Reply to Call to discuss the state of Hardy 05/15/23

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Reply to "Call to discuss the state of Hardy 05/15/23"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's one thing, the dedicated teachers at Hardy that feel like the principal change is unnecessary appear to have little awareness of how poor the instruction provided by their "second variety" colleagues actually was. It is like they think that because they could run strong 90-minute lessons they assume their colleagues were doing so too. They weren't.

The parents should have never been the ones to fix problematic teaching. It is the principal, not the parents, that the teachers should be concerned about. But when the principal is doing nothing, there is no other choice but to involve others and advocate for the needed change. [/quote]

And, as has been repeatedly stated in this thread, problematic teaching was not even in the top 5 issues that led to the principal's ouster. We've had terrific teachers at Hardy. Their skill, empathy, mastery of their craft, and communication style have little in common with the incoherent raging upthread. My children's (excellent) teachers 
 deserve better leadership, and in signing the petition, I was supporting their right to a safe, well-run workplace.[/quote]

There are so many rational, calm teacher responses on this thread that it's sad parents keep going back to the incoherent raging well.
It's also offensive and patronizing to say that you signed that petition for us. You don't know better than us, and you didn't ask what we wanted.[/quote]

dp: I won't claim to know what you wanted, but I do understand that you somehow find it egregious that parents acted in the interest of what was good for their kids (which was signing a petition; DCPS makes the decisions). I understand how the events may have been abrupt, but I don't understand how they were so violating to you.

Like kids should have just stuck with a bad situation because...what?  I have heard no end to that sentence.  It's not because the admin was working so wonderfully at Hardy, not because you loved PJ and thought he was such a capable and promising leader, not because parents have a history of being needlessly disruptive.

It's some vague notion that parents and DCPS Central reaching the end of their patience is "overstepping" to teachers. There is no logic to it.[/quote]

It's because, and I apologize for being a little frustrated but I have had to share this multiple times on this thread, the end of the year is already a frantic time at a school. There are big events, field trips, graduations going on. There is also a ton of hiring and preparing for next year. This is an incredibly destabilizing event, and one that could have waited 5 more weeks. [/quote]

So to repeat also:

The parents wanted a decision to hire a new principal before the hiring window closes. Waiting til summer would have meant no principal hired for next year.

Either DCPS or PJ -- not the parents -- decided to end the assignment last week. The parents, too, were surprised by the timing.

So all this is about DCPS's or PJ's choice of timing?  Really?

So now we have:
The kids should have stuck out a bad situation because the teachers would have preferred an interim principal for a year, rather than for 5 weeks.[/quote]

I'm worn out trying to explain. It feels like we'll never be heard by you. [/quote]

I hear you, but many concerns were brought up regarding teachers including several about PJs interaction with the LSAT - a group of both parents and teachers. The LSAT related it's concerns to SI Hughes who had to intervene at least once to prevent the downgrading the academic goals. It may be that it was more difficult in this circumstance for teachers to speak up and thus be more actively involved given concerns about possible retaliation by DCPS and one parent did speak up at the meeting to say that a staff member had related as much to her. The unusually high teacher attrition was also noted. 
No one anticipated such an abrupt transition and that he wouldn't stay through the end of the year. [/quote]

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