Two Whitman High students arrested for bringing weapon to Bethesda school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

This Whitman incident had nothing to do with the Council voting down Leggett's removal of the SROs. Listen to the Committee meeting and Council transcripts. The only reason Leggett tried to pull them in the first place was to create a public uproar over budget cuts and try to make the public vote for the ambulance fee. There was no way the Council was going to lay off police officers and firefighters mid-year. No way. Whitman itself had nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous]

But the point a PP was making is that nobody ever talks about incidents like this at high-SES schools. It doesn't really matter what Leggett's posture was or why.

If you go to the PTA listserve, you will see plenty of evidence that parents were concerned about Whitman, and, they linked this to the dangers of removing the SROs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

But does that somehow make it less serious when kids in higher SES areas do it?

Are you assuming the kid was himself high SES? Because that may not necessarily be the case.

[Anonymous]

How do you find the PTA listserv?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

But does that somehow make it less serious when kids in higher SES areas do it?

Are you assuming the kid was himself high SES? Because that may not necessarily be the case.

Maybe not ... but when you look at the statistics for Whitman, that's what the odds would say. And again, if this happened at say, Wilson in the District, would you ask, "why are you assuming the kid is low SES?" Probably not ... you'd assume as much (as would I, probably), and we'd move on to complain about how schools with "those populations" need better security, or start a post titled "Why I would never send my child to Wilson" (pretty sure such a post existed in the past after a Wilson student was attacked in the bathroom)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

But does that somehow make it less serious when kids in higher SES areas do it?

Are you assuming the kid was himself high SES? Because that may not necessarily be the case.

Maybe not ... but when you look at the statistics for Whitman, that's what the odds would say. And again, if this happened at say, Wilson in the District, would you ask, "why are you assuming the kid is low SES?" Probably not ... you'd assume as much (as would I, probably), and we'd move on to complain about how schools with "those populations" need better security, or start a post titled "Why I would never send my child to Wilson" (pretty sure such a post existed in the past after a Wilson student was attacked in the bathroom)

The odds might say that but the reality does not. There are 2000 kids at the school. Not all of them are high SES.

[Anonymous]

I do not know why this is such a big deal. In places like DC where there are large African American and Latino populations there are guns in schools everyday, yet one white kid and one asian kid bring toy guns to school and the world flips over!

[Anonymous]

Which kid gets served the worst punishment (e.g., jail time, felon)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which kid gets served the worst punishment (e.g., jail time, felon)?

they were both suspended for 10 days, but neither have a record
which I find to be reasonable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which kid gets served the worst punishment (e.g., jail time, felon)?

they were both suspended for 10 days, but neither have a record
which I find to be reasonable

There were 3 kids involved in 2 incidents. I think one was expelled, the other two suspended.