Bathroom security announcement

[Anonymous]

I just do not understand why somebody does not tell these school children they need to behave themselves.

Then there would be no need for these SRO police.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure I get it -- if kids are vaping/smoking weed in the restroom all the time, why doesn't security patrol and punish the offenders? Seems like the good kids are suffering unnecessarily.

I asked my DCs if the security guards sweep the bathrooms. This is what they said:

"They stand outside the bathrooms, and yell, 'Go to class', then walk away".

So, they don't bother to check if the kids are actually going to class or whether there is drug use or other scary sh1t going on in there. IMO, the security guards don't really care. They are just phoning it in, and getting a paycheck. I say we need SROs back to sweep the bathrooms. Oh, but certain PoC might get arrested more for doing something illegal, so that would be not good, per the equity police.

I am so sick of this sh1t. I have 3 years left in MCPS.

You want armed police officers for routine patrols of high school bathrooms?

Yes. The security guards aren't doing anything, and even if they catch the kids, there are no consequences. So, if you want real "teeth" as a PP stated, then you need SROs to sweep the bathrooms. That is the only way to stop these kids - fear of arrest because they don't care if they get suspended or have detention.

MCPS isn't even doing suspensions or detentions to my knowledge in these cases....Due to Restorative Justice, they view any increase in suspensions as a negative KPI, so administrators are disincentivized to use it as a disciplinary tool.

+ Obama-era DOE Civil Rights Division student disciplinary reform in full effect again

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also like the tiering approach outlined above. But we would need people to monitor the bathrooms. I would even be in support of PTA volunteers with a walkie talkie that say “if you aren’t out of this bathroom by the time I count 10, i’m calling the community engagement officer to come here. I can’t stop you from using but you’re not going to do it in the bathroom.”

I'm leery of using volunteers for work that really should be funded and fully staffed, but it's better than nothing. I like the creative thinking applied here.

Sounds great. Let the PTA volunteer signups commence (me waiting to see the end of March report of signups, attendance, and success)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:“During transition periods and more unstructured times, like before school, after school and lunch periods, schools may limit access to designated restrooms.”

So, at the impacted secondary schools, when do kids use the bathroom? During class only? Or wait during lunch for the only open restroom? Will teachers always allow kids to use the bathroom during class?

It would help if you found a new hobby. Obsessing about bathrooms seems unhealthy.

Okay, boymom

FTR, I am a boymom and the bathroom situation infuriates me. My son avoids going to the bathroom also and it’s ridiculous.

School bathrooms were sketchy when I was in school 30 years ago, and I avoided them. I guess nothing really changes.

Kids were overdosing and dying or getting shot in the bathrooms 30 years ago?

Kind of hard to believe since Magruder was the first-ever school shooting in MCPS history....

It's good to know that a rare thing then.

How many bathroom shootings will it take for you to feel MCPS should alter its security strategy and posture with regard to bathrooms? 10 dead kids? 20? How much collateral damage are you ok with so you can preserve the status quo and why are their lives worth that to you?

A better question might be how many school shootings do there have to be until common Sense gun legislation is enacted. This isn't about bathrooms or MCPS. Anyone who says otherwise is a moron.

If the previous poster is concerned about school shootings like they claim, then gun control legislation makes perfect sense to but I have the impression they have a different political agenda.

Clearly YOU have a political agenda.

Reading this thread, there seems to be plenty of parents posting who do not have a political agenda, but who want their kids to be able to use the restrooms at school during the day.

That is not an unreasonable expectation.

I am happy to support whatever will help improve the situation. Bathrooms have become a ‘safe’ place for kids to use and distribute drugs. All kids of drugs. This needs to be fixed, they can deal/use drugs elsewhere, but get them out of our schools.

Station a teacher outside each bathroom. No more than 2 or 3 students at a time allowed to enter bathroom. No backpacks, jackets, or hoodies. It works.

Literally what was done at my HS in the 90s. Just do it already!

Which teachers at schools have free time to double as bathroom monitors?

All teachers. Do they not have duties at your school? Our male APs and coaches are also very effective!

Yes, they have duties. They have recess and lunch duties, which prevents them from having time for bathroom duties. Our coaches and APs also have duties. Please let me know how you find time to staff all of this, so that I can share with my school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just do not understand why somebody does not tell these school children they need to behave themselves.

Then there would be no need for these SRO police.

If only the police would do their job and enforce the law, none of this would be an issue, but I feel like we're being shook down to fund SROs when they're already paid to do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quit yer complainin' With SROs out of schools, arrests of students is way down. Now we have more equity and diversity.

Yes, there may be drug use and worse in the bathrooms, but we are no longer sending these good, innocent children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Restorative justice is the way to go.

If you don't like it, send your kids to private.

Drug use and violence seem about the same as always. In a county this big there are bound to be a few issues from time to time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am livid that they restrict bathroom use when girls on their periods or kids who have intestinal issues MUST get to a bathroom quickly without needing to explain themselves to all and sundry.

My DD at Westland MS already says there are days when teachers don't have enough bathroom passes in class, or get angry and suddenly issue a moratorium on going to the bathroom. I have told her to go between classes, and that I don't care if she's late to class, but if they start restricting access then, what are kids supposed to do???

It's like a badly managed prison.

compromise involves tradeoffs and these seem acceptable

Until your adolescent has a traumatizing leak into their clothes!!! You want that for your kid? You'd be ready to suffer that as a teen yourself?
There are a lot more kids who are anxious about not going to the bathroom than there are kids who do illegal things.

NO WAY.

Exactly. I'm 40 and can still name the two kids who had period/bathroom mishaps when I was in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quit yer complainin' With SROs out of schools, arrests of students is way down. Now we have more equity and diversity.

Yes, there may be drug use and worse in the bathrooms, but we are no longer sending these good, innocent children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Restorative justice is the way to go.

If you don't like it, send your kids to private.

Drug use and violence seem about the same as always. In a county this big there are bound to be a few issues from time to time

Exactly. Like this robbery of Girl Scouts selling cookies in front of a grocery store mid-day. That happens all the time, nothing to see here!

https://mocoshow.com/blog/girl-scouts-robbed-of-cookie-money-in-front-of-grocery-store/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quit yer complainin' With SROs out of schools, arrests of students is way down. Now we have more equity and diversity.

Yes, there may be drug use and worse in the bathrooms, but we are no longer sending these good, innocent children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Restorative justice is the way to go.

If you don't like it, send your kids to private.

Drug use and violence seem about the same as always. In a county this big there are bound to be a few issues from time to time

No, drug use is not the same as always. Why are you blatantly lying and downplaying this issue? How does that serve you, and more importantly, the families of Montgomery County?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure I get it -- if kids are vaping/smoking weed in the restroom all the time, why doesn't security patrol and punish the offenders? Seems like the good kids are suffering unnecessarily.

I asked my DCs if the security guards sweep the bathrooms. This is what they said:

"They stand outside the bathrooms, and yell, 'Go to class', then walk away".

So, they don't bother to check if the kids are actually going to class or whether there is drug use or other scary sh1t going on in there. IMO, the security guards don't really care. They are just phoning it in, and getting a paycheck. I say we need SROs back to sweep the bathrooms. Oh, but certain PoC might get arrested more for doing something illegal, so that would be not good, per the equity police.

I am so sick of this sh1t. I have 3 years left in MCPS.

You want armed police officers for routine patrols of high school bathrooms?

Yes. The security guards aren't doing anything, and even if they catch the kids, there are no consequences. So, if you want real "teeth" as a PP stated, then you need SROs to sweep the bathrooms. That is the only way to stop these kids - fear of arrest because they don't care if they get suspended or have detention.

MCPS isn't even doing suspensions or detentions to my knowledge in these cases....Due to Restorative Justice, they view any increase in suspensions as a negative KPI, so administrators are disincentivized to use it as a disciplinary tool.

+ Obama-era DOE Civil Rights Division student disciplinary reform in full effect again

At least that's one thing we can be grateful for because I can imagine how bad it would be if they hadn't made these changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quit yer complainin' With SROs out of schools, arrests of students is way down. Now we have more equity and diversity.

Yes, there may be drug use and worse in the bathrooms, but we are no longer sending these good, innocent children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Restorative justice is the way to go.

If you don't like it, send your kids to private.

Drug use and violence seem about the same as always. In a county this big there are bound to be a few issues from time to time

No, drug use is not the same as always. Why are you blatantly lying and downplaying this issue? How does that serve you, and more importantly, the families of Montgomery County?

27/160k vs 48/160k just doesn't seem that different, but I guess you can present the information in order to make it seem a lot worse than it really is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am livid that they restrict bathroom use when girls on their periods or kids who have intestinal issues MUST get to a bathroom quickly without needing to explain themselves to all and sundry.

My DD at Westland MS already says there are days when teachers don't have enough bathroom passes in class, or get angry and suddenly issue a moratorium on going to the bathroom. I have told her to go between classes, and that I don't care if she's late to class, but if they start restricting access then, what are kids supposed to do???

It's like a badly managed prison.

compromise involves tradeoffs and these seem acceptable

Until your adolescent has a traumatizing leak into their clothes!!! You want that for your kid? You'd be ready to suffer that as a teen yourself?
There are a lot more kids who are anxious about not going to the bathroom than there are kids who do illegal things.

NO WAY.

Exactly. I'm 40 and can still name the two kids who had period/bathroom mishaps when I was in middle school.

It was exactly the same even back in the '70s when I was in school. I'd avoid using the bathroom just because it was filled with a cloud of pot smoke. I guess things are still pretty much the same 40 something years later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quit yer complainin' With SROs out of schools, arrests of students is way down. Now we have more equity and diversity.

Yes, there may be drug use and worse in the bathrooms, but we are no longer sending these good, innocent children down the school-to-prison pipeline. Restorative justice is the way to go.

If you don't like it, send your kids to private.

Drug use and violence seem about the same as always. In a county this big there are bound to be a few issues from time to time

No, drug use is not the same as always. Why are you blatantly lying and downplaying this issue? How does that serve you, and more importantly, the families of Montgomery County?

27/160k vs 48/160k just doesn't seem that different, but I guess you can present the information in order to make it seem a lot worse than it really is

LOL Yes, we're the ones making a big deal out of it. Not MCPS holding a joint press conference with MoCo PD, the State's Attorney and federal and state health officials to emphasize the urgency and severity of the issue, which they surfaced this data. If a 78% increase in drug overdoses among MoCo youth isn't a cause for alarm for you, then I'm scared to think what that threshold would be for you. I guess it'd have to be a zombie apocalypse before you took it seriously.

I don't believe you're a human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am livid that they restrict bathroom use when girls on their periods or kids who have intestinal issues MUST get to a bathroom quickly without needing to explain themselves to all and sundry.

My DD at Westland MS already says there are days when teachers don't have enough bathroom passes in class, or get angry and suddenly issue a moratorium on going to the bathroom. I have told her to go between classes, and that I don't care if she's late to class, but if they start restricting access then, what are kids supposed to do???

It's like a badly managed prison.

The nurse’s office is an appropriate alternative for those students. I’ve had 3 kids in DCC secondary schools, including two girls who menstruated and a boy with IBS-D. They did fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am livid that they restrict bathroom use when girls on their periods or kids who have intestinal issues MUST get to a bathroom quickly without needing to explain themselves to all and sundry.

My DD at Westland MS already says there are days when teachers don't have enough bathroom passes in class, or get angry and suddenly issue a moratorium on going to the bathroom. I have told her to go between classes, and that I don't care if she's late to class, but if they start restricting access then, what are kids supposed to do???

It's like a badly managed prison.

The nurse’s office is an appropriate alternative for those students. I’ve had 3 kids in DCC secondary schools, including two girls who menstruated and a boy with IBS-D. They did fine.

It's not even an alternative, it's how it's supposed to work in schools, lol.

When my DS had a sports injury, he had to have his ibuprofen administered by the nurse. I remember assuming we could just send him with a bottle of ibuprofen that he could take but I was sternly warned that was not allowed and that he could come to the nurse's office to take his doses as needed or as pain indicated. He was fine and the nurse did her job just great. Even called me after administering the medicine, even though I didn't need her to do that, as a standard practice.