Bathroom vape gangs - where are the SROs?

[Anonymous]

I previously read a thread here that many people’s kids don’t go to the bathroom all day due to the vape gangs for lack of a better term that inhabit the bathrooms and harass other kids.

I talked to other parents across the district I know and my own kids and this is still very much a real thing - my kids come rushing to the bathroom everyday after school if they’re not in an afterschool activity because they don’t want to deal with it.

I don’t understand why FCPS isn’t doing anything about it but it just struck me - where the heck are the School Resource Officers during the day?? Why are they not helping to address this issue? There are police cruisers parked in front of my kids schools and my dd tells me theirs just bumbles around all day. At my ds high school same, and they have unarmed security wirh an arc too. Same with the fights, why are they not involved?

I just don’t understand why this is an issue, it is so foreign to me and talking to friends in other states and districts it’s just not a problem elsewhere - I’m sure other districts have the same problem but seriously I just don’t understand.

FCPS and Fairfax County generally has become more disappointing seemingly every day, and it seems to be an active choice to be that way.

[Anonymous]

They handle it the way they can. SROs are actual law enforcement officers and they cannot/will not get involved with low level stuff like that. They’re there for much more serious stuff. Vaping is an issue for school security officers/admin. In my school if the vape detector light goes off, everyone in the restroom gets hauled to the office to be searched. But then even if you didn’t have the vape you get hung up until you’re cleared so a lot of my students avoid the bathroom just to not deal with getting caught up in a vape sting. They’re managing it how they can but aside from a strip search before entering the school you just can’t preemptively catch all of this all of the time. The kids manage to hide it from their parents too.

[Anonymous]

What do you mean gangs? Teens for generations have retreated to the bathroom to .. smoke ... in the bathroom. To do what they don't want adults to see. Here's what you do if you're an ordinary student and need to use the bathroom: you walk in and make it seem you don't notice. Don't make eye contact. Don't give the impression you're a snitch. Use the bathroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean gangs? Teens for generations have retreated to the bathroom to .. smoke ... in the bathroom. To do what they don't want adults to see. Here's what you do if you're an ordinary student and need to use the bathroom: you walk in and make it seem you don't notice. Don't make eye contact. Don't give the impression you're a snitch. Use the bathroom.

Telling the kids who feel uncomfortable with vaping in the bathroom to just suck it up doesn't seem like a viable solution...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They handle it the way they can. SROs are actual law enforcement officers and they cannot/will not get involved with low level stuff like that. They’re there for much more serious stuff. Vaping is an issue for school security officers/admin. In my school if the vape detector light goes off, everyone in the restroom gets hauled to the office to be searched. But then even if you didn’t have the vape you get hung up until you’re cleared so a lot of my students avoid the bathroom just to not deal with getting caught up in a vape sting. They’re managing it how they can but aside from a strip search before entering the school you just can’t preemptively catch all of this all of the time. The kids manage to hide it from their parents too.

I know they’re law enforcement! Um hello but if the majority of the student population is being held hostage to a few shitty kids, to the point where they can’t use the bathroom for 8 or so hours because they’re afraid, that’s not just small time stuff. The SROs should be charging them! Who cares if parents don’t know? The vape kids should be afraid to be vaping in schools for fear of getting in trouble and the admin and staff should care that kids collectively are unable to use the bathroom! I swear I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading some of the things people say on here, no wonder we are where we are. They should shut the teacher bathrooms down too if students can’t use the student bathrooms and see how the staff likes it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean gangs? Teens for generations have retreated to the bathroom to .. smoke ... in the bathroom. To do what they don't want adults to see. Here's what you do if you're an ordinary student and need to use the bathroom: you walk in and make it seem you don't notice. Don't make eye contact. Don't give the impression you're a snitch. Use the bathroom.

Telling the kids who feel uncomfortable with vaping in the bathroom to just suck it up doesn't seem like a viable solution...

It's viable. Not desirable but it'll work.

[Anonymous]

Have the school designate the two most centrally located bathrooms as vape-free zones. Staff them all day and don’t tolerate vaping. The kids who don’t vape will have a viable option and the kids who do can continue to destroy their lungs on public property during the school day.

[Anonymous]

Democrats voted them out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you mean gangs? Teens for generations have retreated to the bathroom to .. smoke ... in the bathroom. To do what they don't want adults to see. Here's what you do if you're an ordinary student and need to use the bathroom: you walk in and make it seem you don't notice. Don't make eye contact. Don't give the impression you're a snitch. Use the bathroom.

Wow grandpa thanks for the history lesson, was that back when there was still segregation in the schools here in NoVA? Gee grandpa it must have been hard in the olden days. I went to high school two decades ago in the Midwest in a non affluent area and we didn’t have problem. The smokers both kids and teachers stood on the closest corner across the street not on school property because the admin would call the cops who would cite the kids if they tried. It’s not that hard.

And no, your dumb solution doesn’t work because those kids throw wet paper towels and wads of wet toilet paper at the non vapers, they taunt them, push them, harass them. You obviously having no problem taking a sh*t in public for everyone to see based on your post but for the reasonable public no one wants to get harassed while going to the bathroom.

And given the fact that FCPS and Fairfax County will happily turn a blind eye to serial sexual assault in the schools what hope is left, I don’t even know why I bother you people need to be in an asylum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have the school designate the two most centrally located bathrooms as vape-free zones. Staff them all day and don’t tolerate vaping. The kids who don’t vape will have a viable option and the kids who do can continue to destroy their lungs on public property during the school day.

Great idea, maybe the last stall can be a safe use room, instead of tampons or pads there could be a needle dispenser, little straps to tourniquet, a sharps bin, and plenty of narcan too. They’re just going to use it anyway right? 🙄

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Democrats voted them out.

Someone should tell the SROs then because I see their squad cars at drop off.

[Anonymous]

I'm a teacher in an FCPS high school and yes, it's bad here. However, I'm a parent in a different county and it's bad there too. I have teacher friends in still other counties and it's bad there, also. I'm not defending how we are dealing with it; FCPS is way too lenient on many, many things. I'm just trying to explain that it's not great anywhere around here.

Some schools have been closing bathrooms during the day to force more students to use a central location that can be better monitored. But with high school, only having one bathroom open isn't feasible for the amount of students we have. I truly think if we dealt with the issue with increased consequences, things would get better...but the county doesn't listen to us on things like that, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Short of cameras in the bathroom (illegal), or paying to staff someone in every bathroom all day ($$$), what do you suggest?

When I walk past a bathroom and smell it, I will walk in (if it's the right gender) or call admin (if it's not). By the time an adult enters they've usually hidden the vape (in the tampon bin, in a hole in the wall, in the ceiling tile, in the trash can). They are taken to the office to be searched, but it's rarely found.

When they're caught, they get sent to substance abuse prevention training, assigned in school suspension, or eventually out of school suspension (but that doesn't solve much because in OSS they are just...vaping more.)

Honestly, if the smoking in school hasn't been solved in 75 years, it isn't going to be solved this year either. I have a "good kid" who is afraid to use the middle school restrooms too. It sucks, but I don't know what admin at his school can realistically do.

[Anonymous]

How hard is it to check bathrooms periodically? How much is a SRO dealing with in a given day that they can’t deal with this? They need to bring back smokers courts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it to check bathrooms periodically? How much is a SRO dealing with in a given day that they can’t deal with this? They need to bring back smokers courts.

They do check them periodically! They make rounds all day, every day.

But there are 10 separate bathroom locations (x2 if you count male/female). To do a lap of the entire school, poking heads in every bathroom of the correct gender would probably be 20-25 minute laps. A separate adult of the opposite gender would need to be doing the same.

A lot can happen in 25 minutes. Kids are in and out in way less than 25 minutes.