Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking for an update on Ft. Hunt. How is the morale now? Have things gotten better with the principal?

Principal just announced her retirement yesterday. Effective January 1st 2014. Guess she gave her 2 weeks notice.

pretty sure she was let go.

Anonymous wrote:

WOW! I hope the school gets better. In all honesty though, sometimes a diverse school does make it harder for everyone involved. Our school is extremely diverse and I see the challenges. Thankfully, all of my DCs got into AAP, and I am not being rude, rather just being honest, as the focus in Gen Ed was too much on the lower end of the bracket and not enough at the upper end. Differentation is a great word and has a wonderful meaning, it just doesn't work well in really mixed learning groups.

Of course it doesn't when you take out all of the achieving children. Teacher

So, teacher, we're supposed to leave more advanced kids in their general ed classrooms so they can help raise their schools' scores? No thanks. The previous poster is absolutely right: The focus in our general ed experience was entirely on trying to raise scores in a school where there were many kids needing remedial help. And the claims that there was differentiation in the work so that the more advanced kids could get what they needed were just not true, even though a few teachers made an effort. Had my kid stayed where she was and not gone into AAP she would have ended up like my friend's kid who stayed put - by sixth grade he was regularly being told to help other kids once he breezed through his too-easy work. The teachers did not have the time or the resources to create more challenging or interesting work for him in any meaningful way, and he ended up bored and frustrated at being told to go tutor the other kids because the teachers were already swamped with trying to help so many kids who needed help.

Anonymous wrote:Looking for an update on Ft. Hunt. How is the morale now? Have things gotten better with the principal?

Principal just announced her retirement yesterday. Effective January 1st 2014. Guess she gave her 2 weeks notice.

Looking for an update on Ft. Hunt. How is the morale now? Have things gotten better with the principal?

Actually, it has very little to do with closing the achievement gap. That's something all teachers want. It has more to do with having a boss who walks by you in the hallway without saying a word. It has to do with sitting in parent meetings and your principal making faces when she disagrees with something another teacher says. It has to do with a teacher constantly picking on the minority children she's unable to intimidate into behaving. The low moral at Fort Hunt wasn't because the teachers were unwilling to work hard--many teachers were there 12 hours a day and on Saturdays.

Anonymous wrote:Reading between the lines it seems likely the principal demands that the teachers ensure the students do well on standardized tests, berates them when the students fall short, and offers no support or constructive advice to teachers as to how they can meet her lofty goals. That is usually a morale killer.

Reading between the lines the principal and the Cluster superintendent want to close the achievement gap, which is proving extremely difficult - so there is finger pointing all around. Like a losing football team that can't figure out how to start winning again. Classic situation for "bad morale."

Reading between the lines it seems likely the principal demands that the teachers ensure the students do well on standardized tests, berates them when the students fall short, and offers no support or constructive advice to teachers as to how they can meet her lofty goals. That is usually a morale killer.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry folks....you don't have 60% of employees leave within two years due to trivial complaints or the fact that the principal is coming down on underperforming teachers. Guess you are lucky enough to have never worked in a place with bad morale.

so what is the problem then? Bad morale has to be cause by something. Haven't read anything in the above posts that would account for it.

Sorry folks....you don't have 60% of employees leave within two years due to trivial complaints or the fact that the principal is coming down on underperforming teachers. Guess you are lucky enough to have never worked in a place with bad morale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you seen this? A teacher who left wrote it.

http://finemingling.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/i-am-the-22/

She says "We knew as we left Fort Hunt that we couldn’t site the REAL problems .... " The word is spelled "cite." One has to wonder who they are hiring for these jobs.

Given that people cite web sites, it's understandible why someone blogging from Mexico in her spare time might make that error and not check before posting. It's people like you who can't see the forest for the trees who make life miserable for teachers. Asshat.

you're presuming she didn't "check before posting." Methinks she doesn't know the correct usage of cite vs. site, and am wondering if this is the caliber of teachers who left. The complaints in the blog entry stuck me as trivial and kvetching as well.

Trivial and kvetching? Pot, meet kettle.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you seen this? A teacher who left wrote it.

http://finemingling.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/i-am-the-22/

She says "We knew as we left Fort Hunt that we couldn’t site the REAL problems .... " The word is spelled "cite." One has to wonder who they are hiring for these jobs.

Given that people cite web sites, it's understandible why someone blogging from Mexico in her spare time might make that error and not check before posting. It's people like you who can't see the forest for the trees who make life miserable for teachers. Asshat.

you're presuming she didn't "check before posting." Methinks she doesn't know the correct usage of cite vs. site, and am wondering if this is the caliber of teachers who left. The complaints in the blog entry stuck me as trivial and kvetching as well.