Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the Coolidge alumni FB page. Someone posted, "Mr. Jackson is the new principal. He is back at Coolidge."
PLEASE tell me this isn't the same Mr. Jackson that embezzled tens of thousands of dollars in grant money, left to be a principal at Booker T. Washington and was never held accountable for any of it. It is a common name, so please let it be a different Mr. Jackson. Does anyone know about this?

Thanks for being the reason we have changed the privacy setting on our facebook page. You are clearly not a member of our group or you would have had the courage to ask your "questions" in the group. What you think you know isn't the truth and what you have said is tantamount to slander. So if you are in our group, I dare you to say something, you insipid little cockroach.

Hey, don't run from this. What did PP say that was "slanderous"? Did the money go missing or not? According to the article posted, Mr. Jackson may not have stolen it, but he for damn sure was responsible for it and had a major hand in its mismanagement. If either of these is true, no way should he be anywhere near a functioning school.

He isn't anywhere near a functioning school. It's Coolidge.

Touché

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the Coolidge alumni FB page. Someone posted, "Mr. Jackson is the new principal. He is back at Coolidge."
PLEASE tell me this isn't the same Mr. Jackson that embezzled tens of thousands of dollars in grant money, left to be a principal at Booker T. Washington and was never held accountable for any of it. It is a common name, so please let it be a different Mr. Jackson. Does anyone know about this?

Thanks for being the reason we have changed the privacy setting on our facebook page. You are clearly not a member of our group or you would have had the courage to ask your "questions" in the group. What you think you know isn't the truth and what you have said is tantamount to slander. So if you are in our group, I dare you to say something, you insipid little cockroach.

Hey, don't run from this. What did PP say that was "slanderous"? Did the money go missing or not? According to the article posted, Mr. Jackson may not have stolen it, but he for damn sure was responsible for it and had a major hand in its mismanagement. If either of these is true, no way should he be anywhere near a functioning school.

He isn't anywhere near a functioning school. It's Coolidge.

He did spend AOL grant money to fund a Gospel concert. That point is not in dispute. He and the bank manager were the only people in the school who were authorized to cut checks. They are the only ones who had access to the money.

Factual information, by definition, is not slanderous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the Coolidge alumni FB page. Someone posted, "Mr. Jackson is the new principal. He is back at Coolidge."
PLEASE tell me this isn't the same Mr. Jackson that embezzled tens of thousands of dollars in grant money, left to be a principal at Booker T. Washington and was never held accountable for any of it. It is a common name, so please let it be a different Mr. Jackson. Does anyone know about this?

Thanks for being the reason we have changed the privacy setting on our facebook page. You are clearly not a member of our group or you would have had the courage to ask your "questions" in the group. What you think you know isn't the truth and what you have said is tantamount to slander. So if you are in our group, I dare you to say something, you insipid little cockroach.

Hey, don't run from this. What did PP say that was "slanderous"? Did the money go missing or not? According to the article posted, Mr. Jackson may not have stolen it, but he for damn sure was responsible for it and had a major hand in its mismanagement. If either of these is true, no way should he be anywhere near a functioning school.

+100

The only legitimate reason to keep it open is to appease a diminishing voter block of people who spout "Colt Pride" but have nothing broader to offer the situation. The school was once great pre-1980s, then descended to passable through the mid-nineties. Since then it has not been anything other than significantly sub-standard. Schools like this are a very big part of why the DC school system is so dysfunctional.

The school has been systematically overlooked for decades now. Maybe the problems have more to them than appeasing voters who are nostalgic with school pride. We have an entire feeder system of schools that makes it possible for someone to get a diploma when a person is barely literate. Less than a handful of the kids I knew who graduated from there a decade ago who did make it to college were actually able to graduate. How can there be so many years of efforts put into elementary schools with zero progress on having more than one or two upper level schools that are functioning and producing educated adults? I understand that the resources are limited, but there has got to be some way to deal with this. Unfortunately, I think the problem is so deep and covered in so many layer of issues that the best solution is to dismantle the decades-old culture of the school, mothball the school and offer it up to a charter.

Oh, sweet Jesus, can we please close this awful school? Is there anything other than misplaced pride (largely on the part of DCPS) keeping it open? The school spirit of retired folks doesn't justify under-educating the students who are stuck there today.

This school is a path to failure. Why are tax-payers subsidizing it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a teacher there for few years a decade ago. Morale was always an issue. The students knew they weren't in a choice school and many of the teachers were beyond burnt out.

Agreed. I know many teachers there who cut out of work early, show movies all day. There are some great teachers too- but the great ones want a strong leader who will drive the lazy ones out!

Sounds like nothing has changed.

Anonymous wrote:The teachers who cut out are special education teachers. They are 'co teaching'. So no, no one reports. And what would the admin do? The principal last year was suspended for fighting and this one resigned.
Get to know your DCPS. It's different than you'd think.

Also, Hendersonassures us that good teachers are lined up trying to get into DCPS where the pay is higher and opportunities for even higher pay are great, what with the opportunity to be "Highly effective."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a teacher there for few years a decade ago. Morale was always an issue. The students knew they weren't in a choice school and many of the teachers were beyond burnt out.

Agreed. I know many teachers there who cut out of work early, show movies all day. There are some great teachers too- but the great ones want a strong leader who will drive the lazy ones out!

Of course DCPS has the IMPACT evaluation system now, so all bad teachers are impacted out in one or two years. Can't blame bad teachers anymore -- must be something else -- bad administrators maybe

Anonymous wrote:Stealing money earmarked for children in order to fund a gospel convert? THAT would be the work of an insipid cockroach.

That's not an insipid cockroach, it's a venal and unscrupulous one.

Stealing money earmarked for children in order to fund a gospel convert? THAT would be the work of an insipid cockroach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the Coolidge alumni FB page. Someone posted, "Mr. Jackson is the new principal. He is back at Coolidge."
PLEASE tell me this isn't the same Mr. Jackson that embezzled tens of thousands of dollars in grant money, left to be a principal at Booker T. Washington and was never held accountable for any of it. It is a common name, so please let it be a different Mr. Jackson. Does anyone know about this?

Thanks for being the reason we have changed the privacy setting on our facebook page. You are clearly not a member of our group or you would have had the courage to ask your "questions" in the group. What you think you know isn't the truth and what you have said is tantamount to slander. So if you are in our group, I dare you to say something, you insipid little cockroach.

Can you clarify what is actually going on for those of us who aren't in the know?

What, in particular is slanderous about the post? The fact that he was head of a school that 'lost' 47,000? Or the fact that he is returning, once again- to mismanage things?

Anonymous wrote:I just looked at the Coolidge alumni FB page. Someone posted, "Mr. Jackson is the new principal. He is back at Coolidge."
PLEASE tell me this isn't the same Mr. Jackson that embezzled tens of thousands of dollars in grant money, left to be a principal at Booker T. Washington and was never held accountable for any of it. It is a common name, so please let it be a different Mr. Jackson. Does anyone know about this?

Thanks for being the reason we have changed the privacy setting on our facebook page. You are clearly not a member of our group or you would have had the courage to ask your "questions" in the group. What you think you know isn't the truth and what you have said is tantamount to slander. So if you are in our group, I dare you to say something, you insipid little cockroach.

Anonymous wrote:Through my reliable sources it was a family issue and it was in best interest for the principal to resign. The leave of absence would have been too much of an inconvenience.

Recruiting from all over the city for Eastern with the result of 99% being FARM is not death sentence. Considering the majority of our specialty schools are well over 50% FARM. Then there's Wilson HS that is the largest HS and they too have a large FARM population. If people stop looking at the word FARM like crime-scene tape and judge the entire school. As Eastern approaches their first graduation class in 4-years they have NOT failed by any means necessary. Again, aiming for the black students to get an education is not a failure.

No, but only ~40% proficient on the DC CAS, and being a "Priority" school is.