Thoughts on the new Churchill principal?
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Anonymous
PP here. My teenager was NOT alone with the coach in the car. The coach was doing me a favor because I was going to be late to pick up my teenager at the meet due to an emergency. I knew what time they left and I was able to track my teenager on her phone for the 20 minute ride back to the school. As I said I am much more concerned that anyone driving my teenager be a safe driver and so I normally try to do all the driving myself. I don't know whether you have a grudge against the coaches or are just a nutcase. One can debate whether coaches should ever drive the athletes but note (1) you can tell your teenager who they can ride with, and (2) nothing discussed in this thread has anything to do with child abuse. As a side note, track meets often last many hours and the athletes usually do not have to stay for the whole meet. |
Anonymous
Parents are responsible for picking up their children on time. In our house, I have go to relatives and friends that are on our school contact list as approved people to transport my children. MCPS employees are trained on the protocols cor transporting students. If the coach is going house to house dropping off students, the last child is the one alone in the car with a coach unless there is another adult in the car. Can you tell what is going on in the car on your phone? Sexual offenses like indecent touching or exposure can occur with the car moving besides what can happen in a few minutes when the car stops. Conversations in private can also put your child at risk when a predator uses the opportunity to proposition a child or shows the child pornography on a phone. A lot can go wrong with employees willing to risk their jobs just to do you "a favor". |
Anonymous
Now that would be weird if a coach drove the kids to their homes. Of course he dropped them all off at Churchill.
You are nuts! There is no predator here except in your fevered imagination. Do you ever let your teenager talk to a teacher after school or to a guidance counselor in their office? They could be taking the opportunity to show your kids pornography! Do you let your teenager walk to Churchill? The predators are just laying in wait! Anyway, if you don't want your teenager to meet with a teacher after school, or walk to Churchill, or travel with other teenagers in a coach's car from a track meet, then just tell them not to do it! Let the rest of us have normal lives. |
Anonymous
Based on what I'm reading here between the traffic and predatory staff I'm surprised my child makes it home every day! |
Anonymous
You must either be one of the coaches or the Churchill athletic director. 
You made a comment to a post regarding the coaches who got caught driving individual students (not a group) in their cars. When multiple posters said that it was not safe to do so and contrary to MCPS policy and training, you back peddled. Now you are clarifying your daughter was not driven to your house but in a group back to Churchill. Your emergency was solved at that point so she had a way home from the school? Your scenario is so unclear it doesn't add up. Furthermore, no one was saying a coach driving a team of kids was dangerous even though most coaches at Churchill will not do that. Other teams as large as the track team are told where the game is and when the athletes need to be there by. Parents are responsible for figuring out the how to get the athletes there when the coaches say to be there. With a schedule ahead of time, it is doable for the average parent and families create regular carpools to divide up the driving. A coach and MCPS can shed the liability for driving by following best practices used by good coaches at Churchill and throughout Montgomery County. The better options would be buses for away games for every team but that would be logistically impossible for MCPS to do. However, the track team is one of the larger teams in the school so perhaps they should be given the same priority as the football team gets for games? Or teams get equal funding for buses? Red flags because the track coaches got caught and were already given a second chance for doing these things: * Driving children alone in their cars. * Texting with athletes. * Giving presents to athletes. * Use of unprofessional language around children / cursing and derogatory comments to students. Review the MCPS Employee Code of Conduct and the Personal Body Safety Lessons and you would know why these are red flags for predatory behaviors. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/staff/staff-home-page/2018-2019_EmployeeCodeofConduct.pdf https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/childabuseandneglect/Parent%20Secondary%20Personal%20Body%20Safety%20Lessons%20Overview%20and%20Resources.pdf Only someone with a personal agenda would be angry that a poster is giving parents a warning of what has happened and what to look out for. I am sure MCPS could hire good people who know how to follow the rules for these positions. It would be great for the girls if Mrs. Heckert would consider hiring at least one woman coach for the track team in the future. |
Anonymous
| Inside the school building, staff members are not supposed to be in a room with the door closed or a room with the lights off with a student. There are more people around in the building at typical times students make appointments to see counselors or teachers. If the conversation is a sensitive topic that the door must be closed, staff will bring in another staff member as a witness. All staff members are trained to do this. It prevents liability for the staff member and MCPS. No reason not to follow the rules. |
Anonymous
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For anyone who is not aware, there have been more than 15 students so far identified as sexual assault victims since this past July. The perpetrators were either MCPS employees, or as in the case at Damascus HS, MCPS students.
These are the community messages for when the perpetrators were arrested. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/athletics/sports/Letter%20to%20MCPS%20Sports%20Community.pdf Community Message: Lopez (September 27, 2018) Community Message: Ridges (September 17, 2018) Community Message: Kabongo (August 6, 2018) Community Message: Escobar (May 25, 2018) Community Message: Diaz (May 9, 2018) Community Letter Riley (May 1, 2018) Community Letter Lagos Toro (April 2018) Community Message: Katz ( March 17, 2018) Community Message: Alvarado (March 2, 2018) Community Message: Kelley ( January, 25, 2018) Community Message: Black (October 19, 2017) Community Message Simmons (October 5, 2017) Community Message: Boatman (October 6, 2017) This is the data MCPS has been collecting regarding abuse in it's schools: Update on Child Abuse and Neglect to County Council Education Committee (September 12, 2018) Update on the Implementation of Board of Education Policy JHC, Child Abuse and Neglect for Fiscal Year 2018 pdf Update on the Implementation of Policy JHC, Child Abuse and Neglect, for Fiscal Years 2016 and 2017 (January 25, 2018)pdf Board of Education Policy Management Committee Meeting October 24, 2017 Update on the Implementation of Board of Education Policy JHC, Child Abuse and Neglect, for Fiscal Year 2017 (August 16, 2017)pdf Update on the Implementation of Board of Education Policy JHC, Child Abuse and Neglect, for Fiscal Year 2016 (July 20 , 2016)pdf Finally, this was the statement sent out by Dr. Smith for the arrest of Michael Riley, a 30 year retiree who was a coach and athletic director. He was convicted for the statutory rape of a girl in the 1980s. He had a sex with her in the building at Rockville High School. Since Dr. Smith's letter, Riley was convicted for the crime and is serving jail time. As the Riley case demonstrates, sexual abuse is not a new problem. It also can take the police sometimes many years to gather the evidence for the arrest. Meanwhile, parents can protect children by letting them know how a school employee is expected to treat them, let them know not to ride alone in a car with a MCPS employee, and reporting employees when they violate the safety standards that has been mandated by the school system. Employees who don't follow the rules even if they are doing you a favor are risking their jobs. Would you risk your job to do someone a favor? As adults, we know that is not how the world works. |
Anonymous
This is the link to the MCPS Child Abuse and Neglect webpage. The community message links are there. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/childabuseandneglect/ |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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New poster here. You've lost your credibility by denying the possibility that others' children have been abused because "you* have had no issues. If you're trying to help the cause of the coaches and//or the AD, I think you're actually making it worse for them. You really can't read this thread and imagine the possibility that a kid could get sexually abused or groomed to be abused by mcps staff or coaches? Really? I think you protest too much. |
Anonymous
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Michael Riley - 30 years working in MCPS as a track coach, football coach, and an athletic director:
https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-teacher-sex-16-year-old-girl https://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=8175 http://www.mymcpnews.com/2018/05/01/detectives-charge-former-high-school-teacher-for-sex-offense/ https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/retired-rockville-high-teacher-charged-with-sexually-abusing-female-student/ |
Anonymous
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Coaches who have been arrested:
Thomas Ridges: https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2018/09/montgomery-county-teachers-aide-coach-arrested-for-sex-abuse-of-teen-girl/ Cory Boatman: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/childabuseandneglect/Boatman.pdf |
Anonymous
I think it is great if a poster gives a warning of what happened and what to watch out for. That is what DCUM is for. But you have gone way beyond that. You want coaches fired, the athletic director fired, and if she doesn't act fast enough you want Mrs.Heckert fired. There have been obsessive postings about the Churchill athletic department for well over a year. But none of these postings contain any mention of sexual advances or physical force, or anything approaching child abuse. You are trivializing child abuse if you think it means arranging car pools, or texting athletes or using foul language once. Yes I have an agenda. I don't want my teenager's track program disrupted again this year like it was last year when a coach had to take a leave of absence, ( but was cleared by an investigation.) Below are some boring replies to clarify my status:
Fortunately, I have no connection at all with MCPS except through my kids. I don't think I would have the patience to handle some MCPS parents.
The portion of the post that I quoted said, "Some children were more affected than others, particularly if they were one of the children in the cars." I was very surprised when multiple subsequent posters assumed that my teenager was alone in the car, since I did not say this. This makes me think that the multiple posts were actually by the same person.
I never used the word "house" but said my teenager was driven home, meaning the home school. I was only trying to distinguish between being driven to the track meet and being driven home. |
Anonymous
+1 - PP still protesting. It's a bad argument that he could care less of what the coaches did with other children as long as his daughter has a track program uninterrupted. Here's a news flash - Perhaps encourage Churchill to try hiring coaches who don't break the rules including texting and driving kids without the team or other adults in their cars? It can actually be easily done. Other coaches in the school know better. Then your daughter can have a safe track program with coaches who can follow the rules that were created to protect their reputations and minimize the school system's liability. Win win all around. Also, home normally means the place where a person lives. School is the building that the kids go to for their education. A big difference in words. Still back peddling. Perhaps the school should do another investigation to see if a girl was driven to her home by a coach this year incase one of the coaches did an unintentional disclosure with his post. |
Anonymous
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"I think it is great if a poster gives a warning of what happened and what to watch out for. That is what DCUM is for. But you have gone way beyond that. You want coaches fired, the athletic director fired, and if she doesn't act fast enough you want Mrs.Heckert fired. There have been obsessive postings about the Churchill athletic department for well over a year."
+1. I agree with this poster, and don't have kids at Churchill, don't know anything about Churchill, except what has been stated over and over and over and over again about the track program. We get that you're unhappy with a decision that was made, but it's also been made clear that an investigation happened, and the result was different than what you wanted. If you disagree with the mcps results, go to the police, and see what they have to say. Or move your child to a private school. But continued bashing here is getting tired. Let It Go. |