What's going on at Churchill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The MCCPTA advocated for an alert system after the bomb threat incident at Churchill years ago under Benz. Both that incident and last week’s assault highlighted the most vulnerable times of the school day is when students are coming to school - either at the beginning of the school day or at lunch. These are the times doors are unlocked and students are outside coming into the building. Not an easy time to lockdown the building or get students to safety.

MCPS needs to wake up and realize safety attacks will come at these periods of vulnerability, not on their class schedules.

And how should MCPS address that risk?

Use the same robo phone, text, and email service that Mr. Taylor uses for his Sunday announcements. You can prepare a general lockdown alert that tells students on campus to go into the building and secure themselves in a classroom. For students not on campus should go home till it is safe to go to school.

College campuses have used such alerts for over a decade. MCPS has the technology but has never used it to improve school safety.

I don’t know about other families, but my HS student doesn’t get those robocalls, the parents do. My kid would never see an MCPS email in time to react to an emergency. They probably wouldn’t answer a phone call from MCPS, either. They might see a text, but there’s a chance they wouldn’t even read it right away if it weren’t from a friend or family member.

We all just get so much canned messaging from MCPS that nobody treats any of them as urgent. I think it would need to be a dedicated emergency source in order to be of any use in a real emergency. The emergency text/email service at the university I work for is completely separate from any other messaging. If you see a message from them, you know something is happening right now.

Churchill has the ability to text, call, and email alerts to students. They have the phone number and MCPS email for my child which is alerted on his chrome book and phone. It’s not rocket science and there could be a special format for security alerts.

If Churchill and MCPS are too dense to come up with a plan, there are security firms that perform risk assessments for schools so safety improvements are implemented. Every child at Churchill has a cellphone. Sending out alerts to phones would be easy, quick, and cheap.

Churchill can only do so much without MCPS approval. MCPS catered to the ultra liberal parents who don't want any security in the schools. So, this is what we get. Violence at the school and slow police times. This isn't just a Churchill issue and removing security at the schools was a mistake. Not all kids have phones so relying on phones is an issue but they could even put up signs, sound an alarm or something like they did when we went to HS.

They did not remove security at schools, they remove worthless SROs at schools. There are security guards at schools.
Stop with your Fox News, Q propaganda.
Idiot

Because an unarmed rent a cop will be a deterrent lol

Well SROs were never a deterrent, were they?

You’re so dumb:

Yes, they have. One example here in MD.

By Matthew Barakat and Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press

GREAT MILLS, Md. — A teenager with a handgun shot and critically wounded a girl inside a Maryland school on Tuesday and the shooter was killed when a school resource officer confronted him moments after the gunfire erupted.

LOL. Your post doesn't help your case
Did the SRO prevent the girl from getting shot? Was the SRO a deterrent?

You sound like a Trumper. "The SRO didn't help because one girl got shot" is on par with "vaccines don't work because some people are still dying of Covid."

Au contraire, Trumpers like you love SROs so they can rough up some minority kids.

Som how do you propose security at high schools to keep kids safe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The MCCPTA advocated for an alert system after the bomb threat incident at Churchill years ago under Benz. Both that incident and last week’s assault highlighted the most vulnerable times of the school day is when students are coming to school - either at the beginning of the school day or at lunch. These are the times doors are unlocked and students are outside coming into the building. Not an easy time to lockdown the building or get students to safety.

MCPS needs to wake up and realize safety attacks will come at these periods of vulnerability, not on their class schedules.

And how should MCPS address that risk?

Use the same robo phone, text, and email service that Mr. Taylor uses for his Sunday announcements. You can prepare a general lockdown alert that tells students on campus to go into the building and secure themselves in a classroom. For students not on campus should go home till it is safe to go to school.

College campuses have used such alerts for over a decade. MCPS has the technology but has never used it to improve school safety.

I don’t know about other families, but my HS student doesn’t get those robocalls, the parents do. My kid would never see an MCPS email in time to react to an emergency. They probably wouldn’t answer a phone call from MCPS, either. They might see a text, but there’s a chance they wouldn’t even read it right away if it weren’t from a friend or family member.

We all just get so much canned messaging from MCPS that nobody treats any of them as urgent. I think it would need to be a dedicated emergency source in order to be of any use in a real emergency. The emergency text/email service at the university I work for is completely separate from any other messaging. If you see a message from them, you know something is happening right now.

Churchill has the ability to text, call, and email alerts to students. They have the phone number and MCPS email for my child which is alerted on his chrome book and phone. It’s not rocket science and there could be a special format for security alerts.

If Churchill and MCPS are too dense to come up with a plan, there are security firms that perform risk assessments for schools so safety improvements are implemented. Every child at Churchill has a cellphone. Sending out alerts to phones would be easy, quick, and cheap.

Churchill can only do so much without MCPS approval. MCPS catered to the ultra liberal parents who don't want any security in the schools. So, this is what we get. Violence at the school and slow police times. This isn't just a Churchill issue and removing security at the schools was a mistake. Not all kids have phones so relying on phones is an issue but they could even put up signs, sound an alarm or something like they did when we went to HS.

They did not remove security at schools, they remove worthless SROs at schools. There are security guards at schools.
Stop with your Fox News, Q propaganda.
Idiot

Because an unarmed rent a cop will be a deterrent lol

Well SROs were never a deterrent, were they?

You’re so dumb:

Yes, they have. One example here in MD.

By Matthew Barakat and Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press

GREAT MILLS, Md. — A teenager with a handgun shot and critically wounded a girl inside a Maryland school on Tuesday and the shooter was killed when a school resource officer confronted him moments after the gunfire erupted.

LOL. Your post doesn't help your case
Did the SRO prevent the girl from getting shot? Was the SRO a deterrent?

You sound like a Trumper. "The SRO didn't help because one girl got shot" is on par with "vaccines don't work because some people are still dying of Covid."

Au contraire, Trumpers like you love SROs so they can rough up some minority kids.

Som how do you propose security at high schools to keep kids safe?

Not the PP but don't think SRO's are the answer especially when I think about Parkland or George Floyd.

[Anonymous]

Obviously we need TSA level metal detectors and xray machines at all the high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously we need TSA level metal detectors and xray machines at all the high schools.

Especially at schools like Churchill with all those knife-wielding MS13 gang bangers.

[Anonymous]

They just rescheduled the Northwest vs Quince Orchard football game from Friday night to 4:30 in the afternoon. Many parents who want to watch their football players, cheerleaders, pom squad members, band members etc play now have to leave work early.

This is in direct response to the violence and illegal weapons brought to games - especially in Germantown.

If your teens used to spend their Friday nights at a football game with friends... that just got taken away from them, too.

The element in the county that allows and encourages lawlessness is winning. What's next?

[Anonymous]

I've been to games where the parents were trash talking the players on the other side. It's not just kids.
But it surely isn't the umc parents or kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The principal at Churchill is woke so there's no discipline. That's what's going on.

As someone who was ince woke I can tell you honestly now I'm tired and I'm going back to sleep. I don't like what I woke up to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The principal at Churchill is woke so there's no discipline. That's what's going on.

As someone who was ince woke I can tell you honestly now I'm tired and I'm going back to sleep. I don't like what I woke up to.

That makes no sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good thing Montgomery county leadership took the community police officers out of the high schools

Clearly they didn’t need cops for these 2 incidents.

Threatening someone with a deadly weapon is a crime. Assault is a crime. The police made an arrest. Of course the police needed to be involved with what happened today at Churchill.

And they were, without the need for police officers stationed at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The MCCPTA advocated for an alert system after the bomb threat incident at Churchill years ago under Benz. Both that incident and last week’s assault highlighted the most vulnerable times of the school day is when students are coming to school - either at the beginning of the school day or at lunch. These are the times doors are unlocked and students are outside coming into the building. Not an easy time to lockdown the building or get students to safety.

MCPS needs to wake up and realize safety attacks will come at these periods of vulnerability, not on their class schedules.

And how should MCPS address that risk?

Use the same robo phone, text, and email service that Mr. Taylor uses for his Sunday announcements. You can prepare a general lockdown alert that tells students on campus to go into the building and secure themselves in a classroom. For students not on campus should go home till it is safe to go to school.

College campuses have used such alerts for over a decade. MCPS has the technology but has never used it to improve school safety.

I don’t know about other families, but my HS student doesn’t get those robocalls, the parents do. My kid would never see an MCPS email in time to react to an emergency. They probably wouldn’t answer a phone call from MCPS, either. They might see a text, but there’s a chance they wouldn’t even read it right away if it weren’t from a friend or family member.

We all just get so much canned messaging from MCPS that nobody treats any of them as urgent. I think it would need to be a dedicated emergency source in order to be of any use in a real emergency. The emergency text/email service at the university I work for is completely separate from any other messaging. If you see a message from them, you know something is happening right now.

Churchill has the ability to text, call, and email alerts to students. They have the phone number and MCPS email for my child which is alerted on his chrome book and phone. It’s not rocket science and there could be a special format for security alerts.

If Churchill and MCPS are too dense to come up with a plan, there are security firms that perform risk assessments for schools so safety improvements are implemented. Every child at Churchill has a cellphone. Sending out alerts to phones would be easy, quick, and cheap.

Churchill can only do so much without MCPS approval. MCPS catered to the ultra liberal parents who don't want any security in the schools. So, this is what we get. Violence at the school and slow police times. This isn't just a Churchill issue and removing security at the schools was a mistake. Not all kids have phones so relying on phones is an issue but they could even put up signs, sound an alarm or something like they did when we went to HS.

They did not remove security at schools, they remove worthless SROs at schools. There are security guards at schools.
Stop with your Fox News, Q propaganda.
Idiot

Ridiculous. The SROs at our school were fantastic and really worked hard to build relationships with students and sometimes, families.

You know what is worthless? People like you who are so focused on your ridiculous SJW agenda that you’re willing to put kids at risk.

You are the idiot for thinking that you know better than the MCPS Principals who wanted to keep the SROs in schools.

You know what's worthless? People who type abject idiocy like "SJW agenda" and convince themselves they've said something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a lot of these posts are trying to shift the blame away from a knife-wielding student to others. SROs have dubious benefits at best. El Rich was right to remove them there are a waste of tax dollars. Further it wouldn't have mattered in this case even if the SRO didn't just run away.

BINGO!

The knife-wielding student (and the broader mcps punishment issue if the kid is allowed to remain in public school) is the main issue here. Whether we should have SROS is a good debate, too, but I'd hope that people would listen to the pros and cons before rushing to judgment.

But I generally get frustrated when people who have almost no knowledge of a situation diagnose what everyone else did wrong. We have only tiny bits of information, yet people assume they know how the situation would be best handled.

This same issue revealed itself loud and clear at the last PTA meeting. Parents assumed they knew best about things like where kids should eat lunch (as a reminder, there was a chorus of voices saying more kids should be allowed to eat in the bus loop and the principal said he limited it to seniors because there wasn't a good way to secure the area... and yet the question came up over and over by parents who thought they knew better).

Parents complained that lunchlines were way too long and the principal pointed out that kids have a full hour for lunch and if they check in with teachers or hang out with friends first, then there is virtually no line at all 20 minutes into lunch.

Parents complained that kids should be able to eat wherever they wanted in the building (especially the second floor), and the principal pointed out that not only is there a monitoring issue (limited staff to ensure safety if kids are literally everywhere), but the second floor has several areas where kids try to take makeup tests at lunch and the noise is distracting.

What I'm saying is that no one on this board really understands the full detailed picture of what happens (nor should we-- that's what we hire administrators for). So when parents with little information think they should criticize how things are handled, it's kind of a joke. But the frustrating thing is that it just adds to all of the discord in our community, adding negativity and stress for everyone.

No problem with asking the principal a question at the PTA meeting (and having an open mind for the response). No problem in voicing a concern on behalf of your kid. But don't assume you know everything and can do everyone's job better than they can-- you almost certainly don't and can't.

[phone]

Some of us have had children in schools other than MCPS. Some of us have seen what is feasible but is not being done at Churchill. Some of us witnessed events first hand so saw clear failures by Churchill and the police last week to respond in a timely manner.

In an active shooter situation or even in a knife situation where there are casualties, 20 minutes will cost lives.

So how did that SRO workout in the Parkland shooting again?

Yeah, weird, right? I thought they were all Big Damn Heroes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They just rescheduled the Northwest vs Quince Orchard football game from Friday night to 4:30 in the afternoon. Many parents who want to watch their football players, cheerleaders, pom squad members, band members etc play now have to leave work early.

This is in direct response to the violence and illegal weapons brought to games - especially in Germantown.

If your teens used to spend their Friday nights at a football game with friends... that just got taken away from them, too.

The element in the county that allows and encourages lawlessness is winning. What's next?

Oh no, a rescheduled football game?? OMG THE SKY IS FALLING!

[Anonymous]

If a Principal is worried that there might be weapons at a school event, they can call the servicing Police Station to arrange for officers for that event. It happens all the time.

As an example, the County had problems at the Germantown Outdoor pool pre-covid, so the police arranged for officers to have a desk passing out "free handouts" such as bicycle lights and bags. Much friendlier and low-key. The public response was positive and the issue diffused without confrontation. Dedicated "pool SRO's" were not required.

Years ago the County was divided into "red zone" and "green zone" schools. Red zone schools received extra Title I funding, counselors, etc. because they had gang and drug issues on school grounds. A HANDFUL of HIGH schools could benefit from a dedicated SRO to collect gang intelligence (basically collecting rumors and dirt on minors, and yes, this will result in a direct HS-to-jail pipeline), but certainly no ES or MS should have dedicated police.

Clearly, the poster implying Churchill is such a school has never done time at Gaithersburg, Watkins Mill, Einstein, etc.

Again, I feel that the Principal of Churchill HS and the security staff should have been praised and thanked for doing such a great job handling the incident.

To the dirtbags on using this incident to lobby for SRO's - truly, and I mean this with all sincerity - shame on you.

[Anonymous]

My youngest was at WJ when a student told the SRO about a former student posting pictures with an ak47 threatening to shoot up the school on sm. That former student was picked up, arrested, and a disaster was averted.

I am 100% for SROs. It is only a matter of time before they will be back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They just rescheduled the Northwest vs Quince Orchard football game from Friday night to 4:30 in the afternoon. Many parents who want to watch their football players, cheerleaders, pom squad members, band members etc play now have to leave work early.

This is in direct response to the violence and illegal weapons brought to games - especially in Germantown.

If your teens used to spend their Friday nights at a football game with friends... that just got taken away from them, too.

The element in the county that allows and encourages lawlessness is winning. What's next?

Oh no, a rescheduled football game?? OMG THE SKY IS FALLING!

Not sure what your agenda is but you're not convincing anyone to get on your side of the argument when you are entirely dismissive of the fact that long held.traditions of Friday Night Lights are being canceled because people like you insist on letting our public schools (for which we pay tremendous property taxes) turn into unsafe, violent places. A person who stays up at 3am spitting out post after post of "mean tweets" probably has more immediate issues than being a white night for people that don't care about them. Maybe you ought to redirect your energy toward fixing your own life.