Walter Reed PTSA Elects New Board

A new PTSA board was elected, and an old PTSA board helped by sharing and steering the launch of Carol Convey (new Walter Reed incoming PTSA President) into a future of support and active membership.

Principal, Donna Tobin, cheerfully shared strong hopes for good employment statistics for teachers, though these are tempered by the limitation on knowing what the District will actually do to the RIF notices, how they will settle the union negotiations, and how much (or little) their decisions will ultimately create staffing interferences.

There is some uncertainty about Walter Reed's future: how many teacher RIFs will result in actual teacher dismissals or displacements? What will the actual enrollment be in the fall? Will district-wide numbers rise?

Apparently, one of the results of the tug-a-war between advocates of high stakes testing, from Bush to Obama, is to add controversy and distrust in public education's mission. Enrollment in private schools, even in this blistered economy, has become more competitive.

The PTSA countered the obsession with "Reform at any price" and "Value Added" agendas with a commitment to maintaining their school's real, current value by bolstering technology, supporting the staff, and ultimately helping the kids remain in a safe, effective middle school.

Ms. Tobin explained the statistics, the hopes, the concerns, and she opened up a discussion that included the distressful revelation that millions of dollars were "found" recently, and nobody seems to have lost a job for misplacing it in the first place.

Video footage shows snippets of discussion of success with recent testing process, concerns about the numbers of students incoming (and how that directly affects the teachers staying).

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