Race to Nowhere
The education documentary, Race to Nowhere, will have a screening at Roosevelt High, sponsored by Bryant Elementary PTSA, Roosevelt High School and Assumption-St. Bridget School tomorrow night, Monday the 31st at 7 p.m.
Online tickets are available here; $10 for adults and $5 for students. General admission tickets will be sold at the door for $15. Student tickets will be $5 at the door.
In the same vein, I note that Roger Ebert, the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, softened his thumbs up review of Waiting for Superman. He tweeted, “Why maybe ‘Waiting for Superman’ wasn’t all that it seemed. If I’d known, my review would have been different.” He then put a link to the Valerie Strauss article about the film in the Washington Post.
On a different note, I was checking for information at the Bryant website and noticed that they have two principals. Anyone know why that is?
Online tickets are available here; $10 for adults and $5 for students. General admission tickets will be sold at the door for $15. Student tickets will be $5 at the door.
In the same vein, I note that Roger Ebert, the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, softened his thumbs up review of Waiting for Superman. He tweeted, “Why maybe ‘Waiting for Superman’ wasn’t all that it seemed. If I’d known, my review would have been different.” He then put a link to the Valerie Strauss article about the film in the Washington Post.
On a different note, I was checking for information at the Bryant website and noticed that they have two principals. Anyone know why that is?
Comments
Maybe they are thinking of splitting Bryant into 2 schools, since the program at Sand point did not attract families from Bryant attendance area and Bryant continues to grow beyond its capacity.
Bryant neighbor
Can you be more specific about why you say that the co-principal system at Bryant is "not working very well"? I know Bryant is way too full and I know there are problems that come with that, so I'm curious to know what think about the principal situation.
-Curious parent
I believe that the problems stem from the new principals making changes and being more controlling of teachers, classrooms & programs and not supporting the culture & programs built up in previous years. Bryant has had a long time philosophy of "keep our head down & maybe the district will leave us alone". I think that era is over.
And the leadership may be more divided than shared. So that adds to culture difficulties.
One caveat is that a couple of staff changes have evidently led to tremendous improvement in special ed at Bryant. Though I do not know how ICS is going in the classrooms.
If I were touring Bryant this year I would ask the parent tour guide what has changed & how the 2 principals are working together.
Bryant neighbor
How and why the superintendent decided to make Ms Everly a co-prinicpal at Bryant is a pure mystery.
The only other school with two principals is Rainier Beach High School, and the reduction to one principal at that school is on the list for budget reductions at $150K.
I don't know why reducing Bryant to one principal isn't also on the list. I will suggest it to the Board.
The co-principal model is not paid for under WSS. Neither principal seemed willing to pick up the things done by the head teacher. Both principals need to go to all the meetings downtown which take principals out of their buildings often. Imagine the redundancy in staff meetings & communications. It is a much less effective and more expensive leadership model. And was created with no input from Bryant.
I can't imagine why. Would love to hear the explanation on this one.
Bryant on the other hand has almost 600 students. It is almost double the size of RBHS and will need a co-principal, Dean or head teacher. The saving at Bryant would only be the difference between the Co-principal and AP/Dean/Head Teacher salary.
The Bryant co-principal was reassigned from a "failing" school. Looks to me like a political answer from MGJ to a political situation. Anyone remember McGilvra? There may be a pattern here. A thinking person might guess that there is some behind the scenes hr maneuvering happening with parents expected to be the trigger. If that is the case, and I don't know that it is, it is a cruddy way to handle it. The New! Ed Directors should handle it.
-skeptical-
DeBell tut-tutted about this practice and furrowed his brow a little, but I'm not sure he did anything about it.
Why the supt doesn't have the temerity and integrity to follow the process and do the job herself is the real question here.
I see this as passive-aggressive buck-passing. It also comes at a cost to the school communities who have these situations foisted upon them and who end up doing the district's dirty work.
All of which is why I am highly suspicious of principal placements by this superintendent. There seems to be a political agenda behind them that has nothing to do with what's best for the school communities -- or even the principals. Who's to say what makes a principal 'problematic' in this supt's eyes.
Why, for example, did MGJ send Center School's Escobar down to RBHS in the first place? I heard she didn't want to go. Clearly she was not welcome or happy there, and it didn't last (both RBHS principals are being transferred according to the Rainier Valley paper).
Makes one wonder, doesn't it.
--sue p.
The School Board President, Michael DeBell, acknowledged that the Superintendent intentionally sent bad principals to schools with strong communities with the expressed purpose of using the communities' strength as leverage to fire the principal?!?!!
And he was OKAY with that?!?!!!
Not only is that a COMPLETELY inappropriate way for her to handle her staff, it is abusive to communities.
So that's now the reward for having a strong community? A string of ineffective principals for you to complain out of the district? Even if it is just one principal and that principal is there for just one year, that means three principals in three years for that school, which is an intolerable instability of leadership. Even the strongest schools will be seriously harmed by that kind of turnover.
She really needs to find so other way to confront these principals herself.
No. She needs to go. That is COMPLETELY unacceptable. If Director DeBell knew that she was doing this and he didn't immediately direct her to undo it, then he needs to go also. This isn't a governance/management question. Governance demands that she not abuse communities like that.
Let's presume the process works the same for her. If there are enough complaints, then shouldn't she also be fired?
If MG-J is counting on strong schools to get rid of bad principals then she should put together a template to describe the process and distribute it to all PTSAs. Has she done this? I have no idea.