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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Two Whitman High students arrested for bringing weapon to Bethesda school
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Anonymous
| 14 year old boys don't always have good judgment. This is not unlike the St Albans incident last spring with the airsoft gun. Apparently one of the kids brought it to school to show that he was cool. |
Anonymous
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Just goes to show you, it can happen anywhere and with any SES school.
Unfortunately, when it happened last year at a SS school -- and it was a similar set of circumstances -- there was lots of talk about how dangerous "these kids" were, etc. |
Anonymous
Anonymous
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The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?
***** McKenzie-Gude's parents testified before the sentencing and said their son long expressed an interest in joining the military or CIA. His mother, Debra McKenzie-Gude, said she was an Obama supporter. His father, Joseph Gude, said his son was allowed to use guns and ammunition kept at the house. "I see Collin and still do as a young man anxious to get to his career," Gude said.
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Anonymous
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Are you f-ing kidding me? I work in a "low performing" high school in Mo Co. The kids w/o "good judgment" come from broken homes and are usually tied to gangs - either full gang members or going through an initiation.
There is NO excuse for a Whitman kid to bring in a stun gun.
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Anonymous
If you work in the school system you should know that kids at all schools - private, high performing public, low performing public- can have bad judgement (and vice versa). There is no excuse for bringing in a weapon to any school - whether it's Whitman, St Albans or Anacostia High. But it happens at all of them. |
Anonymous
There is no excuse for bringing in a weapon to any school!!!!! |
Anonymous
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Nobody said we should all overlook this behavior, in fact I bet we all agree the I'd needs to be punished appropriately.
I think the point the PP was making is that the teenage brain is not a perfected thing - it's not yet physically mature and it's subject to teenage hormones. This is not a problem that only affects low income kids from broken homes - it affects kids at all income levels. |
Anonymous
hmmmm, while i agree with your point, i don't recall such statements being made when such incidents occur at schools with lower SES levels. when it occurs in anacostia, or even in silver spring, there are calls for more/better security, maybe more intervention services, but never just a "well, the kids had poor judgment" statement. I agree with 13:02, when it happens in other schools, the reaction is a bit different. |
Anonymous
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What do the statistics show?
I'll bet that more students in lower socioeconomic environments bring in more weapons as compared to peers in higher socioeconomic areas. |
Anonymous
But does that somehow make it less serious when kids in higher SES areas do it? |
Anonymous
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no - It doesn't lessen the offense. However, while the press is eager to find out what a "Whitman" kid was thinking when he brought the weapon to school and to interview the lawyer on his behalf, the student in the lower SES school has his mug shot posted on television, and little is said about his situation.
So in the big scheme of things, as a high school teacher in a low performing school, I have more sympathy for the kids who live in dysfunctional households where antisocial behavior is often the norm. . . . b/c really - Who cares about these throw-aways? certainly not the "Whitman" crew
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Anonymous
Actually, the Whitman incident played right into a big security discussion going on in MoCo right now. MoCo has been talking about removing the security officers stationed at each high school. The Whitman incident happened right at the peak of the recent debate - and led to MoCo changing its decision just in the past week. So yes, the Whitman incident got all sorts of notice in MoCo in a way that hasn't happened for any other MoCo high school, at least that I'm aware of. |
Anonymous
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21:44 again - I should add that there were probably some other factors that led to MoCo's reversal on this, including was a lot of parental opposition, and PTA opposition, to removing the security officers.
But the Whitman incident happened right at the peak of the debate - very timely you could say - about security in even wealthy MoCo high schools.. |