Should MCPS hire a turnaround specialist in anticipation of OHS fully losing its accredidation to preclude the state requiring it? And how should the position be funded? Or did Dr.Pope already hire a turnaround specialist when she brought in Dr. Werner?
Can Dr. Werner be McMom’s Turnaround Specialist at OHS?
December 8, 2011 by djb
McMom doesn’t think Dr Werner is the turnaround specialist that will fix our schools but she thinks he is a step in the right direction. At least now the kids and parents know who the principal is which is the first step in controlling the student population. OHS can’t be fixed until you fix the other 7 schools that feed into it. And Dr Werner still has much work to do! Dr Werner needs to weed out the ineffective teachers who are just checking in for a paycheck. He needs to get control of the some of the student’s behavior which can be quite appalling. Although I must say that most of the kids that I come in contact with from OHS are wonderful teens. Check each one as they enter the school..if they are violating dress code, call their parents. Eventually they will get tired of having to drive alternate outfits up to school and start being parents. Children need boundaries with consequences..most fall into line. Empty threats make non-believers. Haul those skippers back to school..check out KFC around lunchtime. Dr Werner’s been handed problems created by the elementary schools and inter/middle school. If the foundation sucks, the the building won’t remain standing.
McMom,
I was one meeting away from putting my child into JPII, or homeschooling, before I had a private meeting with Werner this summer, and I know he met privately with a number of parents, which was a good sign. The guy understands leadership, security, and that he can’t do it all. He’s just starting, a lot still needs to be done, especially in regard to behavior and discipline issues, but at least, he did his homework before the school year began, he understands the major problems in the school (many of which are noted in this thread), he gave no indication of being intimidated by them, only a Happy Warrior type attitude towards confronting the problems head on and solving them.
All good, let’s just hope the Happy Warrior doesn’t evolve, or is forced into the role of the Happy Talker where problems are masked by PR campaigns and busy festivities to keep the community distracted while the school sinks back into a swamp of chaos and police reports.
That being said, I should add that I would have never bothered making that appointment with Dr. Werner if my experience with the staff at the school, the registrar, the counselors, and front office staff wasn’t exceptional. Frankly, given the headlines and the stories I heard from both parents and students about Osbourn, I did not expect that level of professionalism and genuine kindness from a work force one would expect to be suffering from battle fatigue.
In short, it wouldn’t have matter if Dr. Werner, was Patton incarnated, if there wasn’t some solid base to work from to fix the school.
As for the teachers, unless they have a police record or lack the necessary credentials, I don’t see how it would be fair to judge or assess them until they have a decent environment to teach in and that is Dr. Werner’s and the MCPS’s job to provide them.
If you go out and look at the School District Dr. Werner came from, there is a wealth of information on line. Impressed the District even posted the line item budget format similar to what City of Manassas uses…none of that quick lump-sum posted by MCPS. Not bad for a district out in rural part of Virginia.
Turnaround Specialist? Perhaps but does he get 5 years too?
OHS is only 1 school with many hands in the pot when it comes to staff. If we are talking about low achieving students, where is Child Find? Where are the school psychologist, social workers, etc.? Are adequate staff members present at all times so that students feel safe and secure? Are they consistently enforcing the same rules for all students? That type of nonsense is very time consuming but unfortunately very real.
If we are talking about teacher ineffectiveness then we go to Central Office for some and Werner for others. If we are talking about cirriculum we still go to Central Office. How’s teacher morale throughout the entire city?
Child Find is a “review” of the child’s performance mostly developmentally before they enter school. Almost always they tell you nothing is wrong..wait until they are 8. Child Study occurs when the child is in school and there may be an issue. Either a parent or teacher can refer for evaluation. Any parent that has been through either process with the City can tell you that it is a struggle to say the least. One would expect that since it is the job of the school to teach, they would want to identify the problem early..as soon as they see red flags… and intervene. I’d bet money that a large number of the “behavior problems” in school are a direct result of the school’s failure to want to identify and mitigate “learning differences or disabilities” as the school calls them.
The problem with the schools is multi-layered but definitely intertwined. Some of the administration, some of the school board, some of the teachers, some of the curriculum and the list goes on…..some of every layer needs changed.
“Curriculum” some people have muddied the term, sorry
One way to fix some of the behavior and absentee problems would be to hold the student back instead of offering summer school. I don’t know how many times I heard “I don’t care, I’ll just go to summer school. I can pass by only going 4 hours a day for ??? Weeks.”
So many of the summer school students don’t care if they do their work or if they are disrupting classes. They interfere with other students learning time which in turn hurts every student.
When teachers complain about a consistently disruptive student the teacher is told to deal with it. (at least that is how it used to be at OHS)
ISD (in school detention) at OHS used to be a joke too. Kids didn’t mind being sent there as that really wasn’t a punishment in their eyes. So that should be looked at.
Drugs are a huge problem at OHS and that needs to be dealt with.
Most students at the high school are great kids. Even the ones that cause problems do so because most of them have a situation at home that they can’t cope with. So the school needs to delve further into the problem kids and what is going on at home. I’m not sure how to do that but intervention would go along way to help here. I know they do intervine with some of them but not enough.
Just a few thoughts of mine from observing OHS for three years. I hope Dr Werner is making a difference and I wish him luck as he inherited a mess.
Maureen,
You identified precisely the areas where OHS needs to focus on and address, not the ridiculously busy and superfluous action points of Education Forward.
Is Dr. Werner making a difference? Still a lot of discipline and behavoir problems, where students think they can directly challenge the authority of the teachers in the classroom, but I’ll tell you this, my one test of the system saw an impressive response from the teacher all the way up thru the ranks to Werner, the teacher, especially was outstanding and thoughtful in how he handled a serious discipline problem.
Let’s hope he gets more support and has more authority than our previous principal was allowed to have. That would go a long way regarding the complacency that has set in and lack of previos respect for the position.
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