For the second year in a row, parents and teachers at J.O. Wilson Elementary School are selecting a new principal — but many remain unhappy that this year’s principal wasn’t asked to return.
Principal Guye Turner, who was hired last year to lead the elementary school at 660 K St. NE, was informed on April 26 that his contract would not be renewed and resigned shortly thereafter. DC Public Schools principals operate under one-year contracts, though new Chancellor Lewis Ferebee has expressed a willingness to consider a switch to multi-year terms.
Turner’s sudden resignation is another point of contention for the school, with its last two school years beset by principal and teacher turnover as well as allegations of teacher misconduct and bullying among teachers and parents.
Serving parts of NoMa, Stanton Park, Kingman Park and the Union Station area, the school has 538 students from prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds through fifth grade. About 80 percent of the students are African American, and about half of the students are classified as at-risk, based on criteria such as enrollment in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. On the city’s standardized tests last year, a third met or exceeded expectations on English Language Arts standards, with slightly fewer doing so in math; the median academic growth exceeded the DC average in both English Language Arts and math by five to 10 percentage points.
After Turner’s resignation, Ferebee and Melissa M. Kim, deputy chancellor for social, emotional and academic development, hosted a public meeting with parents, teachers and community members — many of whom disagreed with the decision not to renew Turner’s contract — in a packed J.O. Wilson cafeteria on May 7. It quickly turned tense, as did a follow-up session held on May 15.
Parents called for transparency regarding Turner’s evaluation and the decision not to renew his contract. Many said his resignation was forced, not voluntary, and grilled Ferebee and DCPS leadership for answers as to why. Chancellor Ferebee continued to reiterate that Turner decided on his own to resign.
DCPS evaluates its principals twice annually — mid-year and toward the end of the school year — based on a “leadership framework” that assesses instruction, talent, personal leadership, family and community, operations, and school culture.
Several parents at the May 7 meeting told Ferebee they were confused how Turner could have received poor scores, citing achievements they saw at the school under his eight months of leadership, including increased test scores and a safer learning environment.
“We want J.O. to be a bedrock for this community, and there’s no reason it can’t be,” said Emily Pappas, a J.O. Wilson parent who helped mobilize parents in support of Turner and was elected to be one of the parents on the interviewing panel for the new principal. “When it’s on a path to excelling, that’s not when you take out leadership.”
Parents asked to see Turner’s evaluation scores, but the chancellor said he could not grant such requests due to the confidentiality of personnel records. When asked, he did not specify the reasons for Turner not being asked to return.
Pappas said she was “absolutely not” happy with how the May 7 meeting went. “When you come to a meeting about transparency and start it off with lies, you’re not going to win over the 120-plus parents, students and teachers that were here,” she said.
Another parent, Larry Gill agreed. “Parents are asking very detailed questions about process, about timeline, about metrics that involve the success or failure of a school and [haven’t been] given any answers. That was really troubling to me,” he said after the meeting.
Gill also expressed frustrations with the timing of the school system’s notification to parents that Turner would not be returning. The announcement came during PARCC testing for the upper grades in the elementary school and in the midst of lottery season — after results had already been announced, and just days before the enrollment deadline. “DCPS didn’t pay attention to their own timelines, and now we have to end the school year without a principal,” Gill told The DC Line in an interview.
The newly selected principal will take over this summer for interim principal Franchita Eborn, who stepped in after Turner’s resignation.
In a letter to parents and families sent a day after the meeting, the deputy chancellor thanked those in attendance for their time and advocacy. “The passions expressed are an indication of the level of investment we all have in the future of our children, and your voice does matter,” Kim wrote. She also acknowledged the community’s concern with the decisions made.
A week later, representatives from the school system’s Office of Talent and Culture (OTC) and Office of Family and Public Engagement (OFPE) met with J.O. Wilson parents and teachers on the school campus to begin the selection of a community panel to participate in interviewing candidates for the open position.
The posters and markers laid out for group brainstorming sat untouched for the majority of the meeting. Parents who attended said it was difficult to be expected to jump into a new selection process when the news of Turner’s departure was still “raw and sensitive.”
Despite acceptance of the need to move forward with selecting a new principal, parents said they were still especially frustrated with instructional superintendent Aileen Murphy, who attended but didn’t speak at either of the parent meetings. As J.O. Wilson’s principal reports directly to her, parents wanted to hear more from Murphy about her decisions in the evaluation process. At the May 15 meeting with DCPS officials, a parent called Murphy out for not addressing the concerns being raised; Murphy responded that the parent was being “disrespectful” but refused to speak otherwise.
Parents even asked if it was possible to place J.O. Wilson under the purview of a different instructional superintendent, saying they didn’t feel Murphy provided Turner the support and attention he needed. Each DCPS school falls into one of nine “clusters” under the leadership of a different instructional superintendent. Officials running the meeting said they weren’t the ones to make such a change; neither Ferebee nor Kim was there that night.
Several parents wanted to know what types of support DCPS will offer this time to ensure the success of a new principal, saying they were not convinced that parents wouldn’t be in the same position again next year.
Other parents wanted to make clear they think DCPS needs to provide more support and attention to J.O. Wilson no matter what leadership is in place. “You can’t talk about principal turnover and not talk about teacher turnover,” J.O. Wilson parent Andrea Tucker said in an interview. “My children have been in this school for nine years, and they’re still underserved.”
Last week the J.O. Wilson community selected representatives to the panel that will conduct interviews with prospective candidates today, although some parents say they are disappointed to see people on the panel whom they blame for Turner’s departure. The panel will relay its feedback and recommendations to Ferebee, who will make his selection soon afterward, with the intention of the new principal meeting the J.O. Wilson community before the school year ends on June 14.
Too bad parents are unaware of the real facts