Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i am a teacher not at Haycock but at another center school. i must say that based on many of the posts here I pity the Haycock aap teachers. Many of you parent posters are way over the top overbearing parents! Please let your children be kids. i went to an Ivy League college and then b school and law school at top ten schools. i am now an elementary school teacher and am saddened by many of you parents on here. Many of you Haycock parents truly are sad excuses for parents. i must say that all you folks whosevkids are headed to Lemon Road, you are lucky to go elsewhere.

So you went to business school AND law school and then finally decided to be a elementary school teacher? Are we supposed to believe this?

If it's true, then all those years of education were largely for naught, not because the person decided to become a teacher (one of the administrators at Marshall went to an Ivy League university and a top law school before becoming a teacher and then a guidance counselor), but because his or her logic is sorely lacking.

Anonymous wrote:i am a teacher not at Haycock but at another center school. i must say that based on many of the posts here I pity the Haycock aap teachers. Many of you parent posters are way over the top overbearing parents! Please let your children be kids. i went to an Ivy League college and then b school and law school at top ten schools. i am now an elementary school teacher and am saddened by many of you parents on here. Many of you Haycock parents truly are sad excuses for parents. i must say that all you folks whosevkids are headed to Lemon Road, you are lucky to go elsewhere.

So you went to business school AND law school and then finally decided to be a elementary school teacher? Are we supposed to believe this?

Anonymous wrote:i am a teacher not at Haycock but at another center school. i must say that based on many of the posts here I pity the Haycock aap teachers. Many of you parent posters are way over the top overbearing parents! Please let your children be kids. i went to an Ivy League college and then b school and law school at top ten schools. i am now an elementary school teacher and am saddened by many of you parents on here. Many of you Haycock parents truly are sad excuses for parents. i must say that all you folks whosevkids are headed to Lemon Road, you are lucky to go elsewhere.

I call BS on this post. The parents who have complained the most are the ones going to Lemon Road, or grandfathered for one more year at Haycock. The rest of us just want to help our school, and don't see how cancelling a fundraiser where our kids would get some exercise because a handful of parents think it should be postponed helps "kids be kids." If some parents don't want to contribute because they're unhappy or miffed, we've said several times that's their right. Beyond that, it's just more of the same bashing by the usual DCUM sock puppets.

P.S. - You should know gratuitous references to Ivy League and Big Ten degrees get you nowhere on DCUM. It doesn't give you any more credibility on the issue, and makes you look like the most "way over the top overbearing" person.

20:19, why are you bashing only AAP parents at Haycock? From where I sit, the neighborhood parents were at least as, and probably more entitled and high-maintenance than AAP parents.

Anonymous wrote:i am a teacher not at Haycock but at another center school. i must say that based on many of the posts here I pity the Haycock aap teachers. Many of you parent posters are way over the top overbearing parents! Please let your children be kids. i went to an Ivy League college and then b school and law school at top ten schools. i am now an elementary school teacher and am saddened by many of you parents on here. Many of you Haycock parents truly are sad excuses for parents. i must say that all you folks whosevkids are headed to Lemon Road, you are lucky to go elsewhere.

+100. It does seems it would be difficult to find a more self-satisfied, entitled group of parents in the county. I agree that Lemon Road should feel like a like a breath of fresh air to the lucky folks who get to leave.

i am a teacher not at Haycock but at another center school. i must say that based on many of the posts here I pity the Haycock aap teachers. Many of you parent posters are way over the top overbearing parents! Please let your children be kids. i went to an Ivy League college and then b school and law school at top ten schools. i am now an elementary school teacher and am saddened by many of you parents on here. Many of you Haycock parents truly are sad excuses for parents. i must say that all you folks whosevkids are headed to Lemon Road, you are lucky to go elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:Agree that it can be more efficient just to get it done. The other points she makes are kind of interesting, though.

So the other part that some people seized on was the principal asking parents to be nice and respectful when submitting evaluation comments, which alternatively got treated as evidence that (1) the parents are all meanies and/or (2) the administration only wants to hear positive feedback.

My take is that there some truth to the first point, at least where some parents are concerned, and that the second point was just frivolous. So Haycock has its fair share of high-maintenance, demanding parents who sometimes treat teachers and administrators like the hired help, rather than professionals trying to educate their kids. Boo hiss. But I don't think this is unique to Haycock, certainly not in the DC area. It may get more attention at Haycock than other schools, because Haycock gets put under a microscope for other reasons, and anyone who wants can read the PTA minutes and summaries of the principal coffees on the school's web site. That's not the case at many schools, and I think one likely result of so much poking at Haycock is that, at some point, the PTA will start to restrict access to these materials to parents of currently enrolled students.

Agree that it can be more efficient just to get it done. The other points she makes are kind of interesting, though.

Anonymous wrote:The Lemon Road thing is only indicative of the school community as a whole. It's not a nice, friendly community. Otherwise, why would Dr. Shears have to tell people to be respectful in their survey comments? If the school is so cohesive, why do they have such a hard time getting people to volunteer for things (yet when non-popular folks volunteer, they are told they are not needed)? Why was it so hard to get a PTA president for next year?

I'm not at Haycock, but in my experience volunteering at schools some events are just planned better than others. When an event is planned well, everyone who has volunteered or shows up is put to good use. When the planning isn't great, the schedule collapses and the people who already know each other take over, sometimes leaving others with little to do. It's more productive to think about how an event could be planned better the next time than to complain about your treatment at the hands of some imaginary "in crowd." Sometimes it's just busy people wanting to get the job done and go home.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Lemon Road thing is only indicative of the school community as a whole. It's not a nice, friendly community. Otherwise, why would Dr. Shears have to tell people to be respectful in their survey comments? If the school is so cohesive, why do they have such a hard time getting people to volunteer for things (yet when non-popular folks volunteer, they are told they are not needed)? Why was it so hard to get a PTA president for next year?

I am a Haycock base parent and I would love to volunteer more but am a full time working parent and it is challenge to schedule it in. But on my days off, I do volunteer as much as I can. In fact, all the Haycock parents or neighborhood base parents that I know have volunteered for some event. DC's friend from another school in the area came as a guest to a Haycock event and parent said her DC's school has the same event but does not go all out like Haycock does. I don't think I am a "popular" parent but I have never been turned away when I've offered my time.

This has been my experience as well. l'm not sure whether 19:54 is even a Haycock parent, but I think she has some problems she needs to work out on her own.

Anonymous wrote:The Lemon Road thing is only indicative of the school community as a whole. It's not a nice, friendly community. Otherwise, why would Dr. Shears have to tell people to be respectful in their survey comments? If the school is so cohesive, why do they have such a hard time getting people to volunteer for things (yet when non-popular folks volunteer, they are told they are not needed)? Why was it so hard to get a PTA president for next year?

I am a Haycock base parent and I would love to volunteer more but am a full time working parent and it is challenge to schedule it in. But on my days off, I do volunteer as much as I can. In fact, all the Haycock parents or neighborhood base parents that I know have volunteered for some event. DC's friend from another school in the area came as a guest to a Haycock event and parent said her DC's school has the same event but does not go all out like Haycock does. I don't think I am a "popular" parent but I have never been turned away when I've offered my time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Lemon Road thing is only indicative of the school community as a whole. It's not a nice, friendly community. Otherwise, why would Dr. Shears have to tell people to be respectful in their survey comments? If the school is so cohesive, why do they have such a hard time getting people to volunteer for things (yet when non-popular folks volunteer, they are told they are not needed)? Why was it so hard to get a PTA president for next year?

Really, if that's your perspective, you should be delighted to leave. We'll be delighted to stay. We think it's a warm and welcoming school that provides an excellent education for our children. If you've ever been in other school systems, you'd know the parental involvement and volunteerism at Haycock is very high.

I suspect you'll feel like an "outsider" no matter where you go, but good luck next year.

I hate to disappoint you but I"m not going anywhere for quite a while. You're stuck with me. I'm not a future Lemon Road parent.

Anonymous wrote:The Lemon Road thing is only indicative of the school community as a whole. It's not a nice, friendly community. Otherwise, why would Dr. Shears have to tell people to be respectful in their survey comments? If the school is so cohesive, why do they have such a hard time getting people to volunteer for things (yet when non-popular folks volunteer, they are told they are not needed)? Why was it so hard to get a PTA president for next year?

Really, if that's your perspective, you should be delighted to leave. We'll be delighted to stay. We think it's a warm and welcoming school that provides an excellent education for our children. If you've ever been in other school systems, you'd know the parental involvement and volunteerism at Haycock is very high.

I suspect you'll feel like an "outsider" no matter where you go, but good luck next year.

The Lemon Road thing is only indicative of the school community as a whole. It's not a nice, friendly community. Otherwise, why would Dr. Shears have to tell people to be respectful in their survey comments? If the school is so cohesive, why do they have such a hard time getting people to volunteer for things (yet when non-popular folks volunteer, they are told they are not needed)? Why was it so hard to get a PTA president for next year?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.mathleague.com/downloads/gs1213/va-678-1213.pdf

Speaks for itself.

So, a couple 6th graders are good at math. That statistic speaks nothing to the quality of education, cohesiveness of community, kindness of parents, or reliability of administration.

It certainly speaks to the quality of the education, and Dr. Shears and her colleagues are absolutely first-rate.

The community is fractured right now because of the Lemon Road redistricting, but the healing will begin when the Cluster 2 families begin to focus their energies on their new schools instead of their unhappiness with a decision that did not go their way. Suggesting that other parents are unkind because they favored one option to relieve the overcrowding at Haycock over another is neither constructive nor mature.