Reply to New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

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Reply to "New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t now anything about these schools, but why people do not support this? Is it because  it will increase the at risk % at their school?[/quote]

Why have one bad school when you can have two and split your children between both of them for an even worse drop off pickup schedule?[/quote]

Yes better to have one good school and one absolutely terrible school, as long as your kid attends the good school.[/quote]

There are ways to make it less terrible

1) Good principal who isn't slapping the kids or sleeping with anyone who works there.
2) More money

I know it sounds crazy.[/quote]

And adjust the boundaries to fix the > 50 percentage point difference in SES between the two? [/quote]

This. Money and a good principal are not going to address the huge disparities in SES between the two schools. Money in particular is a silly suggestion because why would you continue to throw more money at a school that is dysfunctional, failing to retain IB families, and producing such awful test scores. What is the money for??

I also think people really overestimate what a single principal can do. Even at Maury, the shift that started moving the school in a positive direction did not start with the principal. It's just that the principal did not stand in the way. That's it. The principal didn't actually make anything happen -- change has to come from within the community. And not just parents, teachers and all staff too. Miner has shown that even when you have dedicated families who really want the school to succeed and stick with it through tough years, it doesn't change anything if the teaching staff and a significant number of families want things to stay as they are.[/quote]

The idea is having a principal who isn't engaged in any sort of misconduct that gets them fired. So there would be continuity. That's what I'm saying-- they need a principal who won't stand in the way.

Money is not a silly suggestion, it can pay for tutoring or additional staff. A bad leader will spend money badly, a good leader will spend it well. Changing the demographics of Miner will mean LESS money. How will that help?[/quote]

The recent situation with the last principal is more complicated than you might have heard. It was rumored he had an improper relationship with someone on staff, but then later I heard this rumor was spread by teachers and staff who were unhappy with him. Then fact that he was quickly moved to an AP role at a well-regarded DCPS middle school indicates that there was not obvious evidence of misconduct. I don't know the truth, but the assumption that he was just a bad egg might be false -- Miner has some seriously dysfunctional issues in their teaching staff that are longstanding. One reason the school has cycled through principals is that there is a lot of resistance to change among the teaching staff, especially in the upper grades (i.e. the PARCC grades).

I also think DCPS is now at a point where it struggles to place principals at Miner because of the dysfunction in the staff there.

Miner's problems go deeper than who is sitting in the principal chair.[/quote]

I agree that Miner's problems are deep and are not only due to the principals, but that particular person is someone I know from his prior job at McKinley Middle and I find it very, very easy to believe that he is part of the problem.

I'm sure there are some problem teachers, but it's not their fault Andrea Mial slapped a kid.
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/dc-principal-facing-allegation-of-slapping-second-grade-student
[/quote]

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