t serve their student populations any better or worse than DCPS schools, except of course for the ones deemed acceptable by UMC parents.

???? You are arguing that the charters deemed acceptable by UMC parents DO serve their student populations better than DCPS schools? Perhaps that's why the are "deemed" acceptable. Also, I'd like to learn more about charters that barely opened to IPL when parents really wanted them to. Seems to me what Charters have is the flexibility to respond to their particular student and parent communities where DCPS has to manage everything from central office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

OP - how are you defining accountability? What makes your current school more accountable than the charter your child attended?

My charter opened in person, started asymptomatic testing weekly early last year and is being responsive IMO.

[Anonymous]

As a UMC charter parent, I'm starting to feel like our charter does NOT listen to UMC parents AT ALL but instead focuses on the majority of the student population...which is NOT UMC. I don't approve of the mitigation strategies our charter rolled out but I'm apparently in a minority, and viewed as the privileged white parent who finds fault with everything and anything.

Majority of parents seem just fine that kids are back and in-person. Parents aren't raising any concerns over the fact that lunch is inside or that desks are touching with no distancing whatsoever.

I'm currently trying to figure out how we can quickly move. We can't afford private. We can't afford to live WOTP. I'd homeschool - and my child would be fine with that - but DC NEEDs time with peers and socialization. Am I the only parent sick to their stomach right now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a UMC charter parent, I'm starting to feel like our charter does NOT listen to UMC parents AT ALL but instead focuses on the majority of the student population...which is NOT UMC. I don't approve of the mitigation strategies our charter rolled out but I'm apparently in a minority, and viewed as the privileged white parent who finds fault with everything and anything.

Majority of parents seem just fine that kids are back and in-person. Parents aren't raising any concerns over the fact that lunch is inside or that desks are touching with no distancing whatsoever.

I'm currently trying to figure out how we can quickly move. We can't afford private. We can't afford to live WOTP. I'd homeschool - and my child would be fine with that - but DC NEEDs time with peers and socialization. Am I the only parent sick to their stomach right now?

Look, even with mitigation, Delta is a different beast and kids will be exposed if they’re in in-person school. I’m not a huge charter fan, but I don’t think it’s charter vs. DCPS vs. private at this point. Mitigation will hopefully slow the spread, but it’s not going to stop it entirely. It just is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a UMC charter parent, I'm starting to feel like our charter does NOT listen to UMC parents AT ALL but instead focuses on the majority of the student population...which is NOT UMC. I don't approve of the mitigation strategies our charter rolled out but I'm apparently in a minority, and viewed as the privileged white parent who finds fault with everything and anything.

Majority of parents seem just fine that kids are back and in-person. Parents aren't raising any concerns over the fact that lunch is inside or that desks are touching with no distancing whatsoever.

I'm currently trying to figure out how we can quickly move. We can't afford private. We can't afford to live WOTP. I'd homeschool - and my child would be fine with that - but DC NEEDs time with peers and socialization. Am I the only parent sick to their stomach right now?

Look, even with mitigation, Delta is a different beast and kids will be exposed if they’re in in-person school. I’m not a huge charter fan, but I don’t think it’s charter vs. DCPS vs. private at this point. Mitigation will hopefully slow the spread, but it’s not going to stop it entirely. It just is what it is.

You're right. It doesn't matter. So I'll rephrase. Our school - that happens to be a charter - doesn't seem to be taking as many mitigation strategies as they could or even following examples of other charters. They continue to cite "what worked last spring" but that was at 1/2 capacity and Delta is a new beast. I understand nothing is risk free. But when desks are literally touching each other and kids' masks are below their noses...and I'm apparently the only parent expressing "concern"...I can't help but feel like I'm screaming into a tiny jar. I previously liked our school and thought the whole WOTP/EOTP was something that mainly existed here. But the loud parents EOTP seem to be having better luck getting their ESs to listen and take mitigation strategies more seriously. Our local IB DCPS school doesn't have their new ventilation sorted out and working properly (as of a few days ago). WTOP parents would have burned the school down before letting it get down to the wire. And our charter is listening to our faces, nodding along in agreement while they move desks next to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

This is the story of every public school in DC during the pandemic. They all failed miserably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the start of the school year and I'm overjoyed at sending my kids to their neighborhood school after a terrible pandemic year and a half. If you are considering putting your kids into EL Haynes Elementary I would tell you not to do it. The school really dropped the ball during the pandemic and has an ineffectual parent association that is essentially a public relations tool for the school. Parents have zero input and were left powerless during the pandemic. Parent teacher conferences disappeared. Teachers bailed. It was a disaster. During the early days of the pandemic, during school hours, I found my kid's teacher at the grocery store buying wine.

If you are looking for a school with a strong sense of community, I would not send my child to Haynes.

I wish more schools were judged not just on teacher abilities (very important) but also how involved are the parents, and how well the school encourages and promotes accountability. So many charter schools have zero accountability.

This is the story of every public school in DC during the pandemic. They all failed miserably.

If you look back through the depressing pandemic threads last year, you will see plenty of us who learned the hard way that charters can do whatever the f they want including not reopen. So yes OP this is an issue through the whole sector. At least DCPS had a central authority to lay down the law which didn’t exactly work, but, somehow it’s doubly painful to realize no one has the parents back at charters. They can all afford to lose you and lottery in someone else. They easily prioritize teacher feelings over parents because of this. Or their own feelings (paranoid admins). DCPS failed too but charters were overall much worse IMO.

Again, see how many kids left charters for dcps this year instead of the usual vice versa.