Wayzata Central Middle School

I have worked in education for a long time, and I feel compelled to share my experience about this building. The teachers are the heartbeat of this building. They are compassionate, resilient, strong, and determined. I watched these teachers go out of their way to provide exceptional educational experiences to students at home during the pandemic. The community of teachers here is truly wonderful and strong. What is happening behind the scenes at this school is heartbreaking. Most of the community is familiar with the district cost containment by now. With the district experiencing financial losses, there unfortunately has to be a reduction in the teaching staff. While many districts are experiencing financial losses post pandemic, the way this building has decided to handle the staff reductions has been incredibly demeaning and sad. I watched several colleagues, all of whom were outstanding educators, lose their job because they were simply "too educated." Of course, in the education system, being more educated means the district must pay you a greater salary...and hence these teachers are the first to go. As teachers, it is our goal to nurture lifelong learning amongst our students. Why is this penalized from administers in the district? How can one be punished for pursuing higher education as a teacher? The way administration handled some of these layoffs was done without compassion, empathy, or kindness. I would love to ask the principal team, "How would you feel if your son or daughter was fired from a job because they were too educated?" In turn, don't we want our students in the community to experience teachers who have mastered their craft? As someone who has had to stand by and watch, it has been painful to see the way this building has started to devolve from the top. With so many teachers fleeing education, we need to be working endlessly to keep them around. The admin team unfortunately is still struggling with this. I hope they are able to find a way to partner with their teachers and to treat them with respect and empathy, just as we are expected to do with our students. I truly hope that community members ask the board more questions about how they are handling staff reductions. I also hope that superintendent Chace Anderson is able to address some of these pivotal issues as the year continues.

The teaching staff is not treated well by members of the administration. How can we expect our students to maximize their learning potential when there is a toxic school culture? Support our teachers before we lose more and more of them. We have phonomenal teachers at this school who deserve the respect and empowerment from those above.

With the district cost containment, many programs are being eliminated next year.Students will not have access to reading intervention services. Since COVID, there are so many gaps with literacy specifically. Eliminating additional support services is a tremendous disservice to our students. Additionally, other programs like FACS & after school activities are being reduced. While the pandemic hit all schools hard, I have not noticed other districts being impacted to this extent. I have many questions for this district as to how money is being allocated. I wish the school board would address this further. Additionally, team sizes continue to become smaller and class sizes are increasing. If we want our children to have a personalized education experience, is having increasing class sizes the answer? At its peak, some grade levels had 5 color teams per grade level. Since then, it continues to grow smaller with one team even being split between seventh and eighth grades. Moreover, this building in particular has seen significant teacher turnover. Will this ever be adddressed to the community? Why are some of our most beloved teachers leaving this building? This school has left me with many concerns, the teachers are not one of them. I am hoping the school board can work to make changes with all that’s happening in this building.

The current admin team needs some major work. Our family misses principal Doten so much. Many of our children’s favorite teachers are no longer working at this school. We are unsure of why that is, but the district has been very apparent about their major budget cuts. My guess would be the district trying to save $$ by getting rid of experienced educators. I am not sure why this school continues to lose some of their best. It has made me feel disappointed. It seems like this building in particular is a completely different staff compared to when my oldest went through a few years ago. The turnover continues to be shocking and does not appear to be happening at other schools in the district, like East & West. Why does this building have so much of that? Building leaders are hard to get ahold of and have not executed any change or headway when sharing our concerns regarding some instances of bullying and harassment. My child was directed to some sort of form to fill out with no follow up afterwards. Disappointing.

Super disappointing admin team in the 2022-2023 school year. Very inexperienced and hard to contact. This school has a rotating door of principals, they can’t seem to hold on to one for very long. Lots of teacher turnover. Large class sizes. Minimum mental health support. Lots of “talk” about equity but not a lot of “walk.” Incredible teachers that I don’t believe are appreciated enough. This school is bursting at the seams with students…very large student body. I will be looking to open enroll in Minnetonka districts.