Washington Middle School Woes

 Below is a letter that Washington Middle School parents received from the principal.  Frankly, I was gobsmacked at seeing so many issues and that the principal seems to want to place blame on HCC  for several of them.  Additionally, the situation that WMS is in seems to show that Capital and Facilities do not seem to understand what happens when they take large numbers of students from one building to another in the name of "capacity management."
I'll preface by saying that I know, in past years, Washington Middle School was a fine school.  But over the last several years there has been upheaval over the Spectrum program, the music program and, of course, the reopening of Meany Middle School that saw about 500 students leave WMS.   That's a big hit for a school to have (we should also recall Whitman Middle School).

Most of the issues in this letter are man-made.  The principal chooses to blame the former principal for some of it.  But much of this lays at the feet of Teaching and Learning.  (Just to note, who's the Executive Director for Washington Middle School? No surprise to me, it's Sarah Pritchett who somehow seems to be the lead for many schools that end up with these kinds of issues.)

- Using LAP money wrongly - how did that happen? I'm a little shocked to see this admitted so plainly.
- No entry-level music courses - how did that happen?  I'm astonished to learn this is so.
- The school was "hoping" for an allocation for a teacher thru the summer. That's no way to plan for a school year.
- We had very few applicants, and, like Garfield High School, we were unable to find anyone to hire.
What's up with SPS' inability to hire foreign language teachers?  This seems to be now a perennial problem at Garfield.
- I don't question the principal's commitment but working up to the very end of summer on scheduling seems a formula for bad outcomes.  Again, what was the district doing?
- "...world language courses were to be taken almost exclusively by students in the Highly Capable program."  So it's the fault of HCC students and their parents because they enrolled?  Why aren't more students across the board enrolling?  I'm confident in saying that I'm sure that these courses are open to all.
- Students who were enrolled in French 1B and Japanese 1B will be given the opportunity to take the course on-line.  I'm going to assume this is cheaper than a teacher but what is the cost? And what about students who don't have computer access (or is this at school)?
- Instead, we have opened up four new sections of an innovative, entry-level music course that will enable 120 students who were not previously enrolled in music courses to participate in our music program. This is great but why hasn't there been an entry-level music course previous to this?

I have written to the Board and senior staff on this issue.  I ended that email saying that sometimes it is very hard to be supportive of this district.

Good evening, Washington Families,
We had a strong start to the week with great community-building taking place in advisories and at an all-school assembly on Wednesday and Thursday.  Due to scheduling problems, Friday was not a strong day at WMS, and for that I am ultimately responsible.
Many of you have questions and concerns about your child's schedule.  To give some context, the schedule was developed by previous administration with the hope that the school would receive an additional teacher allocation, which means that it included a position the school did not have. We were not given additional positions during the summer.  The position we needed but did not have funding for was an English Language Arts position, which is particularly concerning given just 29% of our students not served in any of the district's gifted programs have met grade-level standards. 

Throughout the summer, we were also searching for a teacher or teacher(s) for our French and Japanese courses.  We had very few applicants, and, like Garfield High School, we were unable to find anyone to hire.  Given both budgetary and hiring challenges, we decided to use the position to address the bigger priority of not having enough ELA teachers. This was a decision made early on Tuesday, 9/5, after the last lead we had for a teacher fell through and Garfield HS sent out a message to its families stating that first year French and Japanese will not be offered to students until the 2019-2020 school year.  Students who were enrolled in French 1B and Japanese 1B will be given the opportunity to take the course on-line.  Students enrolled in Spanish 1B will take that course.  Despite working late nights, all day on Wednesday and Thursday during Strong Start, and literally all night Thursday evening/early Friday morning, I was unable to get all students fully scheduled for Friday morning.  I’ve worked the majority of today and will work all day tomorrow in order to have them ready when your children come to school on Monday morning.
Many of you have questions about world language at WMS.  I have been impressed by WMS families' interest in and commitment to equity.  While world language is not a content area often thought of on par with English, Math, Social Studies, or Science, it is, unlike PE, music, technology, or fine arts courses, very often a requirement for admissions to college.  Exposure in middle school is important for all students and is a typical part of middle school programs in grade 8.  In reviewing course requests developed in the spring based not only on student interest but also the school's staffing capacity, world language courses were to be taken almost exclusively by students in the Highly Capable program.  83% of the 220 students were slated to take world language were in the HCC program, despite that group representing just over half of our student population; only thirteen were black (20% of our population) and nine Hispanic (just under 10% of our population).  Given the inequity in these figures as well as budgetary issues in other areas, we pushed all enrollment in first level world language to the 2019-2020 school year, and will spend the next budget and scheduling planning year identifying ways to ensure 100% of our 8th graders have access to world language.
Similarly, our music program has almost exclusively served HCC students.  Seventy-five percent of students who were slated to be enrolled in music this school year were in HCC and just 14% were black or Hispanic, and, due to our offering of four levels of band and orchestra and a course not offered at the high school level in Eclectic Strings, there were no opportunities to offer survey-level music courses which are standard in middle school.  When our famed orchestra teacher resigned two weeks before school started, it was not only a tremendous loss to the community, but an opportunity to increase all students’ access to our incredible music program.  We reduced our performance levels from four to three, which is in alignment with Garfield HS, and while difficult, decided to eliminate the course offering of Eclectic Stings/Fiddlers, which served only 17 students.  Instead, we have opened up four new sections of an innovative, entry-level music course that will enable 120 students who were not previously enrolled in music courses to participate in our music program.
When you view your child’s schedule next week, keep in mind that we are not only a public school, but also a small, public school.  Washington lost over 500 students in the last year and a half, which was almost half of its general fund or baseline budget. 

Additionally, almost 20% of our budget comes from additional Levy and LAP funding, which is exclusively for serving our students living in poverty and not meeting grade-level standards.  That is funding that has not always gone towards that purpose, but in making this year’s revised schedule, it was.  Given our advanced learning programs, we are a middle school that not only needs to offer intervention courses for more than a third of our population that is not meeting grade-level standards, but we also have offered upper-level high school courses atypical for middle school including Algebra 2, Chemistry, and Biology, all without receiving additional funding for students identified as ‘gifted’. 

In middle schools, it is typical for all students to take a rotation of PE/health, music, visual art, and computer/technology.  Choice at the middle school level is often limited to whether or not a student opts to be in band, choir, or the general music course.  This is in part because middle school is all about breadth and exposure, while high school begins to be more about depth.  As consistent with past practice, all 6th graders will take Health and PE.  I have worked extremely hard to ensure that all students who requested band, choir, or orchestra were placed in those courses.  Seventh and eighth graders will take a rotation of art, technology, the new music course or PE.  The school may not be able to honor all requests to waive PE courses as was done in the past.  Aside from music, our second largest elective department is PE/Health, with two teachers, and getting physical activity during the school day is beneficial to learning in middle grades in particular with the absence of recess.
I will send another update tomorrow afternoon/evening.  Your patience and understanding is appreciated as we work hard to finish tomorrow.
Mrs. Butler Ginolfi, Principal

Update:  a couple of articles about the principal, Emily Butler Ginolfi.  The first is from an Indiana newpaper, an inspirational piece;

“Emily’s successful methodology learned in athletics carried over into the classroom. She always wanted to teach at a ‘hard-knocks-kind-of’ school. Emily says the best thing she learned from me was to tell students something important at least three times,” said Wrenn, 

It appears she only stayed at that post one year.

This other piece, decidedly not inspirational, is from the Chalkbeat education blog, about a previous post in Indianapolis. 

Indianapolis Public Schools’ George Washington High School has lost more than a third of its teachers this summer after what the district acknowledged was a difficult transition year under a new leader.

The change wasn’t confined to teachers. Of the 116 total staff — teachers, administrators and support workers — nearly 40 won’t return, including vice principals, front office secretaries and a dean.
What's troubling is this pattern:

Butler said she was working around the clock — including scheduling multiple interviews on weekends — to get all the positions filled by the first day of school just two weeks from today.

The same problem happened last year, after Butler was hired late in the summer. Students and parents complained of substitutes filling in for months until teachers were hired.

end of update