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As concerned parents and community members of Mt. Washington Elementary School (“MWES”) in the Los Angeles Unified School District (“District”), we are writing this petition to call for the removal of Susan Morris as Principal at MWES.

From the beginning of her tenure, Principal Susan Morris’s actions have demonstrated poor communication, professional inexperience, poor leadership skills and a lack of sound judgment. MWES is one of the top rated schools in LAUSD Region East, but we fear it won’t be for much longer under Principal Morris. Her decisions deprioritize our students and create an unwelcome environment for the community. Examples of her actions that have negatively impacted MWES and our community include, but are not limited to:

1. Poor Communication
   Voice calls, in-person visits, and emails do not receive a timely response, if Ms. Morris responds at all. Her communication often contains misinformation, mistakes, and is not transparent. The poor communication has led parents to lose trust in the principal. There is also a consistent pattern of Ms. Morris waiting until the last minute to address issues - leading to delays in programming and leaving parents and staff with little to no time to problem solve.
   
   For example, despite having permit renewal notices as early as February, Ms. Morris chose not to release the renewal forms to existing parents until after Spring Break. When finally released, the initial communication around enrollment was later revoked for inaccuracies. Both returning and new parents have been waiting on clear, regular communication regarding enrollment policies and plans for the 2024-25 school year since March. The late communication has made it almost impossible for affected parents to apply to other schools. Many families were left in limbo as to where their students will end up next year.
   
   
2. Student Safety
   Bullying and negative physical behaviors have increased at the school due to little or inadequate follow up from Ms. Morris. In-class bullying, including verbal and physical altercations, have gone largely unaddressed by Ms. Morris. If provided, her solutions are neither timely nor effective. Rather than dealing with problematic behavior individually, Ms. Morris implements blanket solutions that do not resolve the negative behaviors, but instead penalizes all students. For instance the playground "zones": many children have vocalized their unhappiness with this more restrictive format and even started a petition. Injuries and bullying continue to occur despite the playground zones.
   
   
3. Inexperience
   Ms. Morris routinely shows a lack of understanding of processes, district policies or the ability to answer basic questions. She often makes decisions-based on those misunderstandings-that negatively affect the students and the larger Mount Washington community. Her decisions fail to consider the wider impacts of her actions. Most questions asked to her are unanswered, that she would need to consult an outside party. Parents have been left to do their own research on District policies and enlist outside expertise to correct the principal’s misunderstandings. Ms. Morris has repeatedly shown an inability to balance the needs of our students against procedures.
   
   For example, Ms. Morris removed a second-grade teacher from administering the OLSAT test at the last minute due to a perceived policy issue, and installed a substitute teacher, causing students confusion. We did not see any attempts from Ms. Morris to understand the consequences of this action, or OLSAT proctor requirements. Her answer was: “Let’s see how the scores come out.” The OLSAT is a test that a student is only allowed to take once. To date, the principal has not confirmed whether the substitute had the adequate training to administer this highly regulated standardized test. Another example of many: At the winter concert, Ms. Morris turned away seated and arriving parents when the crowd was nowhere near the maximum.
   
   
4. Unwelcoming environment for community involvement
   Ms. Morris has repeatedly put up roadblocks for community and parent involvement at the school, from PTA-hosted student dances to parent volunteers in the classrooms. Despite many attempts to collaborate, the principal has continued to make decisions that have led to the denial or delay of activities focused on families and community members, including reducing the number of school tours and highly restricting community members and parents from being on campus. Despite the District encouraging Ms. Morris to improve her relationships with parents, immediately following the reinstatement of our after-school enrichment programs, Ms. Morris chose to overrule the parents’ request to host our annual Book Fair during school hours. Additionally, she restricts/delays the PTA from fundraising activities (e.g. selling school merchandise on campus or even off-campus), taking months to sign off on permits. 
   
   
5. Deprioritizing of students' enrichment and lack of vision
   Ms. Morris has not articulated a vision for the school and has actively discouraged enrichment opportunities for students throughout the year. Ms. Morris conducted an audit of our after-school programs just before the winter break and cancelled programs immediately upon the return to school, leading to chaos and disruption. The lack of timely communication further added to the chaos, which led many families to look for alternative childcare with less than a day's notice. Despite a sizable Cultural Passport budget, Ms. Morris has denied and delayed teachers’ field trip requests. For the 2024-25 school year, Ms. Morris's initial budget plan eliminated nearly all of the art and music programs despite parents identifying arts and music as a top 2 priority in the annual school needs assessment survey.

We feel that these examples, as well as many others, illuminate a pattern of inadequate communication, choices that are punitive to children and parents, and poor leadership skills.

Since the beginning of the school year, we have genuinely tried to support Ms. Morris, understanding it was her first year as Principal. We have waited until the end of the year to take this action to give her time for improvement. While some responsibility for this situation at MWES is attributed to the Region East administrators, there have simply been too many issues originating from Ms. Morris to ignore. We have seen little improvement in her conduct with the same issues continuing and little to no evidence of learning, growth, connection, or understanding of the school community, even after several meetings to address problematic issues.

With that, we call upon the District to immediately replace Ms. Morris with a principal who has the leadership experience and communication skills to create an environment that prioritizes the needs of the students. We further call on the District to initiate a recruitment process for a new principal that meaningfully involves parents and staff. We will continue to act and organize on this issue until our demands are met, until MWES returns to the safe, nurturing, and inclusive community it has been known for.