Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL

Anonymous wrote:

ConcernedCharterParents wrote:
As parents, we chose Sela because of its mission to tackle educational inequity, racial segregation, and cultural isolation. Unfortunately, we believe the current leadership does not uphold this mission, nor do their actions reflect the values we want for our school. Many of us are deeply concerned about the school’s direction and culture, and some are even considering leaving Sela after this school year.

Key Concerns
Here are some of the main issues we’ve identified:

Leadership Culture: There is a troubling pattern of staff and parent concerns being dismissed or ignored. Women, particularly women of color, have often been silenced or disrespected. This culture of disregard is unacceptable in an institution that promises inclusivity and equity.

Declining Performance: Academic growth has stagnated, and the school’s OSSE report card reflects poor accountability scores. Enrollment numbers are declining, and the promised playground remains unbuilt.

So what's interesting about this is that this petition is happening now. Sela has been a sinking ship for years, IMO, but the recently released data (2023-2024) shows an approximately 10% increase in math proficiency for Black and white student subgroups. In ELA, on the other hand, Black students showed a 10% increase in proficiency over last year's scores (which were 17% higher than the previous year...so 27% higher than two years ago) while white student scores dropped by 5%. SELA has had an abysmal performance gap between student subgroups for years, which was a primary reason why I didn't consider sending my kid there a couple years ago, so it's really interesting that "concerned parents" are NOW concerned about SELA's educational inequity and the stagnation of academic growth when things are finally getting a little better in some ways for the kids who are most negatively affected by the performance gap. (I do want to note that there is still a 20-55% proficiency gap between Black and white student subgroups, so I'm not saying things are GOOD, just that they're getting a bit better.)

ConcernedCharterParents wrote:
As parents, we chose Sela because of its mission to tackle educational inequity, racial segregation, and cultural isolation. Unfortunately, we believe the current leadership does not uphold this mission, nor do their actions reflect the values we want for our school. Many of us are deeply concerned about the school’s direction and culture, and some are even considering leaving Sela after this school year.

Key Concerns
Here are some of the main issues we’ve identified:

Leadership Culture: There is a troubling pattern of staff and parent concerns being dismissed or ignored. Women, particularly women of color, have often been silenced or disrespected. This culture of disregard is unacceptable in an institution that promises inclusivity and equity.

Declining Performance: Academic growth has stagnated, and the school’s OSSE report card reflects poor accountability scores. Enrollment numbers are declining, and the promised playground remains unbuilt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn't seem like a serious or thoughtful effort. If the school is in big financial trouble, say that. If you're talking about data points that are available for other schools, tell me how it compares to similar schools, because I suspect some of these are just difficult, widespread problems, but some may not be. If there are things you think the school can do better to retain teachers or improve performance or fix the playground, say that and tell us what the leadership has said in response to you, don't just tell me you want someone else in charge.

It reads like they don't totally grasp the financial situation underlying a lot of the trouble.

But of course finances are downstream from enrollment and leadership changes can impact enrollment.

I'm open to the argument that there are serious financial challenges and there are things leadership could do to improve enrollment that they've been resistant to. But this is not that argument.

It's not an argument, it's right there in the FAR.

The most recent FAR for SELA states “In FY 2023, the LEA continued to demonstrate robust financial health, with all six key financial indicators above target. At FYE 2023, the LEA reflected 136 days of cash on hand and a 15.4 current ratio, significantly above the 45-days and 1.0 targets, respectively.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This doesn't seem like a serious or thoughtful effort. If the school is in big financial trouble, say that. If you're talking about data points that are available for other schools, tell me how it compares to similar schools, because I suspect some of these are just difficult, widespread problems, but some may not be. If there are things you think the school can do better to retain teachers or improve performance or fix the playground, say that and tell us what the leadership has said in response to you, don't just tell me you want someone else in charge.

It reads like they don't totally grasp the financial situation underlying a lot of the trouble.

But of course finances are downstream from enrollment and leadership changes can impact enrollment.

I'm open to the argument that there are serious financial challenges and there are things leadership could do to improve enrollment that they've been resistant to. But this is not that argument.

It's not an argument, it's right there in the FAR.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL

Why don't you fill us in on the academic data here.
https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/lea/174/school/197/report

There's some very weird data in this report card. More than 50% of ECE students and nearly a third of other students were chronically absent? There is a bizarre gap in male/female ELA achievement which is not at all representative of DC wide data. The growth data is awful (3.5 points out of 50?!?).

It's only weird if you don't look at the overall data for DC : https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/state/report#measure-102

46.7% of Pre-K students were chronically absent, meaning they were absent for more than 10 percent of school days.
39.9% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of school days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL

Why don't you fill us in on the academic data here.
https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/lea/174/school/197/report

There's some very weird data in this report card. More than 50% of ECE students and nearly a third of other students were chronically absent? There is a bizarre gap in male/female ELA achievement which is not at all representative of DC wide data. The growth data is awful (3.5 points out of 50?!?).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL

Why don't you fill us in on the academic data here.
https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/lea/174/school/197/report

There's some very weird data in this report card. More than 50% of ECE students and nearly a third of other students were chronically absent? There is a bizarre gap in male/female ELA achievement which is not at all representative of DC wide data. The growth data is awful (3.5 points out of 50?!?).

It's only weird if you don't look at the overall data for DC : https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/state/report#measure-102

46.7% of Pre-K students were chronically absent, meaning they were absent for more than 10 percent of school days.
39.9% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed more than 10 percent of school days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL

Why don't you fill us in on the academic data here.
https://schoolreportcard.dc.gov/lea/174/school/197/report

There's some very weird data in this report card. More than 50% of ECE students and nearly a third of other students were chronically absent? There is a bizarre gap in male/female ELA achievement which is not at all representative of DC wide data. The growth data is awful (3.5 points out of 50?!?).

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL

Anonymous wrote:Can you imagine being so privileged that among your top concerns is building a new playground??? Out of curiosity I looked at the report card (https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/DC%20Report%20Card_Sela%20PCS.pdf), first of all this is a Ward 4 school that has a lot of upper-middle-class white and (probably???) Jewish families. They are 22% at risk, which is really LOW for a DC Charter School. They have a 4/5 star rating! And their enrollment is actually growing, even if by small amounts. This might as well have been signed as "Concerned Karen's who want to speak to your manager" LOL