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Because I didn't post over the weekend, today I'll review the most active threads since Friday. The most active thread during that period was titled, "Call to discuss the state of Hardy 05/15/23" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools". Initially this thread started with a question by the original poster asking about an urgent call involving Hardy Middle School, a DC Public Schools middle school located in Georgetown. Posters were fairly tight-lipped about the call in question, but it was implied that it was a conference call involving school parents. Subsequent posts revealed that the primary topic of the call, perhaps the only topic, was parents' loss of faith in Errol Johnson, the school's principal, and their desire to have him replaced. Just four days after the thread was started, Johnson was indeed removed. For me, this brought back memories of a similar controversy involving Hardy from over a decade ago. At that time, parents of inbound students had rallied to demand the removal of Principal Patrick Pope who inbound families viewed as overly supportive of out-of-bounds students to the detriment of inbound students. This resulted in allegations that the inbound families — largely wealthy and White — were using their privilege to disadvantage out-of-bounds families who were predominately (but far from entirely) people of color. As soon as Johnson's removal became known, several posters made similar allegations, complaining that wealthy White families had unfairly pushed out a Black principal with little input from people of color. While the speed with which Johnson was removed was remarkable, I see some fundamental differences between the Johnson and Pope incidences. Pope was clearly removed because inbound families wanted to see the school remade with a focus on its role as a neighborhood school. Regardless of the legitimacy of that position, it had an obvious negative impact on people of color. There was a certain amount of truth in the allegation that White people were taking over a school that, in their opinion, catered far too much to Black students. In the case of Johnson, while those organizing against him appear to be primarily White, their efforts seem to be aimed at protecting the interests of all students. Their complaints involve the principal's communications, managerial, and decision-making abilities. While I may have missed it in this nearly 40-page thread, I don't see many complaints about Johnson's removal coming from the school's parents. Rather, those standing up for Johnson and complaining about his treatment appear to be a small number of teachers. DCPS can often have a "crabs in the barrel" tendency, something that is reflected in some posts. For instance, there are posts from parents with children at other DCPS schools complaining that Hardy parents were able to get almost immediate attention while their schools are largely ignored. I would argue that the problem is not Hardy's issues being addressed, but that other schools don't get similar treatment. Don't blame Hardy for that, blame DCPS.