Reply to Elana Bell moves to Takoma Education Campus

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Elana Bell moves to Takoma Education Campus"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I really hope that things are better at Takoma and you all do not have to go through what we did.  I can only speak to our family experience with Principal Bell.  I hesitate to put this out there in a public forum but I also wish that I had known more about her leadership style when she came to the Cluster.  Other people have had different experiences with her.

I was a HUGE fan of Principal Bell her first year.  She was very engaging and I thought her work to recognize and tackle the racial achievement gap at our schools was really important.  She held several workshops and seemed to be bringing people together.

After her first year, when half the teachers left Watkins, it gave me real pause.  Then a number of programs also went away, including the responsive classroom, as another poster mentioned.  We also lost two APs at the school that I think had been keeping these things going in her first year. 
 
There were months where there was no official communication from the Principal.  She did not respond to emails.  The Science Fair was not held and there was no science curriculum ... we went without an Art teacher and librarian.  She did not believe in field trips so there were years when our children had no field trips outside of the MLK speech, including the traditional 4th grade trip to Philadelphia and other events that were something the kids really looked forward to.   One year there was no student government ... the elections just didn't happen.

I was concerned that many of the programs, events and other activities my children loved were just not happening, with no explanation of why things changed.  There was nothing in their place.   She did not provide an overall strategy for closing the achievement gap and academics were suffering.

But what really did it for us was the lack of support for teachers and anything that would help improve the classroom environment - including trying to get more help and aids.  This past year things deteriorated so much with the parent community that she instituted a policy that parents were not allowed to come and volunteer in the classroom.

One of my child's teachers was having a lot of trouble with managing kids in the classroom - my child was miserable, learning very little and being bullied.  We left in the middle of the year because these issues were not addressed.  She only became interested in helping us when I told the school we were moving our child.  And we were not the only family that made a decision like that.

Many times we talk about these issues in the abstract... but I believe there are real and lasting consequences to what I consider to be her failures as a leader, and we have seen those repercussions with our child and the aftermath of changes at Watkins and Peabody.

Rather than try and build the community and act as a bridge between different groups, I always felt she would use her role to widen the divide.  Since we left Watkins and Peabody, we have been at other local DCPS schools that also have differences in race, income and other measures.

I am not saying there are not challenges in those communities - but the difference, I believe, is that the leaders of those schools (both black and white principals) actively work to build up the community.  It became very clear after a few years that Principal Bell did not have that interest during her time at the Cluster.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics