For everyone insisting MCPS reinstate SROs

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

There are so many unfortunate incidents involving the police these days like George Floyd and 10000 others. I have real misgivings that they will especially treat students of color. Maybe they aren't the best choice to put around students. I remember a post not too long ago about some cops intimidating a 5 year old at an MCPS school even.

[Anonymous]

I support a presence in the schools as well. My son attends a high school in MCPS and there have been multiple incidents in the classrooms and the hallways these past few months where teachers are not able to do much to curb the incidents. Students must feel safe and supported.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

There are so many unfortunate incidents involving the police these days like George Floyd and 10000 others. I have real misgivings that they will especially treat students of color. Maybe they aren't the best choice to put around students. I remember a post not too long ago about some cops intimidating a 5 year old at an MCPS school even.

Was that cop an SRO? Even so, yea sure, there are bad cops. But not all of them are bad. If they were, would you call them if someone was trying to hurt you or your kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that there is a need for someone with training to break up fights. But it's a failure of imagination to then insist that person must be a police officer with a gun. I've been combing through school shooting databases, some of which include instances where an SRO was the one discharging their weapon. The good news: I didn't see any instances where an SRO intentionally shot anyone without arguable justifcation. The bad news: I saw more instances where the gun went off by mistake than I did instances where it was used to neutralize a threat.

Attitudes about police vary a lot. I'm about to speak in broad generalities so please know I understand there will be many exceptions to these statements. Upper class people living comfortable lives tend to believe the police are there to protect them. This attitude extends to their children who see SROs at school and feel safe. Their day to day police interactions are pretty minimal. People living in communities with more violence, or just more policing, are a lot more wary. They may know people who've had bad run ins with cops. They may experience harrassment from cops when they're just going about their daily lives. Their children see this too. Those children may see SROs at school and feel resentment - even if that particular SRO has been through the world's best training and is a perfect human in every way. The badge and gun - the things that make you feel safe - come with a lot of baggage for others.

Spend time thinking about why the presence of someone with the ability to use lethal force, is necessary for you to feel safe and protected. They don't stop school shooters - we already know that. So why?

This is a thoughtful response. Thank you.

But, I would counter: if certain people feel "unsafe" in the presence of police, who would they call if they or their kids are being threatened, or there is an intruder in their house?

If the kids feel uncomfortable around cops, then wouldn't it be better for them to get more comfortable with police presence in an envirornment where school admin can control what the police can and cannot do? The new MOU with the community engagement officer in MCPS does not allow the CEO to be independent. The Principal would determine when to engage the CEO.

There have been cities that have changed the model of how police engage with the community, which more mirrors how the CEO engages with students. In those cities, they found that the trust between the communities and the police went up. The relatiionship isn't perfect, but it improved.

Here's an example of a city trying to re-imagine how the police force works with the community:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-jersey-city-disbanded-its-police-force-here-s-what-n1231677

MoCo, at least, likes to tout how they are trying to change how the police engage with certain groups in our community. Why couldn't that change be reflected in the CEO engagement with the students?

As for whether people who are mistrustful of police would call them if they or their family were in danger, this gives some really good insight: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/88476/how_do_people_in_high-crime_view_the_police.pdf Some findings: 70% of those surveyed (people living in high-crime, high-poverty areas in different U.S. cities) said they would be likely or very likely to call police to report a crime. And 75% said all laws should be strictly obeyed. But only 30% said they personally trust the police, or that the police usually act in ways consistent with their own ideas about what is right and wrong. My interpretation of this is that they see a need for help with crime, and the police are often the only resource they have, but they have serious concerns about the police they interact with.

I think saying students should get used to cops in the form of benign SROs is missing the point. These people aren't wrong about their concerns - they have many more interactions with the police and their mistrust is justified. It seems to me that you'd want evidence that the community trusts the police before setting them up in schools.

And none of this answers the question of why the person helping break up fights has to have the ability to use lethal force in a school building.

No one said you needed lethal force to break up a fight. But, certainly admin staff and teachers should not be required to be the ones to break up fights. In some schools there are multiple fights per day (I went to one such school.. not MCPS).

But, the violence is out of control, and CEO presence may reduce the incidence. Removing SROs did not reduce the violence in schools. It just showed kids that they can get away with more sh1t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Same way teachers have done for decades, there is a difference between security and people with guns. I don’t want anybody with guns at my kid’s pleasant community HS. What did you think the poor parts of town were going to be like?

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

There are so many unfortunate incidents involving the police these days like George Floyd and 10000 others. I have real misgivings that they will especially treat students of color. Maybe they aren't the best choice to put around students. I remember a post not too long ago about some cops intimidating a 5 year old at an MCPS school even.

Then who is? Their parents? Sure, I'm all for that. You can try calling up the parents and tell them to be around their kid all day at school so they behave.

You know that MoCo was supposed to hire several mental health professionals, but they are only able to fill half the slots.

Even so, having more mental health professionals won't work, either.

Sorry, but certain people's feelings should not over rule my kid's safety at school.

[Anonymous]

New suggestion for improving safety at school. Most of the cases I have read about shootings at school involve students obtaining a gun owned by their parents. Maybe unsecured, maybe in a safe, either way, that was the weapon(s) they used. My suggestion: if you have a teenage boy at home, do not also have a gun at home. Period. Bring it back after they move out.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

There are so many unfortunate incidents involving the police these days like George Floyd and 10000 others. I have real misgivings that they will especially treat students of color. Maybe they aren't the best choice to put around students. I remember a post not too long ago about some cops intimidating a 5 year old at an MCPS school even.

That person was NOT an SRO so had no special training to deal with kids (and clearly no aptitude). The SRO program doesn’t tend to attract the real macho types — it tends to attract the officers interested in community relationships and preventative policing. Plus, is the officer is a bad fit, the principal can request a new person. Being in the SRO program is a privilege they have to apply for, and if they are t good at working with youth, they will get pulled from the program and sent back to general police work. Most of the teachers that have posted have indicated that their SROs are quite good. Obviously better not to have need for police in schools, but if you need them, you should get ones that have supplemental training and an aptitude for kids.

[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:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

Are you saying you need a gun to break up a fight?

Are you saying you need arrest powers for somebody throwing a chair?

The reality is the SRO would not have prevented the fight it wound have happened anyway.

Why do you keep focusing on the gun? Yes, an SRO has a gun but it's not his primary job to use it to break a fight. 99.999% of the time, an SRO at MCPS doesn't use a gun. They use the skills they learned from training and the knowledge they have of the students and the community to mitigate fights before they begin. THey also use their skills and training to stop fights that do break out. Look, MCPS removed the SROs but what have they done to replace them? The facts are- since they removed SROs the calls to police have dramatically increased and violence has increased. What benefit did removing SROs actually bring?

Because the only reason to have a cop is because they need a gun. If you don’t think SROs need a gun, then SROs should not be cops.

I did not say remove SROs and not replace them with an effective security plan. It was knee jerk to put them in the school and knee jerk to remove them.

They don’t mitigate fights.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

I am a teacher married to a police officer. I know several SROs very well through my time in schools. I have done multiple ride-alongs because of my husband’s job. I have read “I Love a Cop”. In fact, the department gave a copy to spouses.

I want SROs. The training and time on the street does NOT negate their ability to work within a school, as evidenced by the ones I have worked with. Once you have witnessed how a good one becomes a part of the school community, you simply can’t understand why you would voluntarily take that resource away from students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New suggestion for improving safety at school. Most of the cases I have read about shootings at school involve students obtaining a gun owned by their parents. Maybe unsecured, maybe in a safe, either way, that was the weapon(s) they used. My suggestion: if you have a teenage boy at home, do not also have a gun at home. Period. Bring it back after they move out.

Suggestion - why don't genius parents like you offer to be security since you think this is an easy fix.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

I am a teacher married to a police officer. I know several SROs very well through my time in schools. I have done multiple ride-alongs because of my husband’s job. I have read “I Love a Cop”. In fact, the department gave a copy to spouses.

I want SROs. The training and time on the street does NOT negate their ability to work within a school, as evidenced by the ones I have worked with. Once you have witnessed how a good one becomes a part of the school community, you simply can’t understand why you would voluntarily take that resource away from students.

So you H has never seen a cop do something inappropriate on the job, never?

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Anonymous wrote:fast track to a bunch of poor kids getting charges when they act ignorantly (they will) in combustible situations when they try to emasculate the bottom feeder police officers who are stuck on school duty. There will be way more of that than any heroics during the almost non-existent mass shooting events. While the cops at richer schools will just get really good are what ever game they have on their phone at the time.

1- Cops stuck on school duty will almost always be idiots looking for a low stress units / stuck there to be out of a leaders hair / late career waifs riding out the clock.
2- Most cops don't have the ego to let kids be idiots esp the type of cop that a unit is so willing to release form critical roles inside the precinct
3- most cops aren't dirty harry and won't be either willing or effective in a mass shooting event.

For it to go completely right you would need a great cop in the right spot and the right time after wasting so many resources. The harm day to day couple to the cost make it seem like a bad idea to me.

Stop blaming poor kids...stop making it should like all cops are bad when there are bad people in every profession.

So, put your kids at rich schools .... problem solved for you.

What is your solution? Zero security... clearly not a good plan

+1 status quo is not working. Violence has gone up. We need to do something. There is a new MOU with the police -- "Community Engagement Officer", which oeprates slightly differently than the previous SRO model. I think it's a good compromise.

Haven't you noticed the anti-security/police refuse to come up with another safety solution when asked. I want police/security at the school...

I agree with the PP who said the type cops that would help with a school shooting are not the type you would get working in schools. That leaves us with people using police powers on students which rarely leave the students in a better place. Stopping shooters is just about too late once they are armed. The only real solution is disarming them. If we can’t do that, public shooting is the price we will pay to have so many guns out there. Hammers going to hammer

SROs have to go through additional training and have additional oversight. Lazy cops aren’t going to pick that detail. I also don’t believe your average SRO goes into it to “use police powers on students.”

I’ve worked with four different SROs. Each was very invested in the school community, getting to know the students. They were true assets and helped contribute to positive police/community relationships. I never saw one abuse their authority. I posted last year that one of our SROs regularly came off-duty to student games and performances, just to show support. I was told by a poster on this board that the real reason was that he was there to spy and look for reasons to ruin kids’ lives. That’s the problem with this debate. Some posters just want to vilify police officers and they will always assume ill-intent, even when it isn’t warranted and isn’t backed up by anything other than hate.

40 hours of training.

Yes, that is what lazy cops do or ones they don’t trust on the street.

The problem is you want to generalize to all SROs the limited positive anecdotal interaction you had to a whole group of people.

I respect some police. I even respect some SROs but they are ill equipped to do the job at hand.

I have had many interactions with SROs. I am left wondering whether posters against SROs have had any interactions with them at all. Presumably you have had experience that leads you to say they are “ill equipped” to provide safety to a school environment?

Also, if you believe the police are ill-equipped to support a safe learning environment, then who should be expected to do it? That question has been asked over and over on this thread. Teachers are not trained to handle the safety concerns that unfortunately plague schools. Counselors aren’t, either. Teachers and counselors can try to thwart the problems, with the limited time and resources they have, but when that fails? What then? I have yet to see a response.

I'm pretty convinced that people who are anti-SROs don't have kids at schools where there are regular fights, bullying, and violence. My kids go to one of these schools and yes, I want SROs back so that they can mitigate and break up these fights. Until your kid attends one of these schools, you have no idea how disruptive and terrible this environment can be. MCPS has done NOTHING to stop this. The teachers and admin who are not equipped to deal with them are unfairly being put in situations that they're not equipped to handle nor have they signed up for. Why should a math teacher get in the middle of a fight and risk their safety? How is MCPS supposed to address this without SROs?

Oh no it's the exact opposite. No parent would want their kids around a gun toting fascist.

And you are clearly uneducated on how SROs worked at MCPS. Please respond to my question though. Who is responsible for breaking up physical and violent fights? For when a kid throws a chair across the classroom? The other day at my kid's school, a student and her girlfriend literally beat a kid down so badly that one could no longer recognize his bloody face and when a teacher tried to stop the situation, she too got hit. This is just one common example of a fight that happens at our school pretty much on a daily basis. It's so bad that even my child wants to move. So tell me again why we can't have SROs? Must be nice not to have a child at a school where these situations happen regularly.

There is some kind of deep, twisted pathology in this county that hates police so much, they are willing to sacrifice county residents to violence, death, and disability.

No that’s not it. My family is full of police and we don’t think armed guards should be in schools. It’s easy to imagine there is some boogie man out there hating on police because the alternate is understand that you are wrong and that does not feel good.

If you realized that there are some educated, thoughtful, police supporting people that know through their work and knowledge of how to secure schools and they know SROs don’t work and are harmful then you’d have to admit you’re just plain wrong and that sucks. So you next best option is to “other” the people you disagree with you to feel good about your stance.

Did you watch the video?

Yes, I watched the video. It simply wasn’t convincing. Neither is your statement above. I am very confident in my stance. 20 years in education has shown me time and time again why we need officers in school. I have the realistic, every-day evidence of their need.

What, specifically, is your “work and knowledge of how to secure schools” that you mention above? You claim that through your work you have seen that SROs aren’t the answer. Since this is apparently your area of expertise, can you explain to all of us what you are doing to fix that? I would rather not find another weapon in my classroom.

How many times has an SRO stopped a “weapon” from entering your classroom? Which weapon? The reality is you want to stop “weapons” from entering your classroom, but STOs don’t stop that,


I think what most teachers are worried about are fights.

Teacher here. Yes, I worry about fights… but not nearly as much as I do weapons. I’ve had several weapons in my room during my career, each handled by an SRO. You don’t forget that fear. What would I have done if I didn’t have an SRO to call on for support? Who would have removed them? Me, with zero training? Therefore, the SROs helped me 100% of the time I knew I had a weapon near me. As for how many they stopped? Great question. I’m confident that there are weapons that never made it into my room because of their efforts. The truth is, someone on DCUM isn’t going to change my mind. I work in schools. I’ve worked with SROs. I’ve personally seen their great worth. I want my own children and my students to have every support available to them. Period.

I've taught for 30 years and never had this happen. Are you sure you teach in MCPS in not in a GOP-inspired alternate reality?

Typical DCUM response - “never happened to me, therefore it couldn’t have possibly happened to anyone else.”

Even the teacher that it happened to admitted an armed police offer was not needed to resolve the situation.

Perhaps it isn’t the gun that made the difference. It was the SRO’s presence, experience, and training. Who else in the school would have that? Who else could handle these situations? You keep saying a person without a gun, but who would that be? Should we train administrators to disarm students?

You can easily train people that are not police officers.

No not an admin. A person trained and educated to do this specific job. Most peoples who have personal security do not use cops. There are security personnel that would be much better at this job, not a rent a cop.

It’s a specialized job in security that could get waaaaayyyyy more training than 40 hours. It’s a combination psychology, counseling, criminal justice, security.

Look at the STAR program in Colorado but for schools.

It’s not a 1 prong approach it’s a team approach. It would have counselors, mental health professionals, homelessness experts, etc.

It’s not something that can be explained in a post.

So you would like somebody who has similar training as an officer but isn’t an officer. (Note that an SRO also has far more hours than 40. They had to go through the academy and field training, after all.) It seems to me you want all the functions of a police officer just without the uniform and the gun.

The fact you referred to real officers as “rent a cops” tells me what I need to know. Your posts are nothing more than a reflection of an anti-police stance. What others have suggested on this thread IS a team approach, with counselors, mental health professionals, etc. It would simply include SROs as part of that team. While dangerous incidents in MCPS continue to increase in number, it’s going to be hard for anybody to justify removing SROs from the community.

No I would like somebody will similar training as to a counselor/social worker/educator, they can be trained to handle discipline. They should not have a gun, arrest powers, and they must be bound to not gossip/talk -about/ spread stories about students like teachers, unless under oath or as part of an investigation,

Actually the academy training and field training is most of the problem with police. You can’t reprogram that training out of your brain once you have had it. You also can’t deprogram what happens to a cop on the street after 5-10 years before they become an SRO. Those experiences make coos unqualified to work with children.

Go in a ride along one Saturday night educate yourself.

Also, Read “I love a cop” to understand why.

No I referred to security guards as rent a cops.

Yes the team approach involves cops, not SROs who would be called in .0001% of the time when a violent crime is being committed. They are not in the school day to day, they are outside the school stopping things before they get there (unlike Tx) and responding quickly when they are rarely needed.

Look at the star program in Colorado.

I am not anti police, I am police.

I am a teacher married to a police officer. I know several SROs very well through my time in schools. I have done multiple ride-alongs because of my husband’s job. I have read “I Love a Cop”. In fact, the department gave a copy to spouses.

I want SROs. The training and time on the street does NOT negate their ability to work within a school, as evidenced by the ones I have worked with. Once you have witnessed how a good one becomes a part of the school community, you simply can’t understand why you would voluntarily take that resource away from students.

So you H has never seen a cop do something inappropriate on the job, never?

What an odd question. That isn’t the subject of our current conversation, nor can you infer that based on what I wrote above. The question at hand is whether we should have SROs, not whether cops are perfect. Of course they aren’t. Neither are teachers, for that matter. Teachers regularly make the news for inappropriate relationships with students. Should we, by your logic, keep all teachers out of school buildings because some have been proven to be wrong for the job?