MCPS leadership gives pathetic response to bathroom safety concerns raised by parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, it is the best they can do. Why don't you volunteer as security to walk the halls?

Quick. Who wants to play spot the MCPS employee? Get a life. Change careers if you hate kids this much that drug use going on in bathrooms doesn't concern you.

I don't work for MCPS, good try. If no one else wants those jobs and you are complaining you should be the first to step up and do it.

If you don’t work for the school system, then what’s your motivation for the boot licking?

You get a kick out of kids being traumatized?

What is your solution? Just to complain?

Let's hear yours first.

My solution is more SRO's, security guards and Para's monitoring, security cameras everywhere but the bathrooms and have staff monitor the bathrooms. Also, add metal detectors and bag searches as well as wearing student ID's.

And, have detentions and suspend/expel kids. Make it mandatory kids with drug related issues be required to do drug testing (county has programs) and treatment in order to stay in school. And, bring back special schools for kids with behavioral issues.

Your solution is to turn schools into low-security prisons, with higher-security prisons for kids who violate the rules of the low-security prisons.

A place where drug use and violence run rampantly and unchecked is already a prison environment. Increasing security is an attempt the school building back to the learning environment it was intended to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, it is the best they can do. Why don't you volunteer as security to walk the halls?

Quick. Who wants to play spot the MCPS employee? Get a life. Change careers if you hate kids this much that drug use going on in bathrooms doesn't concern you.

I don't work for MCPS, good try. If no one else wants those jobs and you are complaining you should be the first to step up and do it.

If you don’t work for the school system, then what’s your motivation for the boot licking?

You get a kick out of kids being traumatized?

What is your solution? Just to complain?

Let's hear yours first.

My solution is more SRO's, security guards and

Para's monitoring, security cameras everywhere but the bathrooms and have staff monitor the bathrooms. Also, add metal detectors and bag searches as well as wearing student ID's.

And, have detentions and suspend/expel kids. Make it mandatory kids with drug related issues be required to do drug testing (county has programs) and treatment in order to stay in school. And, bring back special schools for kids with behavioral issues.

Your solution is to turn schools into low-security prisons, with higher-security prisons for kids who violate the rules of the low-security prisons.

They already behave like violent criminals anyway, NBD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, it is the best they can do. Why don't you volunteer as security to walk the halls?

Quick. Who wants to play spot the MCPS employee? Get a life. Change careers if you hate kids this much that drug use going on in bathrooms doesn't concern you.

I don't work for MCPS, good try. If no one else wants those jobs and you are complaining you should be the first to step up and do it.

If you don’t work for the school system, then what’s your motivation for the boot licking?

You get a kick out of kids being traumatized?

What is your solution? Just to complain?

Let's hear yours first.

My solution is more SRO's, security guards and Para's monitoring, security cameras everywhere but the bathrooms and have staff monitor the bathrooms. Also, add metal detectors and bag searches as well as wearing student ID's.

And, have detentions and suspend/expel kids. Make it mandatory kids with drug related issues be required to do drug testing (county has programs) and treatment in order to stay in school. And, bring back special schools for kids with behavioral issues.

Your solution is to turn schools into low-security prisons, with higher-security prisons for kids who violate the rules of the low-security prisons.

A place where drug use and violence run rampantly and unchecked is already a prison environment. Increasing security is an attempt the school building back to the learning environment it was intended to be.

No, that is not what "prison" means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clearly, it is the best they can do. Why don't you volunteer as security to walk the halls?

Quick. Who wants to play spot the MCPS employee? Get a life. Change careers if you hate kids this much that drug use going on in bathrooms doesn't concern you.

I don't work for MCPS, good try. If no one else wants those jobs and you are complaining you should be the first to step up and do it.

If you don’t work for the school system, then what’s your motivation for the boot licking?

You get a kick out of kids being traumatized?

What is your solution? Just to complain?

Let's hear yours first.

My solution is more SRO's, security guards and Para's monitoring, security cameras everywhere but the bathrooms and have staff monitor the bathrooms. Also, add metal detectors and bag searches as well as wearing student ID's.

And, have detentions and suspend/expel kids. Make it mandatory kids with drug related issues be required to do drug testing (county has programs) and treatment in order to stay in school. And, bring back special schools for kids with behavioral issues.

Your solution is to turn schools into low-security prisons, with higher-security prisons for kids who violate the rules of the low-security prisons.

A place where drug use and violence run rampantly and unchecked is already a prison environment. Increasing security is an attempt the school building back to the learning environment it was intended to be.

No, that is not what "prison" means.

Your critical thinking and analysis skills are lacking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

Turnstiles, personal data trackers, and database analysis for bathrooms in public high schools. Orwellian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

Loudon County Public Schools has this system. It's called e-hallpass: https://hhspawprint.org/2320/news/the-ins-and-outs-of-the-e-hallpass-system/

I don't know why MCPS is not looking to implement it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

Turnstiles, personal data trackers, and database analysis for bathrooms in public high schools. Orwellian.

Drug use, guns, violence, sexual assault in the bathrooms, all going unchecked and unpunished and resulting in kids avoiding using the bathroom for fear of what they'll see or be roped into. Lord of the Flies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

This is the key problem right here, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

Turnstiles, personal data trackers, and database analysis for bathrooms in public high schools. Orwellian.

Oh give me a break. Drug use, sexual assaults, violence, even weapons.....that's more like Battle Royale than 'school'. Students lost their rights after they started behaving like wild feral animals.

Show me in the constitution where a student has a right to use public school bathrooms without having their use tracked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

Turnstiles, personal data trackers, and database analysis for bathrooms in public high schools. Orwellian.

Oh give me a break. Drug use, sexual assaults, violence, even weapons.....that's more like Battle Royale than 'school'. Students lost their rights after they started behaving like wild feral animals.

Show me in the constitution where a student has a right to use public school bathrooms without having their use tracked.

I agree with the sentiment, but not the word choice here. Students don't lose their rights, but they do lose their privileges. Having the freedom to move about unmonitored and unsupervised is contingent on students maintaining a level of trust with adults responsible for their safety and wellbeing. When they violate that trust with repeat bad behavior, then they have to deal with a loss of unsupervised freedom and increased monitoring. Plain and simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all seriousness, drug transactions occur all over school buildings because they are quick transactions done with a handshake or hug. Students buy and sell in hallways, stairwells, cafeterias, on property but outside, and classrooms as well as bathrooms. Use occurs all over school campuses as well but predominantly in bathrooms if vaping, smoking, or drinking.

Random inspection of bathrooms would help. Going to clear backpacks and utilizing police drug sniffing dogs would be a better deterrent. MCPS needs to do more to keep drugs out of schools even if they need to allow a greater police presence on campuses.

These are two good ideas but my only issue with dogs is some kids and staff may be allergic.

There are also good kids who have had traumatic experiences with police and military dogs who don’t need to be subjected to that in a school setting on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all seriousness, drug transactions occur all over school buildings because they are quick transactions done with a handshake or hug. Students buy and sell in hallways, stairwells, cafeterias, on property but outside, and classrooms as well as bathrooms. Use occurs all over school campuses as well but predominantly in bathrooms if vaping, smoking, or drinking.

Random inspection of bathrooms would help. Going to clear backpacks and utilizing police drug sniffing dogs would be a better deterrent. MCPS needs to do more to keep drugs out of schools even if they need to allow a greater police presence on campuses.

These are two good ideas but my only issue with dogs is some kids and staff may be allergic.

There are also good kids who have had traumatic experiences with police and military dogs who don’t need to be subjected to that in a school setting on a regular basis.

So which kids traumas get weighted more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have stupid rfid bracelets or cards to swipe in bathrooms, duh. Data can be used to tell if students are hanging in there too long, which probably implies drug use.

You obviously haven’t worked in a high school. One kid would swipe to open the door and then let in 5 other people. Some kids won’t wear a bracelet or carry a card on them. You can’t kick a kid in a stall out if a bathroom, it doesn’t matter how long they take. And if students don’t want to leave a bathroom you can no longer make them as long as they are just standing there. There aren’t really many consequences any more and students know this. So threats that something will happen to them are just laughed off.

No, obviously you'd have a turnstile system to get in and out. Just like how NYC subways only allow one person though at a time at turnstiles that run from floor to ceiling.

Not hard.

You don't have to kick them out of anything. You track their data use for bathrooms, times in and out, and track who they're constantly meeting with in bathrooms. You analyze their data for suspicious activity. Staying in the bathroom for a long time once per week isn't going to raise red flags. It's something like staying the bathrooms for 10+ minutes between every class every single day above and beyond the typical standard deviation of use that will raise red flags.

Any suspected drug buying and selling, you then escalate to search for lockers. You restrict their access to bathrooms, or you at least can start building up a stronger case for searching for contraband on the person.

This is laughable. As if a fire Marshall would approve that. In case of fire it would take to long to vacate that space. And too long for EMT’s to enter in case of an emergency. It isn’t wheelchair accessible so it I would never be ADA approved. Additionally a student could jam or block the turnstile so no one could enter. And your idea to restrict bathrooms if you have a pattern of taking too long- not allowed.

It’s laughable how some people think the problem is so easy to solve.