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From left to right: Miranda, grade 8, Malachi, grade 7, and their mom, Sherry Woods, standing in front of Hardy Middle School. (9/15/10)
Until he was “promoted” to a school that does not exist this summer, Patrick Pope was the popular principal of the high-achieving Hardy Middle School. Miranda Woods, an eighth grade student at Hardy, said of Pope, “He knew everyone by name and he knew everything about every single kid. He was just great. He listened to kids… He’s the perfect principal you could ever want.”
Malachi, a seventh grade student at Hardy, agreed with his older sister, “Mr. Pope, he was a very effective principal and every student, no matter who they were, they could be the slacker of the whole school, but everybody respected him. He was friendly. He wasn’t strict. Like Miranda said, he knew everybody’s name and he knew your character.”
Both Miranda and Malachi were part of group of students who attempted to organize a sit-in strike on Wednesday in order to protest the removal of Pope as principal, as well as other changes that have been made at Hardy which they feel have been detrimental. At 1:00 PM, the students planned on silently leaving their classrooms and marching to the auditorium where they hoped to discuss their concerns with Principal Dana Nerenberg.
Instead, word of the protest got out and right around 1:00 PM, coincidentally, there was a fire drill which forced students to leave the building. Wednesday evening, Hardy parents received both a robo call and an email from Principal Nerenberg which said much the same thing. In the email, Nerenberg wrote, “I wanted to clarify we had a scheduled fire drill today (and our students evacuated swiftly and efficiently).”
Some members of the Hardy community question the veracity of Nerenberg’s claim. They point to the lack of notice for the “scheduled fire drill,” along with its suspect timing which coincided with the planned start of the student protest.
According to Miranda, when the students initially tried to leave class for their attempted sit-in strike, “they stopped us and told us we had to go back to our classes and they were taking our stickers [which read “Hope for Pope” and “Gray for Mayor”] and everyone went back to their classes confused on what had happened. Then we were in class and they called a fire drill and no one was expecting it.”
Despite not being able to carry out their planned protest, the students were able to express themselves. As they exited the building for the “scheduled fire drill,” as well as upon their return, the students loudly chanted “Hope for Pope,” Miranda said.
Nerenberg may be acting out of fear, according to Miranda: “They’re so scared that the 7th and 8th grade, not even the whole 7th and 8th grade, is going to do something that’ll hurt them or their reputation or their nice jobs and nice salaries that they get now for being a principal. They’re so afraid we’re going do something that’ll hurt them, even if we do it in the best way possible. It’s really frustrating and it’s really sad that they are so strict and, just, wrong. I mean, they can’t do this to us.”
This is not the first time that Miranda and Nerenberg have bumped heads. Miranda said, “Principal Nerenberg has come up to me and told me that I couldn’t pass out stickers that say “Hope for Pope” or “Go Gray” on them because it was – first she said that that wasn’t in the uniform, which I later found out nothing says anything against stickers and buttons in the uniform, so she didn’t tell me the truth on that. And secondly, she told me that I couldn’t have stuff that said “Gray for Mayor” because it was illegal on school grounds. And I told her that I was allowed to as long as it wasn’t an official logo, which is the truth. And that just silenced her. She expected me to take her little sorry excuse… and I was expected to do as she said.”
Wednesday’s protest followed Tuesday’s victory of D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray over Mayor Adrian Fenty. Malachi said of the election results, “I’m actually happy because I don’t know if this city could have survived another four years with Mayor Fenty, especially when he lets his Chancellor Michelle Rhee do anything she wants without any consulting.”
Sherry Woods, the proud mother of Miranda and Malachi, is a staunch supporter of Vincent Gray, as indicated by the “Gray for Mayor” writing on the back windows of her minivan. While Fenty and Rhee engineered the removal of Pope as principal, Gray held hearings and expressed deep concern over the move. Now, as the presumptive mayor-elect, Gray will soon be in a position to reinstate Pope.
Sherry said, “If Mayor-elect Vincent Gray made that decision, I would be ecstatic if he returned Principal Pope to leadership at Hardy Middle School. I think it would be the right thing to do.”