Anonymous wrote:Another member of the admin team resigned on Friday. It will probably not get announced to parents because it wasn a student facing role. So much good stuff is done behind the scenes and parents aren’t informed when those people leave because it looks bad - it IS bad. 20+ staff have left this school year. Not everything is terrible but the good stuff isn’t sustainable- just not worth the risk. So disappointing how PCSB doesn’t intervene in these moments to save a place with really great potential.

PP, you are outing yourself. I wish you would stop dragging the school down and get a life. My kids go to CMI and are thriving. I get it that you hate the school. Move on.

Another member of the admin team resigned on Friday. It will probably not get announced to parents because it wasn a student facing role. So much good stuff is done behind the scenes and parents aren’t informed when those people leave because it looks bad - it IS bad. 20+ staff have left this school year. Not everything is terrible but the good stuff isn’t sustainable- just not worth the risk. So disappointing how PCSB doesn’t intervene in these moments to save a place with really great potential.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cmi family here. We like the school because of the diversity. We live in upper whitelandia so for us, being in a diverse public school is amazing. CMI is truly a community of learners. All the families who are there have made a choice to be there. As a parent, I can’t provide the teachers with raises, but I do give them very generous gifts for the holidays and end of the year. Cmi isn’t perfect, but nothing is.

Another CMI family here who likes the diversity. We are also IB for Deal, so I feel that we have the best of the preschool and younger grade elementary school without worrying about the upper grade and middle school issues that are present at the school. It's a good foundation to go to Deal/Wilson.

what is your IB deal feeder school? I find it hard to believe that any parent would choose CMI over janney.

Not for a SN child who needed smaller classes and a more supportive environment. Being in a charter means not needing to deal with OSSE for ieps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cmi family here. We like the school because of the diversity. We live in upper whitelandia so for us, being in a diverse public school is amazing. CMI is truly a community of learners. All the families who are there have made a choice to be there. As a parent, I can’t provide the teachers with raises, but I do give them very generous gifts for the holidays and end of the year. Cmi isn’t perfect, but nothing is.

Another CMI family here who likes the diversity. We are also IB for Deal, so I feel that we have the best of the preschool and younger grade elementary school without worrying about the upper grade and middle school issues that are present at the school. It's a good foundation to go to Deal/Wilson.

what is your IB deal feeder school? I find it hard to believe that any parent would choose CMI over janney.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to the emergency town hall on staff retention at Cmi last night. Just this school year — in the middle of the school year— they lost 7 teachers and 6 administrators. The teachers at CMI are mostly great (except the ps 3 teacher who was too new and frazzled to handle a horrible mix of rowdy kids). The problem, however is the school’s founder/Director. Until she leaves, all the hr consultants in the world won’t make a difference. She is cold and toxic. That said, cmi is not a horrible school.. it’s going through growing pains and it’s showing big time. They need support and help. I’m confident that it can live up to its own standards again when the founder leaves .

NP here.

What problems have you had?

For me, she's spoke poorly about me multiple times to other parents, who have then come up to me to tell me how much they disliked it, but also told me that they wanted to stay on her "good" side. I've never heard of her doing this to other families. Ironically, her issue with me is that our child has severe special needs and she wanted us to move out of the school. I refused. She then started campaigning to get me out of the school. She is/was relentless.

Did you ever think she had your kids best interests in mind? Inclusion is not always the best placement. For us it wasn’t. CMI did everything they could to help DC succeed and in the end, we all came to the conclusion that DC would be better served in a private setting through public funding.

You all just need to relax. If you are a currently a parent of a kid at CMI and worried about the turnover in staff and dislike how things are being run, consider taking your kids else where. I'm sure that the CMI administration have many reasons for letting people go.

Anonymous wrote:I went to the emergency town hall on staff retention at Cmi last night. Just this school year — in the middle of the school year— they lost 7 teachers and 6 administrators. The teachers at CMI are mostly great (except the ps 3 teacher who was too new and frazzled to handle a horrible mix of rowdy kids). The problem, however is the school’s founder/Director. Until she leaves, all the hr consultants in the world won’t make a difference. She is cold and toxic. That said, cmi is not a horrible school.. it’s going through growing pains and it’s showing big time. They need support and help. I’m confident that it can live up to its own standards again when the founder leaves .

NP here.

What problems have you had?

For me, she's spoke poorly about me multiple times to other parents, who have then come up to me to tell me how much they disliked it, but also told me that they wanted to stay on her "good" side. I've never heard of her doing this to other families. Ironically, her issue with me is that our child has severe special needs and she wanted us to move out of the school. I refused. She then started campaigning to get me out of the school. She is/was relentless.

Anonymous wrote:Cmi family here. We like the school because of the diversity. We live in upper whitelandia so for us, being in a diverse public school is amazing. CMI is truly a community of learners. All the families who are there have made a choice to be there. As a parent, I can’t provide the teachers with raises, but I do give them very generous gifts for the holidays and end of the year. Cmi isn’t perfect, but nothing is.

Another CMI family here who likes the diversity. We are also IB for Deal, so I feel that we have the best of the preschool and younger grade elementary school without worrying about the upper grade and middle school issues that are present at the school. It's a good foundation to go to Deal/Wilson.

Cmi family here. We like the school because of the diversity. We live in upper whitelandia so for us, being in a diverse public school is amazing. CMI is truly a community of learners. All the families who are there have made a choice to be there. As a parent, I can’t provide the teachers with raises, but I do give them very generous gifts for the holidays and end of the year. Cmi isn’t perfect, but nothing is.

I’m not a CMI parent but what’s wrong wanting a school With a low percentage of poor kids. I know plenty of upper income AA families who want touch most DCPS school because they don’t want a high poverty school. It’s not just white folks. High poverty schools have huge challenges academically and behaviorally, that’s just a fact. I would want my kid at a high poverty all white school in Appalachia either.

Anonymous wrote:The fact is that white middle-class parents will continue to cling to CMI because the school is over 40% white and has less than 30% low-income students. These kind of demographics are what many white middle-class parents in DC place great value on - this Board is proof of that. I think many CMI parents know that what is happening is not okay but feel caught between a rock and a hard place because there are not many public schools that are over 40% white and have such a low percentage of low-income students. That said, people do leave - the bells and whistles such as a beautiful “campus” (even though it is not really their property at all) is not sufficient past the lower grades.

What the PP said is correct. I am a former CMI parent and I can assure you that these emergency meetings were commonplace—at least one per year—to explain or discuss some drama that was happening at the school. The teacher and admin turnover is nothing new and was one of the reasons we left. Parents cling to the school because of the demographics—if the same crap was happening at their local DCPS they’d be far less forgiving. The sad thing is that parents indeed are stuck between a rock and a hard place and that is why CMI, as subpar as it is, will continue to have incredibly long wait lists. Three years from now the posts will continue to be the same regarding CMI and nothing will change.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to the emergency town hall on staff retention at Cmi last night. Just this school year — in the middle of the school year— they lost 7 teachers and 6 administrators. The teachers at CMI are mostly great (except the ps 3 teacher who was too new and frazzled to handle a horrible mix of rowdy kids). The problem, however is the school’s founder/Director. Until she leaves, all the hr consultants in the world won’t make a difference. She is cold and toxic. That said, cmi is not a horrible school.. it’s going through growing pains and it’s showing big time. They need support and help. I’m confident that it can live up to its own standards again when the founder leaves .

OP here, this, to me, is not drama and histrionics. This is a real problem. And it isn't the first time such departures have happened mid-year. But my original question was answered, the DCPCB won't do anything. It is up to the board.

Agreed. SEVEN teachers MID-year??? What??? This isn't a particularly large school. That's like 10%+ of the teachers in the school, no?

What makes you think they're hiring for these positions for the current school year.

I teach at a different school, and we've already filled several positions for next year. This is hiring season for teachers.

They're adding a whole new middle school grade, so of course they need new middle school teachers.

Having said that, many school post every category of position at this point in the year, so that when contracts from teachers are returned (or not) they'll have a stack of resumes ready to go. The fact that a job is listed doesn't mean that it will even ben available.

It clearly states what school years they’re hiring for and some of the positions are for the current school year.

LOL at cling to. Just like Obama said of Hillary voters in 2008.

The fact is that white middle-class parents will continue to cling to CMI because the school is over 40% white and has less than 30% low-income students. These kind of demographics are what many white middle-class parents in DC place great value on - this Board is proof of that. I think many CMI parents know that what is happening is not okay but feel caught between a rock and a hard place because there are not many public schools that are over 40% white and have such a low percentage of low-income students. That said, people do leave - the bells and whistles such as a beautiful “campus” (even though it is not really their property at all) is not sufficient past the lower grades.

Two Rivers is growing a school at Young so have to fill new teacher and assistant positions every year. Is CMI expanding?

They are expanding middle school and an elementary grade with an additional class is moving up which will require teachers/aides/inclusion specialist as well.