Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

Maybe 20 years ago it would have been absurd, but today it's not at all absurd. The game has changed, and the dinosaur mentality of just sitting back and automatically getting students in the door every year is no longer how things work. Schools and principals now have to EARN the respect of families, has to COMPETE for students, and work hard to RETAIN them if they wish to stay relevant, and for their schools to stay open. If a DC principal isn't in that mindset, isn't actively seeking out and welcoming in families, that principal will fast find failure no matter how everything else is going.

It would be nice to think that this is true, but you are just wrong. Ludlow-Taylor's scores are pretty good, and DCPS has made it clear that the school is going to stay open, with or without neighborhood families. What you don't understand is that there are lots of families who do respect the principal and love the school, even if you personally don't.

It will be interesting to see where neighborhood families end up over the next few years, as seats at Brent, Maury, SWS and Peabody are harder and harder to come by.

Isn't a public school supposed to be welcoming to ALL families? Not just some?

If it's not welcoming and seats in other schools are so hard to come by then principals like this may well be the best thing to happen to charters.

Well, no. When a DCPS welcomes kids who do not live in DC, that is a problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

Maybe 20 years ago it would have been absurd, but today it's not at all absurd. The game has changed, and the dinosaur mentality of just sitting back and automatically getting students in the door every year is no longer how things work. Schools and principals now have to EARN the respect of families, has to COMPETE for students, and work hard to RETAIN them if they wish to stay relevant, and for their schools to stay open. If a DC principal isn't in that mindset, isn't actively seeking out and welcoming in families, that principal will fast find failure no matter how everything else is going.

It would be nice to think that this is true, but you are just wrong. Ludlow-Taylor's scores are pretty good, and DCPS has made it clear that the school is going to stay open, with or without neighborhood families. What you don't understand is that there are lots of families who do respect the principal and love the school, even if you personally don't.

It will be interesting to see where neighborhood families end up over the next few years, as seats at Brent, Maury, SWS and Peabody are harder and harder to come by.

Charter are where they are going and charters are why this game is changing for neighborhood schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

Maybe 20 years ago it would have been absurd, but today it's not at all absurd. The game has changed, and the dinosaur mentality of just sitting back and automatically getting students in the door every year is no longer how things work. Schools and principals now have to EARN the respect of families, has to COMPETE for students, and work hard to RETAIN them if they wish to stay relevant, and for their schools to stay open. If a DC principal isn't in that mindset, isn't actively seeking out and welcoming in families, that principal will fast find failure no matter how everything else is going.

It would be nice to think that this is true, but you are just wrong. Ludlow-Taylor's scores are pretty good, and DCPS has made it clear that the school is going to stay open, with or without neighborhood families. What you don't understand is that there are lots of families who do respect the principal and love the school, even if you personally don't.

It will be interesting to see where neighborhood families end up over the next few years, as seats at Brent, Maury, SWS and Peabody are harder and harder to come by.

Isn't a public school supposed to be welcoming to ALL families? Not just some?

If it's not welcoming and seats in other schools are so hard to come by then principals like this may well be the best thing to happen to charters.

The problem really is that the school needs to meet the neighborhood with as much enthusiasm to improve and serve the neighborhood as the neighbors who choose to be there bring and this does not happen. There are many happy families there. A handful are IB but most are not and most IB families have either chosen not to send their kids there at all, or have left once they had another option.

I personally have had interactions with the principal that are just unnerving and she is disconnected at best. I am particularly disturbed by an experience that our neighbor had with the principal when she attended the open house. She is AA and arrived early and ended up chatting with Cobbs who proceeded to tell her that they needed "more of their own" at the school. Racist? Pretty sure that is.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you should try to earn the school's respect. It has been there longer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

Maybe 20 years ago it would have been absurd, but today it's not at all absurd. The game has changed, and the dinosaur mentality of just sitting back and automatically getting students in the door every year is no longer how things work. Schools and principals now have to EARN the respect of families, has to COMPETE for students, and work hard to RETAIN them if they wish to stay relevant, and for their schools to stay open. If a DC principal isn't in that mindset, isn't actively seeking out and welcoming in families, that principal will fast find failure no matter how everything else is going.

It would be nice to think that this is true, but you are just wrong. Ludlow-Taylor's scores are pretty good, and DCPS has made it clear that the school is going to stay open, with or without neighborhood families. What you don't understand is that there are lots of families who do respect the principal and love the school, even if you personally don't.

It will be interesting to see where neighborhood families end up over the next few years, as seats at Brent, Maury, SWS and Peabody are harder and harder to come by.

That's the truth. The principal is staying and the school is staying. Don't waste your time thinking otherwise.

Maybe you should try to earn the school's respect. It has been there longer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

Maybe 20 years ago it would have been absurd, but today it's not at all absurd. The game has changed, and the dinosaur mentality of just sitting back and automatically getting students in the door every year is no longer how things work. Schools and principals now have to EARN the respect of families, has to COMPETE for students, and work hard to RETAIN them if they wish to stay relevant, and for their schools to stay open. If a DC principal isn't in that mindset, isn't actively seeking out and welcoming in families, that principal will fast find failure no matter how everything else is going.

It would be nice to think that this is true, but you are just wrong. Ludlow-Taylor's scores are pretty good, and DCPS has made it clear that the school is going to stay open, with or without neighborhood families. What you don't understand is that there are lots of families who do respect the principal and love the school, even if you personally don't.

It will be interesting to see where neighborhood families end up over the next few years, as seats at Brent, Maury, SWS and Peabody are harder and harder to come by.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

Maybe 20 years ago it would have been absurd, but today it's not at all absurd. The game has changed, and the dinosaur mentality of just sitting back and automatically getting students in the door every year is no longer how things work. Schools and principals now have to EARN the respect of families, has to COMPETE for students, and work hard to RETAIN them if they wish to stay relevant, and for their schools to stay open. If a DC principal isn't in that mindset, isn't actively seeking out and welcoming in families, that principal will fast find failure no matter how everything else is going.

^OK, so what's the point of having "neighborhood" schools at all if they aren't serving neighborhoods? Why not just alter the status quo to reflect the reality of more than 80% of the kids coming in OOB as long as Cobbs stays and call LT something other than a neighborhood school, erm, a DCPS school with a city-wide draw, or a charter.

As the neighborhood population grows increasingly high-SES/white, LT grows LESS high-SES/white. You can watch this happening by checking new DCPS-furnished stats on the LT profile page every August. LT got up to 15% white in 2011, as of June it was down to around 9%. If the upper grades indeed rock, as you claim, why aren't the great majority of IB families remotely convinced?

LT gentrifiers simply want a school as open to change as Maury, a district in which demographics are very similar, not the sun, the moon and the stars.

Anonymous wrote:+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).

It is absurd to think a principal who is doing an EXCELLENT job would be replaced simply because you do not feel "welcomed enough."

I'm just confused on what you actually want the school to do? Provide a safe, enjoyable, and educational place for children's to spend their day? They do that. Provide
Healthy meals to all children? They do that. Provide children with educational and stimulating after school activities? They do that. Teach children how to read, and to quantify, and to find real world applications for these skills? We do that. I work at Ludlow & I'd love to know what else we can do to make you happy. We are only people. We all work really hard because we love children- All children- purple, pink, poor, rich. The kids are why we show up everyday. Come visit our upper grades. They Rock!

Anonymous wrote:There was plenty of community interest and involvement a few years back and it has died a slow death because the principal has zero interest in engaging the neighborhood.

The opposite happened at Brent, and it made all the difference. Without the school meeting the neighborhood half way, Brent could never have made the amazing turnaround it has (although I'm not sure it ever had as little community support as LT has).

Every in-bounds family I know with real skin in the game who started with kids in the early childhood program at LT has since left, many with hard feelings about being unwelcome and very negative experiences with the principal.

Until she's gone and replaced by someone willing to engage the neighborhood, there will be no Brent Miracle at LT.

+1000 Everyone has to do their part.. EVERYONE It can't just be a handful of cheerleading families, the school itself has to be supportive and willing to change, and there has to be a critical mass across ALL involved.

Well, the new reality is that LT families finally do have a neighborhood school they can fall in love with: SWS. There must be 2 dozen LT IB families there this year. Too bad it's up to the lottery gods to determine who gets in, but the place is filled with neighborhood families who literally walk past LT to get there.

I suspect SWS is going to siphon off so many LT families that the few left who can't get in there or Peabody won't ever have critical mass to press for change at LT.

+100. Far too easy to blame in-boundary parents for not trying hard enough to effect change. We learned the we couldn't the hard way, really a miserable experience. But I'd still be glad to rally neighbors to get a group together to meet with whomever replaces Tommy Wells to talk about LT's leadership issues (assuming that he'll see his mayoral race through).