Reply to WCP article on Watkins

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a Watkins parent, the biggest issue with the article is that none of what the "activist" parents have discussed with DCPS involves or even relates to the achievement gap work. These were the issues raised by them, as I understand them: breakdown in school's communications with parents (at one point this year, the parents went almost three months without any communication from the principal), 50% of highly effective and effective teachers departed last June/July (all 4th grade and 5th grade, plus ALL specials teachers - most of them ended up at Stuart-Hobson or other DCPS schools), discipline re: bullying issues that go unaddressed, safety issues (like two students and a chaperone left behind on a field trip and no one at the school realized they were missing), and several academic programs that were once emphasized (like STEM and First in Math) are not currently celebrated. There is even a question as to whether any significant STEM work has taken place this year. None of this relates to the achievement gap. It's about failure to properly manage the school's day-to-day operations and maintain the school's academic programs, which were already in place. The principal has gone out of her way to distract everyone (other parents, DCPS, DC Council) and attack these parents by raising the achievement gap as the main issue, but it's a red herring.[/quote]

Thank you for the one post worth reading in this otherwise useless thread.  This is what concerns me as well.  The attention on the achievement gap somehow has meant no attention to all the things that were working well at Watkins.  Why can't the school both continue those programs and focus on the achievement gap?  Instead, it's like 100% of the focus is going to raise the students who need raising and the high-achieving students are mainly just completing worksheets and then playing with fidget spinners for the rest of period.  I grew up attending a gifted program, and while my parents certainly supplemented outside of school, I can tell you that the school (and my peers) is what pushed me to excel.  No surprise, as I spent 8 hours a day there (more if you count afterschool sports, etc).  If those days consisted of a lot of fidget spinning, and I needed to count on my parents supplementing me for my real education, that would have been a massive waste of time.[/quote]

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