Bathroom vape gangs - where are the SROs?

[Anonymous]

Our MS locks them in between and overlapping the beginning and end of periods. Teachers are stationed outside the restrooms when they are open. It has cut down on problems.

[Anonymous]

Smokin' in the boys room
Smokin' in the boys room
Nah, teacher don't you fill me up with your rule
'Cause everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school

[Anonymous]

SRO at our school said he is there to take a bullet— and he would. FCPS does not allow him to enforce any discipline. Your problem is Gatehouse and Admin, not the SROs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SRO at our school said he is there to take a bullet— and he would. FCPS does not allow him to enforce any discipline. Your problem is Gatehouse and Admin, not the SROs.

+1. This is not just an FCPS problem, as others have pointed out. Schools could quickly end the nonsense by kicking out the kids who are constant behavior problems but most administrators are more interested in telling everyone they reduced suspensions by 95% than actually enforcing any consequences for bad behavior.

[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.

'

There are some bathrooms that are out of the way that kids have to go to. These are the vape free ones. Out of the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You completely lost me (an educator in public schools since 2009) with your last sentence. Do you really think staff are on board with kids vaping in the bathroom? That this problem would be resolved if we weren’t so negligent, or just cared more?

I can assure you we are not cool with it. Beyond alerting admin if we see or smell vaping, what do you suggest? Should we leave our classes of 25-30 kids unsupervised to go sit in the bathroom all day? Just stop teaching in order to monitor the bathrooms? Strip search kids if we suspect them of vaping? Bust through the stall door when they’re on the toilet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SRO at our school said he is there to take a bullet— and he would. FCPS does not allow him to enforce any discipline. Your problem is Gatehouse and Admin, not the SROs.

+1. This is not just an FCPS problem, as others have pointed out. Schools could quickly end the nonsense by kicking out the kids who are constant behavior problems but most administrators are more interested in telling everyone they reduced suspensions by 95% than actually enforcing any consequences for bad behavior.

Correct. Other school districts should also do something about this. But this is the FCPS forum. What a weird response. Strangely defensive.

[Anonymous]

SROs? Lol. Buddy, you are in US.

[Anonymous]

The person who thinks SROs have the ability to CHARGE kids with anything, let alone criminal charges for possessing a vape, is not even knowledgeable enough to have this convo. Cops do not charge anyone with anything, first of all. District attorneys do that. Do they mean write a citation? Maybe but again SROs are not in schools to actively police the kids , they are there to respond to true security issues or weapons violence. And owning a vape is not a civil nor criminal infraction, it’s a violation of school policies. SROs are not employees of FCPS. They cannot enforce FCPS disciplinary policies.

[Anonymous]

We had a smoking porch in high school. It kept the chemicals altogether and outside.

[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.

SRO's are not there to enforce school rules, they are there to enforce laws. Also, given that any given SRO is either male or female, they clearly can't be checking both.

[Anonymous]

An obvious solution to this problem, albeit one that would take time to implement, is single stall restrooms. Converting existing rest rooms by adding full length doors without gaps, and then removing hallway doors, and putting single stalls with sinks in new construction or significant renovations would change things over time.

Of course, you can't do that in VA, because God forbid it might also make a trans kid more comfortable too! We can't have that happening, better to sacrifice the entire school population, than that! It's much more important to show your hatred, than it is to support students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:An obvious solution to this problem, albeit one that would take time to implement, is single stall restrooms. Converting existing rest rooms by adding full length doors without gaps, and then removing hallway doors, and putting single stalls with sinks in new construction or significant renovations would change things over time.

Of course, you can't do that in VA, because God forbid it might also make a trans kid more comfortable too! We can't have that happening, better to sacrifice the entire school population, than that! It's much more important to show your hatred, than it is to support students.

How does that solve anything? If anything it would make it easier to hide what you're doing. They still wouldn't have staff to monitor all 10-20 bathrooms in a school full time.

[Anonymous]

This is 100% a thing at McLean HS.

[Anonymous]

It feels strange to say on one hand we need to raise expectations academically and then on the other to not enforce things like no vaping in the bathrooms. And to assume that kids are going to do it anyway so why bother trying. Either we are trying to hold kids to higher expectations or we are not. I think the previous poster was correct that disciplinary actions reflect poorly on the school so the school does not issue them. A classic case of you get what you measure.