Reply to Thoughts on the new Churchill principal?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Says the principal who turned off the stadium lights on children and ordered them to go home. :shock: [/quote]

Powder puff Mom is back.[/quote]

Yes, as someone who sees plenty of real problems with MCPS, can you please stop piling onto Brandice Heckert. She’s so small potatoes and you’re distracting from much bigger issues and weakening those cases by seeming petty and whiny. She’s not going to be the one to solve most of your  issues, principals are more or less neutered in MCPS. You’re wasting your time worrying about unreturned emails and powder puff football. Plus it’s getting old. We get it. You don’t like the new traffic pattern. You want her to pay closer attention to you and your emails, and you’re ticked off about how she disciplines.. I think you’re a different person than the one or ones posting about abusive coaches. Even those people recognize that Heckert isn’t going to take care of business. Half of that is because central ties her hands. Also principals don’t like to make too many waves until they have the lay of the land. Those decisions will have to be directed from higher up. I’m not criticizing you for disliking her and I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying you’re misdirecting your attention. While you’re on here, she’s on twitter celebrating those same coaches and buddying up to central people. If you really want to engage the MCPS people, you have to go to twitter. That’s where they all are, chitchatting with each other and signing off eith  #raise and all that stuff.

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Agreed that Mrs. Heckert is "small potatoes." She has a big say over the fate of 2,000 students.  She was brought in to address known issues. Instead of doing that, she is creating more problems.

Parents point to the traffic problem because it's something they have to deal with every day. But the way that she dealt with that is typical of how she has dealt with other things. She didn't show any sign of being neutered. She didn't see any reason to consult with traffic engineers.  Instead, by principal edict she changed the traffic problem on her own and made it worse and more dangerous.

The issue with powderpuff football isn't (at least not for me) the game, itself, but how she handled it. She didn't set expectations in advance. Instead, after kids had planned for the event, she announced it wasn't going to happen.  Then, maybe realizing how unfair that was, she said the game could go forward.  Then, after it started, she decided the kids couldn't have the game after all. To make it all worse, instead of letting the kids leave the stadium in an order fashion, she turned off the lights. Once again, she didn't think ahead. Students were stumbling around in the dark trying to leave. It wasn't safe for the kids. Once again, not neutered. She made the decision and took a stand several times all on her own.

As one writer said, the traffic issue shows arrogance. The powderpuff football one shows poor communication, poor planning, and arbitrary behavior. Focusing on the broken pipe instead of racism and antisemitism shows poor priorities. Taking credit for what others do is an unattractive trait and is unlikely to endear her to families or staff.

Perhaps these are minor issues.  There are 2,000+ students at that school, and there are lots of minor issues.

There also are big ones, such as racism and antisemitism and drug use. Yes, coach abuse is a huge issue. She hasn't addressed it. Her idea of taking care of drug use is sending parent emails about the dangers of juuling. There was what Mrs. Heckert characterized as a hate crime at Churchill. She called the police, but her immediate focus in parent communications was a broken pipe in the school. I'm told she didn't do anything about the issues with race and antisemitism at the school until the PTA pushed her into bringing in outside experts to help.

If the principal consistently show poor judgment, arrogance, and arbitrariness on small things, I have no confidence in her ability to  deal with big things, and she has shown too arrogant to bring in experts to help unless she is pressured by parents to do so. Churchill kids at least have parents who are mostly present in their lives and can advocate for both big and small issues. It's scary that those 2,000 kids are dependent on the parents doing so because the principal is ineffective.

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