LT can be extremely happy they have Ms. Miller - signed Murch teacher.

This school has a turnstile at the front door for principals

Regarding schedule complaints, it’s often the details that weren’t thought through / don’t really work.

Examples:

Classes get double specials twice a week, great, teachers get a double planning, great, but how do kids get from one special to another? The specials teachers don’t trade kids, ala ‘science goes to PE and vice versa.’ It’s totally random. There was no plan put in place or communicated for this new type of transition, so the first two weeks it was very chaotic. The art teacher tried to drop kids off at science, but the science teacher was trying to drop kids at music, and the music teacher had gone to drop kids off at library… you get the idea. We just had to ‘make it work’ on the fly… with some 15 teachers and 200 young students involved. It’s still not always clear, especially now with “split” classes due to staff shortages.

The duty schedule has changed (completely) four times since the beginning of the year. This is unprecedented, hard to keep track of, and makes it really hard to plan, especially when you try to run meetings, classes, or whatever over your “lunch break.” Not to mention we all have more duty than ever before, many people are (accidentally?) on duty far more than contractually allowed, etc. Some duties have 4 people on while others have 2 (for the same type of coverage, that really requires 3.)

As I said before, none of this is easy, and to some extent I get that the real life pressures of an understaffed SY is hard to plan perfectly for. That said, there were obvious problems week one (after a summer of planning), which teachers pointed out right away. They were never really fixed, and now with understaffing moving into flu season… the seams are showing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider who has been at the school for a decade, these two years have been the worst admin-wise that we’ve ever seen. Important emails go unanswered, schedules don’t make sense, there’s a weird lack of empathy… But it’s a tough time to be a school principal (or just about anything). I don’t know whether someone else could handle the staffing shortage better or not. At least she’s showing up every day. But we expected there to be better plans in place coming back from summer break. And the grace a lot of us are trying to give her is wearing thin. If this continues, I and many other staff will be looking to transfer at the end of the SY.

I actually like the new schedule with kids getting 6-8 specials every week and having a predictable weekly rotation. I would have assumed it also frees up more time for planning, LEAP, etc, though I understand some of that is likely being lost to current staffing issues. I agree that she is very bad at emails. Whether she responds is completely unpredictable and not related to how important/urgent the subject matter is. She's much better in person but, of course, that means people are constantly showing up at her office to get a word with her, which doesn't help overall.

Do you have tangible suggestions for improvements that could be made? I know it's hard to give feedback to your boss and it might not be well received, but perhaps parents could pass the suggestions on. (Parents definitely have the same communication complaints that teachers do.)

She is only 1 person that is managing a needy school community. Cut her some slack.

I'm the PP you're responding to and I actually cut her quite a bit of slack and think she's a decent principal. As I said, I think her schedule changes are an improvement. That said, she's bad at responding to emails. I don't know a single person in the school community who would disagree and it is a genuine problem (including for her, because then people swamp her in person, as explained above). Asking if a very experienced teacher has tangible suggestions for improvement that they feel uncomfortable passing on directly isn't taking a potshot at the principal, it's seeing if there's a way to make the situation better, since I do think the teacher(s) posting on this thread aren't outliers among teachers at the school.

Also, I don't actually think the school community is particularly needy. The PTO actually takes on a much bigger communication role than any other school I have experience with, which I think takes stuff off her plate. Families helped staffed recess 3 days a week last year to give teachers more planning time. I think the community is quite involved and very willing to help, but that's not the same as needy.

My kids principal at an Upper NW elementary school said he gets 200-300 emails everyday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Collective punishment in the lower grades on the part of teachers who haven’t fully adjusted to current school demographics is, unfortunately, not “random crap.”

The point is not that there may not be a 1st grade teacher engaging in collective punishment, but that it has nothing to do with LT "not having changed" or an old school teacher who has been there a decade. There is no such first grade teacher. In any case, I asked around and the teacher in question is a brand new first year teacher who came from Brent. Principal Miller specifically reiterated that collective punishment is not acceptable and the teacher in question actually emailed parents, explained her perspective and apologized.

On the other hand, your suggestion that collective punishment would be more acceptable if the school had different demographics is horrifying.

Give us a break. That wasn't the suggestion. I taught in a 100% minority enrollment Title 1 DCPS school in the 1990s where (mild) collective punishment in elementary school classrooms was the norm. It still crops up here and there in the system. UMC parents of all races will push back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider who has been at the school for a decade, these two years have been the worst admin-wise that we’ve ever seen. Important emails go unanswered, schedules don’t make sense, there’s a weird lack of empathy… But it’s a tough time to be a school principal (or just about anything). I don’t know whether someone else could handle the staffing shortage better or not. At least she’s showing up every day. But we expected there to be better plans in place coming back from summer break. And the grace a lot of us are trying to give her is wearing thin. If this continues, I and many other staff will be looking to transfer at the end of the SY.

I actually like the new schedule with kids getting 6-8 specials every week and having a predictable weekly rotation. I would have assumed it also frees up more time for planning, LEAP, etc, though I understand some of that is likely being lost to current staffing issues. I agree that she is very bad at emails. Whether she responds is completely unpredictable and not related to how important/urgent the subject matter is. She's much better in person but, of course, that means people are constantly showing up at her office to get a word with her, which doesn't help overall.

Do you have tangible suggestions for improvements that could be made? I know it's hard to give feedback to your boss and it might not be well received, but perhaps parents could pass the suggestions on. (Parents definitely have the same communication complaints that teachers do.)

She is only 1 person that is managing a needy school community. Cut her some slack.

I'm the PP you're responding to and I actually cut her quite a bit of slack and think she's a decent principal. As I said, I think her schedule changes are an improvement. That said, she's bad at responding to emails. I don't know a single person in the school community who would disagree and it is a genuine problem (including for her, because then people swamp her in person, as explained above). Asking if a very experienced teacher has tangible suggestions for improvement that they feel uncomfortable passing on directly isn't taking a potshot at the principal, it's seeing if there's a way to make the situation better, since I do think the teacher(s) posting on this thread aren't outliers among teachers at the school.

Also, I don't actually think the school community is particularly needy. The PTO actually takes on a much bigger communication role than any other school I have experience with, which I think takes stuff off her plate. Families helped staffed recess 3 days a week last year to give teachers more planning time. I think the community is quite involved and very willing to help, but that's not the same as needy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an insider who has been at the school for a decade, these two years have been the worst admin-wise that we’ve ever seen. Important emails go unanswered, schedules don’t make sense, there’s a weird lack of empathy… But it’s a tough time to be a school principal (or just about anything). I don’t know whether someone else could handle the staffing shortage better or not. At least she’s showing up every day. But we expected there to be better plans in place coming back from summer break. And the grace a lot of us are trying to give her is wearing thin. If this continues, I and many other staff will be looking to transfer at the end of the SY.

I actually like the new schedule with kids getting 6-8 specials every week and having a predictable weekly rotation. I would have assumed it also frees up more time for planning, LEAP, etc, though I understand some of that is likely being lost to current staffing issues. I agree that she is very bad at emails. Whether she responds is completely unpredictable and not related to how important/urgent the subject matter is. She's much better in person but, of course, that means people are constantly showing up at her office to get a word with her, which doesn't help overall.

Do you have tangible suggestions for improvements that could be made? I know it's hard to give feedback to your boss and it might not be well received, but perhaps parents could pass the suggestions on. (Parents definitely have the same communication complaints that teachers do.)

She is only 1 person that is managing a needy school community. Cut her some slack.

Anonymous wrote:As an insider who has been at the school for a decade, these two years have been the worst admin-wise that we’ve ever seen. Important emails go unanswered, schedules don’t make sense, there’s a weird lack of empathy… But it’s a tough time to be a school principal (or just about anything). I don’t know whether someone else could handle the staffing shortage better or not. At least she’s showing up every day. But we expected there to be better plans in place coming back from summer break. And the grace a lot of us are trying to give her is wearing thin. If this continues, I and many other staff will be looking to transfer at the end of the SY.

I actually like the new schedule with kids getting 6-8 specials every week and having a predictable weekly rotation. I would have assumed it also frees up more time for planning, LEAP, etc, though I understand some of that is likely being lost to current staffing issues. I agree that she is very bad at emails. Whether she responds is completely unpredictable and not related to how important/urgent the subject matter is. She's much better in person but, of course, that means people are constantly showing up at her office to get a word with her, which doesn't help overall.

Do you have tangible suggestions for improvements that could be made? I know it's hard to give feedback to your boss and it might not be well received, but perhaps parents could pass the suggestions on. (Parents definitely have the same communication complaints that teachers do.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Collective punishment in the lower grades on the part of teachers who haven’t fully adjusted to current school demographics is, unfortunately, not “random crap.”

The point is not that there may not be a 1st grade teacher engaging in collective punishment, but that it has nothing to do with LT "not having changed" or an old school teacher who has been there a decade. There is no such first grade teacher. In any case, I asked around and the teacher in question is a brand new first year teacher who came from Brent. Principal Miller specifically reiterated that collective punishment is not acceptable and the teacher in question actually emailed parents, explained her perspective and apologized.

On the other hand, your suggestion that collective punishment would be more acceptable if the school had different demographics is horrifying.

+1 wtf

Anonymous wrote:Collective punishment in the lower grades on the part of teachers who haven’t fully adjusted to current school demographics is, unfortunately, not “random crap.”

The point is not that there may not be a 1st grade teacher engaging in collective punishment, but that it has nothing to do with LT "not having changed" or an old school teacher who has been there a decade. There is no such first grade teacher. In any case, I asked around and the teacher in question is a brand new first year teacher who came from Brent. Principal Miller specifically reiterated that collective punishment is not acceptable and the teacher in question actually emailed parents, explained her perspective and apologized.

On the other hand, your suggestion that collective punishment would be more acceptable if the school had different demographics is horrifying.

Collective punishment in the lower grades on the part of teachers who haven’t fully adjusted to current school demographics is, unfortunately, not “random crap.”

As an insider who has been at the school for a decade, these two years have been the worst admin-wise that we’ve ever seen. Important emails go unanswered, schedules don’t make sense, there’s a weird lack of empathy… But it’s a tough time to be a school principal (or just about anything). I don’t know whether someone else could handle the staffing shortage better or not. At least she’s showing up every day. But we expected there to be better plans in place coming back from summer break. And the grace a lot of us are trying to give her is wearing thin. If this continues, I and many other staff will be looking to transfer at the end of the SY.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The vast majority of parents do not give a flying **** about this level of insider nonsense."

You will when teachers you like start turning over because they don't trust admin...

Or maybe you won't.

But what's a school if it's not the teachers?

LT certainly can't be defined based on strong leadership at this point...

We've owned a house 2 blocks from LT for 15 years (without kids for the first few). We sent our kids to Maury. LT's leadership has been a problem for the 15 years since we landed in the Stanton Park neighborhood.

LT is a completely different school than it was 15 years ago. I’m glad you feel good about your choice — and I’ve always heard wonderful things about Maury — but come on, you live 2 blocks away and had a relevantly aged kid nearly a decade ago, so you feel well-positioned to talk about the school now? The school is over 60% IB now, so apparently your neighbors feel differently.

No, LT isn't completely different. I wish it was. Families on our block still bail from LT to Maury, Brent or SWS if they get winning lottery numbers.

A couple of the old school LT first grade teachers punishing classes collectively after a few kids fail to line up nicely on the playground are still there. We hear these complaints from neighbors on a regular basis. Translation: "No recess for you today, 6 year olds. You'll spend recess with your head down resting on your arms folded on your desk." Admins do nothing when parents complain.

There is no 1st grade teacher who has been at LT anywhere near a decade. The one who has been there the longest is literally the opposite of the stereotypical old school LT teacher. There are teachers who have been there that long in PK3, PK4, K, 3rd, 4th and 5th, but you picked the wrong grade to assert random crap about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The vast majority of parents do not give a flying **** about this level of insider nonsense."

You will when teachers you like start turning over because they don't trust admin...

Or maybe you won't.

But what's a school if it's not the teachers?

LT certainly can't be defined based on strong leadership at this point...

We've owned a house 2 blocks from LT for 15 years (without kids for the first few). We sent our kids to Maury. LT's leadership has been a problem for the 15 years since we landed in the Stanton Park neighborhood.

LT is a completely different school than it was 15 years ago. I’m glad you feel good about your choice — and I’ve always heard wonderful things about Maury — but come on, you live 2 blocks away and had a relevantly aged kid nearly a decade ago, so you feel well-positioned to talk about the school now? The school is over 60% IB now, so apparently your neighbors feel differently.

No, LT isn't completely different. I wish it was. Families on our block still bail from LT to Maury, Brent or SWS if they get winning lottery numbers.

A couple of the old school LT first grade teachers punishing classes collectively after a few kids fail to line up nicely on the playground are still there. We hear these complaints from neighbors on a regular basis. Translation: "No recess for you today, 6 year olds. You'll spend recess with your head down resting on your arms folded on your desk." Admins do nothing when parents complain.

The data set of where kids go show that there are fewer than 10 children IB for LT at Brent or Maury, so I guess your block has all of them. It is true that there are a substantial number of LT families at SWS. This is not surprising given that SWS is a very popular school, has a relatively different vibe than LT and about half of the LT inbound actually lives closer to SWS. It is also true that over 60% of school aged kids in the LT IB attending a DCPS or DCPCS go to LT, which is not particularly different than Brent, which also likely has more kids in private school because of proximity and the wealth of the IB. So, again, the majority of people are making a choice different than you did a decade ago and in a year where 50%+ of the Brent K waiting list could have gone there if they wished (58 offers) and half the "HRCS" in the city have no/short waiting lists from K up, it's not like they're stuck there.

Also, there is only one first grade teacher who could remotely be described as old school. While I don't know if she (or either of the others) has ever used collective punishment, I do know that Principal Miller has actually specifically reiterated to teachers that it's not permitted, so it is definitely not true that she does nothing when parents complain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The vast majority of parents do not give a flying **** about this level of insider nonsense."

You will when teachers you like start turning over because they don't trust admin...

Or maybe you won't.

But what's a school if it's not the teachers?

LT certainly can't be defined based on strong leadership at this point...

We've owned a house 2 blocks from LT for 15 years (without kids for the first few). We sent our kids to Maury. LT's leadership has been a problem for the 15 years since we landed in the Stanton Park neighborhood.

I'm thinking that you and the person who lives across the street from Stuart-Hobson must be friends . . . . .

I pity anybody unfortunate enough to live across the street from SH.