Clinton Elementary: Principal O'Neill retiring

Hope that it's okay to post this here. I was genuinely bummed out to hear the news, but wish her all the best for the future. A truly incredible person.

October 5, 2014

Dear Clinton Families,

It is with incredibly mixed emotions that I write this letter to you. Over the past few months my priorities have shifted and therefore I am announcing my retirement effective January 31, 2016.

I have had the honor of growing up in Maplewood, attending our schools, proudly graduating as
Senior Class President from CHS, teaching at Jefferson and Maplewood Middle School, and
leading the Clinton community as Principal. My educational experiences and the people I have
collaborated with fostered my love of teaching and learning and the joy of observing the
academic, social, and emotional growth of our young scholars.

As Principal of Clinton Elementary School, the succession of leadership has always been a
priority for me. I am confident that the upcoming leadership transition will be seamless. I am
prepared to spend the time necessary to ensure that your new Principal understands and truly
appreciates how special this community is and how important it is to remain focused on the
needs of our students.

I am honored and so proud to have worked with such an amazingly talented and dedicated
community of teachers, staff members, family members, and administrative colleagues. My
hope is that our vision will continue and our community members will always remain cohesive,
vibrant, and dedicated to our Clinton kids and each other.

Sincerely,

Patricia O’Neill
Principal

I'm speechless. What a loss for Clinton.

I'm very sad. My son just started kindergarten and Principal O'Neill seems really terrific

she is a wonderful strong, kind force in the school. my family is heartbroken!

Sad for our kids, but wishing her all the best! The result of her strong leadership is an excellent administration. I feel confident that they will step up to any transitional challenges.

Words simply cannot express our dismay at this news. While we just wrapped up this past June at Clinton after eight (?) years, the loss for the district as a whole will be immeasurable. She is a true gem, and one of the most genuine and interactive leaders of children we've ever come across here or elsewhere. We wish her all the best and could not ever thank her enough for her stewardship of our children through their elementary years.

I've seen such lovely tributes here and on Facebook. I hope people will be able to express their gratitude to her directly as well!

Here's a hearty goodbye to possibly the meanest principal I could ever imagine.

This is a woman who (I personally observed, many times) chewing out kids, and then putting a smile on her face with a big hello when she realized the parent or another adult was within earshot.

This is a woman who looked at my learning disabled son and told me he's lazy, and asked 'what's the problem' when we asked for help.

This is a woman who told me that her teachers were too upset when I pushed them to Help my son Learn to READ - in 1st grade.

This is a woman who made my son, and me, cry for her lack of compassion and caring in an elementary school.

As far as I'm concerned - GOOD RIDDANCE - I hope I never see her again. Except maybe to tell her how awful she made my family feel and and of all of the expense and hardship she caused for us.

I am SURE we can find a better replacement and am overjoyed that we finally have the opportunity to do so.

free2b, dont count on people to really understand your son's disability. You will find a few people who get it, but most will not.

free2b said:
Here's a hearty goodbye to possibly the meanest principal I could ever imagine.
This is a woman who (I personally observed, many times) chewing out kids, and then putting a smile on her face with a big hello when she realized the parent or another adult was within earshot.
This is a woman who looked at my learning disabled son and told me he's lazy, and asked 'what's the problem' when we asked for help.
This is a woman who told me that her teachers were too upset when I pushed them to Help my son Learn to READ - in 1st grade.
This is a woman who made my son, and me, cry for her lack of compassion and caring in an elementary school.
As far as I'm concerned - GOOD RIDDANCE - I hope I never see her again. Except maybe to tell her how awful she made my family feel and and of all of the expense and hardship she caused for us.


I am SURE we can find a better replacement and am overjoyed that we finally have the opportunity to do so.

I don't doubt that your experience and frustrations were real, but this is literally the first negative thing I've ever heard about someone who has made a gigantic positive difference at that school. This morning I was explaining her retirement to the kids and joked that there would now be somebody new to yell at them when they did something wrong. The response: "but she would never yell at us if we did something wrong. She would say 'how can I help you behave differently next time?'" A lack of compassion and caring does not remotely jibe with my experience, or, I suspect, that of the vast majority of students and parents.

In support of both points of view, Principal O'Neill appears to have taken a school that was seen as 'less desirable', and turned it into a place a large majority of parents and students are proud of, enjoy being part of, and which now has a stellar reputation.

However, when it comes to students with special needs, I have heard free2b's story repeated several times. Some of my very good friends have taken their children out of Clinton because of how they, as parents, and their child (with a documented disability), were treated, spoken to, threatened, had results of independent evaluations ignored, and were not provided the recommended supports.

I don't really know how to conclude my thoughts, as they are very mixed between the many great things I have seen transpire under Ms. O'Neill's watch, as well as the disappointments.

I do wish both Ms. O'Neill and Clinton school the very best.

imonlysleeping said:

free2b said:
This is a woman who (I personally observed, many times) chewing out kids, and then putting a smile on her face with a big hello when she realized the parent or another adult was within earshot.

I don't doubt that your experience and frustrations were real, but this is literally the first negative thing I've ever heard about someone who has made a gigantic positive difference at that school. This morning I was explaining her retirement to the kids and joked that there would now be somebody new to yell at them when they did something wrong. The response: "but she would never yell at us if we did something wrong. She would say 'how can I help you behave differently next time?'" A lack of compassion and caring does not remotely jibe with my experience, or, I suspect, that of the vast majority of students and parents.

I can't and won't speak to any individual's experience with their child, but this most assuredly does not come close to our experience either, not just with our kids but in the general terms spoken of above. And I can say that with the utmost confidence as very VERY few have spent as much time in that school as we have during her full tenure. She may not be warm and fuzzy with parents, but it is what it is as long as her focus is on the kids (individual SpEd issues I've no connection with notwithstanding).

I can fully vouch for so much of what you said free2b. I'm so sorry for your experience -having witnessed some seriously shocking behavior on her part, we don't doubt your experience for a second.

Having sat with Ms. O'Neill many times (and also having been around the block a few times in life) I can tell you she cares about every single child who walks through Clinton's door. Her talents are not in communicating this to the children's parents, necessarily. Sadly, many learning disabled children do not get the help they need in our school district, nor do they in many schools throughout the country. Also, no individual is perfect. But Ms. O'Neill leaves our town and school community with an amazing community school.

I wish her well!

my experiences more along lines of Free2b, but just realized it isn't productive at this point when nothing can be done about it and things are moving along anyway. And things have turned out well for my son, so all's well that ends well.

You can call me a liar, but just because you didn't have a problem doesn't mean that I didn't have one. I would guess, if you liked her, you had a more "typical" child/learner.

She told me that the reason my son was crying during language arts was due to his behavior problems (not documented dyslexia)

She refused to acknowledge outside (numerous) evals from top docs

She refused to even consider any type of formalized help regardless of the fact that he was performing sub 10% in language arts because he excelled in math - and this despite ALL of his teachers (every year) referring him for intervention & speaking on our behalf.

All I can say is: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

I hope she was fired. It would serve her right. And I hope she sees this too.

@free2b, I don't see where anyone was calling you a liar here? If anything most have been empathetic to your experiences. My heart broke for you and your child reading your post.

I think it's very interesting that people have had such vastly different experiences with her. We're only a month in so we haven't had any interaction at all yet, but my son also does seem to be a "typical" learner so I'm not sure I'd be in a position to evaluate anyway. Sadly it seems that our district as a whole is not serving our special needs population in the best ways possible, but I'm not sure how we go about addressing that.

I have noticed in a variety of situations (some coaches for example), you have situations where the number of supporters vastly outnumber of dissatisfied parents. Nevertheless, it is important to listen to the complaints carefully and take appropriate action. Mostly good behavior does not excuse any bad behavior.

Obviously, being new to SoMa, I have no experience with Principal O'Neill, and am not zoned for Clinton anyway, but I do have a question--why was the principal involved with special services for children? Our son has never had the greatest speech--it can be clear sometimes, unclear at other times. We have had him evaluated before--in a very informal way--and nobody ever said he had a problem that needed to be addressed. However, after moving here, we have decided to get him officially evaluated. All we had to do was make a request from the district, and the wheels were set in motion. We met with his teacher, who did agree that his speech was unclear at times, but all the district needed to move forward was our asking for it. The principal is not involved in any way. As I said, I am just asking the question, but are there different kinds of services that require the principal's approval?

The building principal usually gets involved when there are issues - 504/IEP not being followed, parent is requesting child be evaluated and the district disagrees, issues with the Intervention & Referral Services process. But, for most cases, the principal doesn't get involved.

relx said:
Obviously, being new to SoMa, I have no experience with Principal O'Neill, and am not zoned for Clinton anyway, but I do have a question--why was the principal involved with special services for children? Our son has never had the greatest speech--it can be clear sometimes, unclear at other times. We have had him evaluated before--in a very informal way--and nobody ever said he had a problem that needed to be addressed. However, after moving here, we have decided to get him officially evaluated. All we had to do was make a request from the district, and the wheels were set in motion. We met with his teacher, who did agree that his speech was unclear at times, but all the district needed to move forward was our asking for it. The principal is not involved in any way. As I said, I am just asking the question, but are there different kinds of services that require the principal's approval?

I knew this rang a bell...

https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/discussion/id/83735--?page=1

relx said: why was the principal involved with special services for children?

Because that's how much she cares and how great she is. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished.

This thread reads like a weird Yelp restaurant review with dozens of appreciators and one flakey outlier trying to torch the whole thing down.

Actually, as an outsider I'm seeing something different and reasonably substantiated. Too much vitriol, but we all get worked up about our kids.