Violence in Kindergarten- Sligo Creek Elementary
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Anonymous
| JFC. I'm a parent as well and we've had several kids go through the school. Never had this issue come up before and I'm inclined to think that the apparent increase in kids with behavioral issues is not a problem unique to Sligo Creek. Obviously, if the Principal (who is leaving) isn't transparent about these things and is generally ineffective, that doesn't help. But it doesn't do any good to insult other parents of kids at SCES and accuse them of wanting to sweep issues under the rug or whatever. Most of us just don't know the facts on the ground and maybe we also had kids who attended the school pre-COVID when frankly kids were a bit better socialized IMHO. |
Anonymous
Do you have proof or data showing that SCES "is full of very troubled and DANGEROUS children" compared to other public elementary schools of similar enrollment and socio-economic status? Because this is kind of a ridiculously sweeping and broad statement that unfortunately makes people doubt the veracity of the rest of your statement (which may be all true!). Signed, parent of 2 kids who attended SCES and a 3rd who is still there and has only reported typical mean girl drama and not troubled or dangerous classmates. |
Anonymous
I asked my 4th grader who has no idea what you are talking about. I'm not doubting your reality, but you come on this board and make statements accusing the kids at this school of being violent little thugs, then when parents at the school who genuinely want to know more ask you for details, you insult them without proving any substantive response. What kind of a reaction did you expect? |
Anonymous
| The principal stated in the email that there was no intent to harm students. However, my son who is in this second grade class with the student told me the day before that the class had to evacuate because this student was threatening to kill students and destroying the classroom. Us parents were never notified about this and that’s terrifying. I am currently awaiting a response from the principal on why parents in that class were not notified of this situation immediately and where is the support for the students who were afraid. So if that happened (and my kid wouldn’t lie about something like that) and the following day this kid has a knife, i don’t see how there was no threat. My son is terrified of this student as I’m told on a weekly basis they are having some type of dangerous or distracting episode at school. |
Anonymous
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It sounds like a staff member is posting on this board to get parents in an uproar. I highly doubt this person is a parent. Bad things happen at all schools. Yes, those bad things can be crazy. Yes, some kids need more help than others. Yes, the school system is required to educate all students be it thugs, health problems, etc. Yes, resources are limited. I do not think that staff sweep things other than rug. It is a process. No one is allowed to kick students out between k-3. You can do in school and out of school but NOT kick them out. This is public school people. We are required by law to teach these children.
What can you do as a parent? Ask you student how their day went. Document what was said. Follow up with any concerns IF they pertain to your child or the majority of the student body. Keep things in an email so you have a paper trail. Attach everyone possible to the thread; superintendent, CEO of I do not know, principal, Area office, etc. Show up and show out in numbers to board meetings. Be a presence within your school so you can have first hand proof, volunteer, sit in on your students class, etc As a teacher, you can keep documents, put the student up for needing additional services, to get tested, etc. Continue to speak with the parents of those children. Keep a log of everything. YOU are also required to go to work in a safe and healthy working environment. If it is not safe, do not return and document. Reach out to HR. |
Anonymous
+1000 Also, there is a community meeting next week with MCPS to discuss the search process for the next Principal. Rather than post on this board, do something constructive and make it a priority to attend the meeting so your voice can be heard. |
Anonymous
I don't understand what you're arguing here. As a parent of a different school who has done all of the things you suggested, it hasn't changed anything. Why? Because the school system does in fact want to sweep things under the rug, which you assert they do not. That has not been my experience nor the PP's. You can email, complain, and show up to the school board all you want. You'll be stonewalled, gas lit or told that it's out of their hands as they fingerpoint at someone else within the system or point fingers at the state or the police. |
Anonymous
I've participated in the Principal search process. Your voice is not heard. As a community member on the interview panel, you are handed a pre-written and predetermined question that you read to the candidate. You do not have the opportunity to ask additional questions in addition to the ones predetermined on the script provided by MCPS HR. |
Anonymous
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Ahh I remember back in 2006 when a K student punched a pregnant K teacher in the stomach and ran down the hall screaming bloody hell in my oldest's child's classroom. It was insane. Not to mention how many kids couldn't take off their own pants to go to the bathroom.
But the test scores in math are good, so yay! |
Anonymous
I'm not referring to candidate interviews. Are you a parent at SCES? If you were, you would have received a letter today about a community meeting next week with MCPS to discuss the process of hiring a new Principal. Are you saying that no one is allowed to ask questions at this type of a community meeting? FWIW, we've been at the school awhile and I don't recall being invited to a meeting to discuss the principal search process for the current principal or the last one. I'm taking this as a positive thing. |
Anonymous
Okay - then do you have constructive feedback about what would be useful? Because I'm a parent at SCES and reading about what you say *doesn't* work is not really helpful. |
Anonymous
A couple of things: 1) They will never tell you whether it was an immersion kid or an Academy kid, nor should they. 2) There was no threat once the knife was confiscated. I don't think it would have made sense to disrupt the STEAM fair to say that a thing happened and was over, coming from the perspective of someone at another school. 3) There is an open question about why this is all happening at SCES this year. If PP is to be believed, this is a different kid than the one creating chaos earlier in the year. SCES is not a school that usually has multiple highly disruptive violent kids. I do have a theory, but I'd be curious to hear from the "insider" on this thread about where these kids are coming from. Are they coming in from other schools? I ask because the school where I work is the "twinned" school to a dual immersion program. When this was rolled out five years ago, we were told that we would receive kids who couldn't access the bilingual curriculum due to learning differences. However, we're actually receiving kids who can't access the curriculum because they are extremely violent. Since SC shares a middle school with a dual immersion program, part of me wonders if that's happening there as well. |
Anonymous
You aren't wrong, but you also aren't talking about the same meeting as the PP. You served on the actual hiring committee, which notoriously discards parent and teacher/staff considerations. I have also served on a panel. We were presented with 3 options, two of which were excellent and would have been a good cultural fit for our student community. The third was a terrible fit, did poorly in the interview, and was hired over objections of staff and parents on the committee. But PP is talking about the general parent meeting, which is actually a fine time to raise these issues. They won't get a good answer, but at least they will be heard. |
Anonymous
Interesting theory, but SCES is not a "dual immersion" program with a "bilingual curriculum." The French immersion program is full French immersion. There is no English (except for specials, and except for English reading starting in 4th grade). So this probably has no relevance to your example. And yes, the earlier issue in the thread involved a K student and the recent issue with the steak knife that was allegedly a butcher knife was a 2nd grader. BTW, there may be other incidents not mentioned on this thread but those two specifically were in the Academy program. Just troubled kids who obviously need more/different interventions than the school can provide. But there is nothing unique about SCES. |
Anonymous
I'm not a parent at SCES. I'm a parent at an MCPS high school. I know the community meeting you're talking about. I participated in that meeting for our principal search as well. Sure, the director from OSSWB who leads that step in the process will let you say what you want and head nod and thank you for your feedback. But nothing substantive, from what I saw, is really done with that feedback. Some accents of what you say might show up in the predetermined questions, but they're very watered down and not as specific. MCPS is very good at appearing to be collaborative and appearing to value community input and feedback. What those of us who have been through the process with MCPS are telling you that you don't want to believe is it is performative. At least it most certainly was under Dr. McKnight's watch. I'm going to leave a little room for the benefit of the doubt that under Felder, things could be different, but I doubt it. |