Reply to Two Rivers elementary families -- what is your MS plan

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agree with most of the factors above. Another seemed to be that the emphasis on “community” and “warmth” slipped into a toxic positivity / gaslighting / head in the sand/ conflict averse approach to addressing problems. When teachers raised problems administrators didn’t make hard choices to confront the problems. The strong warm culture started to feel full of buzzwords, doublespeak, smiles and songs about community “we are the boat”, and reading the mission in unison at every gathering - literally - etc. Meanwhile educators were supported less and less and kid’s were not thriving/ learning much and deep parent engagement was rebuffed.[/quote]

Spot on. Former TR patent and the "toxic positivity" was awful-- it basically means you can't have a useful conversation with the administration or anyone on the FSA about anything because if you aren't all rah-rah-TR-is-amazing, people will just avoid you and not respond to emails.[b] I think people are afraid to confront realities because it's easier to be avoidant and pretend everything is great.[/b]

I also just personally can't stand all that stuff like reading the mission statement together. It's cult-like. If you want to stay mission-driven then the focus should be on accountability. Make sure that major decisions or consistent with your core mission and be able to explain to people how that is the case. But just reciting stuff together out loud is not a form of accountability and actually feels like a manipulation tactic to get people not to ask questions or criticize. Again: cult-like.[/quote]

All of this is spot on. I’ll just add that I found the parent community at TRY overall very bizarre and cult-like, particularly around the COVID closures. There were glaring issues that no one seemed concerned with—the former TRY ES principal basically didn’t bother to show up the second half of the year. The year after we left, both 5th grade teachers quit mid-year and there was NO substitute/no full time replacements hired for the remainder of the year. Someone else mentioned the MS issues—additional days off to deal with “behavior issues”. 
Again: cult-like (or ignorant).[/quote]

This is how I'd describe our experience at ITDS, so it baffles me that so many people are proposing it as the alternative. ITDS always struck me as simply a whiter, richer TR. Same behavior mismanagement and low academic standards but somehow a bit more palatable for reasons I didn't understand. They even have a bunch of TR's old staff.  [/quote]

I agree... I think there are a bunch of key differences.

1) Building not as bad as TR4th-- their playground and the atrium's terrible acoustics and inefficient use of space. ITDS' building isn't great, but it's okay, and they do have a city rec center right outside.

2) ITDS didn't try to expand, so their leadership didn't get over-stressed like TR's did.

3) ITDS is operating a much smaller middle school and I think that makes it easier in some ways.

4) Yes there are a lot of TR staff and TR kids-- I knew TR was in a bad way when TR staff started moving their kids out of TR. But my sense is that ITDS only hires TR staff who they feel are seeing the problems with TR and wanting to make a break with that. The last principal they hired from TR who only stayed a year... well... that was a whole different situation :-)

5) ITDS' prior head of school annoyed me but I think she was pretty good in some ways. The new head of school I like a lot, and she came from being a principal at an EOTR DCPS so she has a lot of experience with high-needs kids, and a very good sense of how other schools operate. Unlike the prior HOS whose whole world was ITDS.

6) The academic standards at ITDS could be higher but they aren't always super low either. Some of the teachers expect real work and explicitly teach math, grammar, etc.

7) ITDS is very understanding of behavior if it's special needs-related, but if it's not special needs-related, they definitely will dish out consequences to middle school students. They do have detention (they don't call it that of course), and they will have kids sit out certain fun things if they can't behave. This of course runs counter to their claim of being a restorative justice school, but whatever. Talking big philosophy and then doing more practical stuff in real life is very on brand for ITDS.[/quote]

We hated TR and looked at ITDS (wound up at a DCPS we are happy with ultimately but did list ITDS in the lottery) and this is pretty much our impression. I will say that ITDS had a lot of the same "cult-like" tone that TR has -- I cannot tell if this is just a charter thing or unique to these two schools. After several years at TR this is like nails on a chalkboard to me because I've heard it so many times and it comes off as so fake and meaningless at this point. But we talked to a bunch of ITDS parents including some good friends who live in Edgewood and the school just does not sound as dysfunctional as TR. Plus people seem generally to see the middle school as a meaningful option (even if many parents are also looking at other options -- ITDS middle is very small and has no HS feed so I get this). I think if that's the only school we'd gotten into in the library we probably would have taken it as an acceptable improvement over TR. They have some similarities but just the fact that people seem to like the middle school and they don't have such aggressive attrition after ECE indicated to me that it was a bit more functional.

I will say that my experience at TR soured me on charters generally and I now get why people often dislike them. We have friends who are happy at charters including ITDS and LAMB, but now that I get what it really means for a school to be not really accountable to anyone I am really unimpressed. We've been in a strong DCPS for 2 years now and the quality of teaching and responsiveness of the school to families and the community is just night and day. Curriculum is also really good -- I look back at TR and feel like I don't know can you even call what they do a curriculum? I still have my bones to pick (I don't like our principal) but overall it's just a better set up. Charters are the wild west and TR is a great example of what happens when your cowtown has a bad sheriff (whereas a bad principal within DCPS turns out to not be a big deal if the teaching staff is experienced and good and the PTA and families are involved and give a damn).[/quote]

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