Reply to Thoughts on the new Churchill principal?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Thoughts on the new Churchill principal?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To the poster who summarized the meeting (thank you) did you or anyone else ask about the things that weren't mentioned?

I kind of get the feeling there's one person who had a bad experience with track and keeps bashing it. [b]I don't believe that all that would go without investigation or unnoticed [/b]if it really was a problem.  Wasn't there a parent who recently posted that track has more students than ever before?  [/quote]

From what I know, violations supposedly were found during the MCPS investigation.  These are some of the reasons my children will not participate on Cross Country or Track as long as the two problematic coaches are rehired for these teams.  Other parents may have more information because I am not the only poster:

1) Financial improprieties - the coaches asked parents to write checks to them personally for team expenses and deposited the checks into their personal accounts.  All school staff are required to use MCPS IAF accounts and have parents write checks to the school so there is a paper trail and accounting for expenses.  Otherwise, fraud can occur where more money is collected than spent.

2) One coach was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes on the team.  He cursed, chastised, and used language that the other coach acknowledged that could not be used in the classroom.  Boys were told in practices and at meets phrases such as - you sucked, that was sh*t, you are not trying hard enough, you don't have discipline, you are a cry baby, you are not worth my time, etc. - no matter if a child had successes or not.  There was no balance of looking at what was being done well and constructive critique of what specifically a child could do to get better.  That type of treatment sucked the joy and pride of representing Churchill for my son.  It ate away at his self esteem and went against the RAISE values MCPS Athletics is supposed to represent.  RAISE stands for - Respect and Sportsmanship - Academic Excellence - Integrity & Character - Spirited & Safe Competition - Equity & Access.

3) The same coach who was verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes was also inappropriate in how he interacted with female athletes.  He made comments on their appearance such as those shorts look nice today or is that a new sports bra.  He called them fast ass b*tches.  In general, girls got a creepy vibe and tried to never be alone with the coach.  However, this coach put a female athlete last year alone in a car at a travel meet and drove off from the group with her.

4) The other coach gave gifts to a male athlete that was not approved by school administration.  One that the team saw was a sweatshirt that matched what the coaches wore.  He also sent private texts without parental permission to contact a male athlete 24/7 that was more than just coaching or teaching instructions.  He used the text access to get male athletes alone in his car on multiple occasions.

5) MCPS interviewed multiple children last year without notifying parents or giving parents the opportunity to be present.  The events above were never publicly explained by MCPS to parents.

Some children were hurt by what the experienced, told MCPS, and MCPS has supposedly taken corrective action.  The Athletic Director dismissed much of what happened and called it a different type of coaching style.  He said that he has full trust in the coaches that he hires so he had no plans to remove them.  However, I personally do not trust these men and my children will no longer be on these teams.  Based on the posts that were not mine, other parents feel the same way.

Finally, there are no statistics that were posted that shows if enrollment is actually up or down or the breakout of any numbers.  It could be just spin that someone who wants to cover his butt and job just posted as fiction on this thread.  It could be a factor that there was a large influx of Freshmen runners so they obviously wouldn't know what has been going on for years on these teams.  It could be a factor that some children were targeted more than others.  It seems that Varsity runners were more in the bullseye for the treatment than Junior Varsity runners.  It could be a factor that not all parents were clued into what happened or the signs of trauma students were experiencing.

For any parent who has noticed a concerning change in a child's behavior, the counseling office has resources on how to get help for your child or you can contact Tree House Assessment Center at http://treehousemd.org.  [/quote]

This does not surprise me - the AD at Churchill is a problem.  I reported a previous thread where a number of people were reporting inappropriate behavior of this coach.  This was in August.  I copied the AD and emailed the principal.  The AD immediately responded defensively and inappropriately without copying the principal.  She was gracious in thanking me for letting her know.  I then forwarded her the AD response and just said FYI and said that it looked like there was a problem.  She was again gracious and thanked me for forwarding his communication.

I'm not a parent of a child there.  I'm fairly active with athletics elsewhere in MCPS.  I've gone through the coach's training, etc.

the AD is a problem and I would guess is hiding things.  If you are a Churchill parent, I would just immediately start cc'ing the principal and Jeff Sullivan (the AD's other boss).  And post here to let others know so that they can then also contact Sullivan.  The AD is Sullivan's and the principal's problem and I'd start putting it on their lap.  That's the only way to help students.

Good luck.  I'm sorry you all have to deal with this.  It's terrible.  [/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