Reply to Petition to Change Sela Leadership

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Reply to "Petition to Change Sela Leadership"

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm a former Sela parent who moved outside of DC, but my child had an excellent time in the early elementary grades.

In my opinion, the biggest issue at Sela is the lack of retention in the older grades. It would be an option for folks in early elementary but then they would seek other paths. My sense is that it was for a mix of reasons: lack of a middle school feeder, pursuing private school, trying to get into a "stronger" charter. I always thought that the lack of retention was a self-perpetuating problem; if we hadn't moved, I also wasn't sure that I would have wanted for my child to stay with such a small cohort.

Because of this, I always thought that judging the school by solely academic performance was tricky. Since DC testing begins in third grade, it was really measuring the academic experience of about 22% of the school since enrollment is skewed so heavily to the younger grades. For what it's worth, my child became an excellent reader, in part thanks to the teaching at Sela. That experience isn't going to be reflected in the data.

Finally, I was very involved with the school community, and there was a small group of parents who complained about everything (and I mean everything!). At times, their concerns were legitimate and sometimes they were not, but the feedback was always presented in the most negative/over-the-top way possible. I would be willing to bet that some of these folks are involved in this petition and take it with a grain of salt. The number of signatures is quite telling.

Sometimes, my husband and I see the issues at our current elementary in a large public school district and have a chuckle about how that group of Sela parents would react. I hope these parents either get more meaningfully involved in the school or find another school that may suit their needs better. But having attended many Sela PTSA meetings, something tells me they will be unhappy everywhere they go.[/quote]

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