Serious problem with the administration at Magruder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work there. It’s not really that bad. We have multiple groups of students who wander the hallways and refuse to go class. They often get involved with drama and this lead to a few fights. They ignore teachers, security and admin. MCPS policies and state laws have tied our hands on what we can do with them. They usually just keep to themselves and the vast majority of students just completely ignore them.

They obviously have mental health, education and poverty issues that schools are not designed to solve.

The real issue is the updated grading policy. A lot of these kids have below a 20% 1st quarter or certainly below 50% so it makes it almost impossible for them to pass a course now. So, they don’t bother going to class. MCPS had no plan to deal with this.

Suspend and expel them. Seems like violations of conduct code. Plus no academic merit. Boot them to the streets where they'll end up anyway

There is nowhere to expel them to. They just go to a different high school and become someone else’s problem. State requires education them until age 18. So high school has become day care for a lot of these kids. Businesses don’t hire students below age 18, so they have nowhere to go except the high. Many just show up when the weather is nice

Expel them from the MCPS system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work there. It’s not really that bad. We have multiple groups of students who wander the hallways and refuse to go class. They often get involved with drama and this lead to a few fights. They ignore teachers, security and admin. MCPS policies and state laws have tied our hands on what we can do with them. They usually just keep to themselves and the vast majority of students just completely ignore them.

They obviously have mental health, education and poverty issues that schools are not designed to solve.

The real issue is the updated grading policy. A lot of these kids have below a 20% 1st quarter or certainly below 50% so it makes it almost impossible for them to pass a course now. So, they don’t bother going to class. MCPS had no plan to deal with this.

Suspend and expel them. Seems like violations of conduct code. Plus no academic merit. Boot them to the streets where they'll end up anyway

There is nowhere to expel them to. They just go to a different high school and become someone else’s problem. State requires education them until age 18. So high school has become day care for a lot of these kids. Businesses don’t hire students below age 18, so they have nowhere to go except the high. Many just show up when the weather is nice

Expel them from the MCPS system.

Not legal. ( If A kid has an IEP or an 504 they have even more protections). All counties are required to educate students. Private schools can kick out, private can’t. MCPS closed their alternative school. It wouldn’t really solve the problem anyways except for a few of the worst offenders in a school who have major mental health needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work there. It’s not really that bad. We have multiple groups of students who wander the hallways and refuse to go class. They often get involved with drama and this lead to a few fights. They ignore teachers, security and admin. MCPS policies and state laws have tied our hands on what we can do with them. They usually just keep to themselves and the vast majority of students just completely ignore them.

They obviously have mental health, education and poverty issues that schools are not designed to solve.

The real issue is the updated grading policy. A lot of these kids have below a 20% 1st quarter or certainly below 50% so it makes it almost impossible for them to pass a course now. So, they don’t bother going to class. MCPS had no plan to deal with this.

Suspend and expel them. Seems like violations of conduct code. Plus no academic merit. Boot them to the streets where they'll end up anyway

There is nowhere to expel them to. They just go to a different high school and become someone else’s problem. State requires education them until age 18. So high school has become day care for a lot of these kids. Businesses don’t hire students below age 18, so they have nowhere to go except the high. Many just show up when the weather is nice

Expel them from the MCPS system.

Not legal. ( If A kid has an IEP or an 504 they have even more protections). All counties are required to educate students. Private schools can kick out, private can’t. MCPS closed their alternative school. It wouldn’t really solve the problem anyways except for a few of the worst offenders in a school who have major mental health needs.

Blair G. Ewing is the alternative school and is quite open, not good, but open.

[Anonymous]

Legality Schmeagality ...should be mcps unofficial motto

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the parents providing the phones, paying for their phone plan, and looking the other way with their ready access to social media, not the school system. It's just so easy to blame MCPS, but god forbid never the family for their own child's behavior.

If a student is attacking someone viciously, whether it's bullying or over drugs or for the clicks or lulz that's not on the school system. That's how they were brought up, at home. Bring up the families on charges and transfer the punishment collectively.

A little harsh but it might send a message that responsibility for your children are yours and yours alone. Not MCPS.

Magruder can't afford to not address the behavior issues-there was a recent school shooting there- the first ever in the county. The school must take responsibility as well.

+1 You can blame the parents all you want, they probably have failed heir kids in many ways. But the majority of the kids at every school who are there to learn deserve a suitable learning environment, and blaming the parents isn’t going to do anything to get that for them.

I blame the parents and the woke school system. Parents don't care. MCPS and its restorative justice. Time to bring down the hammer.

I still remember in 1990 my kindergarten orientation at Seven Locks ES the principal Dr Williams in her office had a paddle or something on her wall which was some relic used for discipline in school in her native Hawaii or Japan. As a five year old I remember being intimidated by that. That would never fly today but part of me wonders if that’s the type of thing society needs in schools again.

[Anonymous]

Paddling isn't an option and not a thing that I would let someone else do, even if it was. Violence begets violence, after all. (I used to live down South, where it is still legal and is very much problematic.) Studies have shown that corporal punishment doesn't work and can actually make things worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Paddling isn't an option and not a thing that I would let someone else do, even if it was. Violence begets violence, after all. (I used to live down South, where it is still legal and is very much problematic.) Studies have shown that corporal punishment doesn't work and can actually make things worse.

I’m not saying to do it but the presence of that by my ES principal 35 years ago was potentially a deterrent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Paddling isn't an option and not a thing that I would let someone else do, even if it was. Violence begets violence, after all. (I used to live down South, where it is still legal and is very much problematic.) Studies have shown that corporal punishment doesn't work and can actually make things worse.

I’m not saying to do it but the presence of that by my ES principal 35 years ago was potentially a deterrent.

Ha! About 35 years or so ago my 6th grade math teacher used to bring out his wooden paddle with holes in it from his bottom desk drawer. Used to tell when and why he used to use it! Core memory for sure.

[Anonymous]

There a big show of having all sorts of extra security and admin on the Monday half day. Three cop cars parked in the far corner of the parking lot. Almost all were gone by Tuesday. Next week? I have low expectations.

I would really like a cop in the building. Not sure what happened to our usual guy. I haven’t seen him in a while. Nice guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There a big show of having all sorts of extra security and admin on the Monday half day. Three cop cars parked in the far corner of the parking lot. Almost all were gone by Tuesday. Next week? I have low expectations.

I would really like a cop in the building. Not sure what happened to our usual guy. I haven’t seen him in a while. Nice guy.

The community has to keep up the pressure on MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There a big show of having all sorts of extra security and admin on the Monday half day. Three cop cars parked in the far corner of the parking lot. Almost all were gone by Tuesday. Next week? I have low expectations.

I would really like a cop in the building. Not sure what happened to our usual guy. I haven’t seen him in a while. Nice guy.

The community has to keep up the pressure on MCPS.

I will add: In terms of the cop in the building, setting aside that the politics for that won't make that happen, going back to the SRO model would not necessarily stop fights. Police are there to handle crime. "Fights" are a gray area that fall under the disciplinary code for admin to respond and handle, not police. Police can only handle it if the fight escalates to an assault, guess who gets to determine that? The principal.

So that's not the answer. The answer to getting control of the fights and student behavior rests Magruder's admin and security team.

[Anonymous]

I am not familiar with issues at Magruder specifically, but I do work for the county at another school with high needs and the general public has no idea how little control we have at a school-level when it comes to disruptive students. The amount of hoops we have to jump through to suspend a student is outrageous. Years ago, a building administrator was trusted for their judgement to make decisions that were in the best interest of the students in their building. Now, if I want to suspend a student, I have to call my director to get permission. The director will grill us about what's been done to prevent the issue and many times, does not grant us the right to suspend. We also can't just send a student home for the day unless we suspend them. Kids and their parents know how the game works at this point and it's become a free for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work there. It’s not really that bad. We have multiple groups of students who wander the hallways and refuse to go class. They often get involved with drama and this lead to a few fights. They ignore teachers, security and admin. MCPS policies and state laws have tied our hands on what we can do with them. They usually just keep to themselves and the vast majority of students just completely ignore them.

They obviously have mental health, education and poverty issues that schools are not designed to solve.

The real issue is the updated grading policy. A lot of these kids have below a 20% 1st quarter or certainly below 50% so it makes it almost impossible for them to pass a course now. So, they don’t bother going to class. MCPS had no plan to deal with this.

Suspend and expel them. Seems like violations of conduct code. Plus no academic merit. Boot them to the streets where they'll end up anyway

There is nowhere to expel them to. They just go to a different high school and become someone else’s problem. State requires education them until age 18. So high school has become day care for a lot of these kids. Businesses don’t hire students below age 18, so they have nowhere to go except the high. Many just show up when the weather is nice

Every single high schooler has a school issued laptop and school provided WiFi for the ones who need it. Load Edmentum onto the devices and tell these students they can log on from home and their grades will be entered into the grade book. They're still offered an education but it's not up to the school to babysit. There are plenty of businesses willing to will hire 15 or 16 year olds if they can show up on time, be polite, and work hard. The group in question probably won't fit the criteria but they will at least get a HS diploma if they do their online classes and then they'll be off to the Amazon warehouse at 18.

[Anonymous]

It’s not the school it’s the kids. And I can tell you the number of kids in the school that will be like that based of farms rate. Not that rich schools don’t have a couple too but the few hands that might deal with them have fewer to corral not to mention a better chance their parents might actually pitch in. People talk able the good peer group but people tip to around talking about the bad peer groups and how quickly they take over a class/school/culture

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not familiar with issues at Magruder specifically, but I do work for the county at another school with high needs and the general public has no idea how little control we have at a school-level when it comes to disruptive students. The amount of hoops we have to jump through to suspend a student is outrageous. Years ago, a building administrator was trusted for their judgement to make decisions that were in the best interest of the students in their building. Now, if I want to suspend a student, I have to call my director to get permission. The director will grill us about what's been done to prevent the issue and many times, does not grant us the right to suspend. We also can't just send a student home for the day unless we suspend them. Kids and their parents know how the game works at this point and it's become a free for all.

Wow this is really depressing. I work at a different high needs school and often wonder why certain students who are failing all classes, wander the hallways, sell and smoke drugs and are generally a negative influence on the whole school… are still there! Now I know. Depressing AF.