Parents, Teachers Protest Principals' Styles

J.G. Whittier Elementary fifth-graders Jose Giron, left, Jocelyn Varela and Kayla Butler welcome those attending a service for counselor Alejandra Nicó. Emotions have been running high at the school since Nicó died suddenly last week. (Photos By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)

Principals at two well-regarded D.C. public schools have become the target of demonstrations and organized efforts to oust them because parents, and in one case teachers, too, have lodged complaints about their management styles.

Protesters are demanding a greater voice in the way Natasha Warsaw at J.G. Whittier Elementary and Melissa Kim at Alice Deal Junior High run their schools. Whittier teachers are looking for more input in school decisions, and a group of parents at Deal say Kim has an abrasive style and too harshly punishes black and Hispanic students for minor infractions.

Emotions also are running high at Whittier after the death of a popular counselor last week.

Warsaw had big goals for her school on Fifth Street NW. Fresh from a training year as a middle school assistant principal, she said she planned to start a dual-language immersion program and an International Baccalaureate program. She scoured professional associations for seminars that could provide her teachers with the latest training in their fields.

Kim, who has support from some PTA members, said she worked hard all year to get more diverse parental representatives on the school's parent-community leadership team and to bring in academic supports that would help struggling African American and Hispanic students.

Warsaw and Kim are graduates of the New Leaders for New Schools program, a national nonprofit organization that runs a competitive principal-training program focused on improving academic achievement in urban environments. D.C. executive director Jacquelyn Davis said she expects principals will come under fire as they make changes. "While every situation is different, New Leaders for New Schools is committed to working with our principals and the school community to refocus the adults on providing a high-quality education for every student," Davis said in a statement.

As Warsaw sought to change school policies to reflect her ideas, such as changing the student lunch period from total silence to one in which the school's 376 students can speak, the teachers complained to one another, and then to their union, that their input was ignored and years of experience at the school was discounted. They said Warsaw had a style that was more dictatorial than collegial.

Teachers drew up a list of 57 complaints, including that Warsaw has different expectations of different teachers. They also held demonstrations outside the school and circulated among parents a petition to city leaders calling for the principal's removal.

The conflict between teachers and parents and Warsaw, 34, came to a head last week with the news that the counselor, Alejandra Nicó, 28, had died unexpectedly. Her colleagues say she was among the principal's most vocal critics. Her fiance, Lawrence Richmond, 27, said she had been playing flag football at a Maryland park when she collapsed and was later pronounced dead. He is awaiting results of an autopsy.

Tenia Pritchard, the Washington Teachers' Union building representative for Whittier, said that teachers have been extremely stressed by the tense school climate, and Nicó's death was another blow. Warsaw said a difficult year grew even tougher with the news of Nicó's death. "Her service to the school was so valuable," Warsaw said in an interview.

The lesson she has learned from the turmoil, Warsaw said, is to make changes more slowly.

"For me, there's a real tension around saying that, because there's a real urgency for change," said Warsaw, who said she considers education to be a civil rights issue.