Thoughts on the new Churchill principal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"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.

+1 I really should stop opening this thread but I keep doing it in case there is something new said. (There hasn't been for several pages.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
+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.

If you don't have a kid at Churchill, then what interest do you have in this thread?

The MCPS investigation had a predetermined outcome by a principal who is no longer at the school and an athletic director who actively tried to cover up what children reported. There are many situations - Damascus HS being the most recent - where the principal rounds up all victims and witnesses BEFORE the police are called. That is what happened at Churchill.

If you speak with Churchill parents, they were not communicated to when the coach was put on administrative leave. Parents of children interviewed were not told their children were pulled out of class and interviewed by a team of MCPS employees or why. Parents were not told two coaches were actually being investigated but only one was put on administrative leave. Parents also were not told violations were corroborated by the MCPS investigation but they use a practice of progressive discipline so the coaches were rehired.

John Vigna is an MCPS Employee who was progressively disciplined for 20 years by MCPS including coaching a JV basketball team at Paint Branch HS. He is an example of how MCPS keeps predators in their jobs for years because John Vigna was caught putting children on his lap over and over again. The principal simply gave him warnings to stop every time he was caught. John Vigna was convicted for multiple counts of child sexual abuse and is now serving a 48 year prison sentence. It's an example of MCPS ignored the red flags of employees not following the rules which allowed decades of child abuse to occur.

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2017/08/montgomery-co-school-board-sued-millions-ex-teachers-molestation-kids/

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2017/06/montgomery-co-teacher-convicted-of-child-sex-abse/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
New poster here. You've lost your credibility by denying the possibility that others' children have been abused because "you* have had no issues.

I would never make such a stupid statement. But no-one has said that any teenagers were abused (e.g. sexual advances or physical force used) by coaches at Churchill.

(BTW, my teenager has friends on the team who also seem quite happy. Its a great group of kids.)

Anonymous wrote:


+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.

I don't think the track program should be interrupted because a parent has grudges against the coaches.

Anonymous wrote:


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 might well be that rules about driving were broken. I am not privy that information. But it does seem that there is no discussion of car pools with the coaches this year. And the coaches seem to be supplying more information about detecting signs of abuse. So if the coaches are now following the rules by the letter, it seems like a win-win situation, and you can end your obsessive complaints in this forum. Congratulations!

Anonymous wrote:


Also, home normally means the place where a person lives. 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.

It depends on the context. For example, the buses drive the kids from Churchill to the meet, and then drive them home after the meet. But yes I could have been more explicit about my teenager being driven back to Churchill after the meet. (I only wrote one sentence about the incident.)

BTW, this happened more than a year ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"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.

+1 I really should stop opening this thread but I keep doing it in case there is something new said. (There hasn't been for several pages.)

Well at least they stopped complaining about the drop off and pick up traffic! That's a plus!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"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.

+1 I really should stop opening this thread but I keep doing it in case there is something new said. (There hasn't been for several pages.)

Well at least they stopped complaining about the drop off and pick up traffic! That's a plus!

Arrived at Churchill at 2:43 today and virtually everyone was gone out of the parking lot maybe 5 cars waiting to make left onto Tuckerman. I think people have made a mountain out of a mole hill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"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.

+1 I really should stop opening this thread but I keep doing it in case there is something new said. (There hasn't been for several pages.)

Well at least they stopped complaining about the drop off and pick up traffic! That's a plus!

Arrived at Churchill at 2:43 today and virtually everyone was gone out of the parking lot maybe 5 cars waiting to make left onto Tuckerman. I think people have made a mountain out of a mole hill.

If you had arrived at 2:35, you would have seen student after student leaving the parking lot via the entrance lanes. One came really close to hitting a bus that was entering the lot late. The bus swerved onto the sidewalk when making the turn. Not the first time that has happened. There seems to be less staff on hand before and after school so it's dangerous before the buses leave the lot.

[Anonymous]

The MCPS transportation department could check with the bus drivers as to what they think of the situation.

Do they have the ability to equip the buses with dash cams? Or do the special ed buses have inside cameras that might be filming from back to front so the video could be zoomed in to see out the front window? IDK - Just thinking if they did have video footage then the school administration or transportation department could see what is going on.

A car hitting a bus is bad. A bus hitting a student when trying avoid hitting a car driving the wrong way out of the parking lot would be fatal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The MCPS transportation department could check with the bus drivers as to what they think of the situation.

Do they have the ability to equip the buses with dash cams? Or do the special ed buses have inside cameras that might be filming from back to front so the video could be zoomed in to see out the front window? IDK - Just thinking if they did have video footage then the school administration or transportation department could see what is going on.

A car hitting a bus is bad. A bus hitting a student when trying avoid hitting a car driving the wrong way out of the parking lot would be fatal.

I'm never there early enough to see problems in the lot, but I do see teenager after teenager blowing through stop signs a few blocks away just after school lets out. I've been considering recommending that police plant cars to give tickets occasionally (probably near all HSs) in the hopes that a few early tickets will change the kids' driving habits while young. Haven't done it, though, because I figure the police know their business better than I do!

[Anonymous]

I live a few blocks away from Churchill. There's a main street then a side street that has stop signs near my house. Students and adult drivers routinely blow through the stop signs in a rush to and from school.

There have been 5 bad accidents in the intersection that have caused cars to be totaled and people to go to the hospital. All because of someone failing to go the speed limit of 25 mph and someone failing to stop for a stop sign. I would support greater police enforcement in the neighborhood around Churchill.

BTW - sometimes the busses also speed and have accidents. I witnessed one in front of Hoover a few years ago where a bus rear ended a car and pushed it into another car. Everyone on the roads around schools need to slow down and obey traffic signs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
New poster here. You've lost your credibility by denying the possibility that others' children have been abused because "you* have had no issues.

I would never make such a stupid statement. But no-one has said that any teenagers were abused (e.g. sexual advances or physical force used) by coaches at Churchill.

(BTW, my teenager has friends on the team who also seem quite happy. Its a great group of kids.)

Anonymous wrote:


+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.

I don't think the track program should be interrupted because a parent has grudges against the coaches.

Anonymous wrote:


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 might well be that rules about driving were broken. I am not privy that information. But it does seem that there is no discussion of car pools with the coaches this year. And the coaches seem to be supplying more information about detecting signs of abuse. So if the coaches are now following the rules by the letter, it seems like a win-win situation, and you can end your obsessive complaints in this forum. Congratulations!

Anonymous wrote:


Also, home normally means the place where a person lives. 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.

It depends on the context. For example, the buses drive the kids from Churchill to the meet, and then drive them home after the meet. But yes I could have been more explicit about my teenager being driven back to Churchill after the meet. (I only wrote one sentence about the incident.)

BTW, this happened more than a year ago.




There are many forms of abuse and yes, both coaches were reported for abuse.

I am glad to hear that they are making an attempt to follow the rules this year. It doesn't erase the consequences of what they did in the past. It doesn't mean that they aren't still breaking the rules whenever the opportunity exists. It might take a while before they are caught.

Good luck with the team this year. Hopefully your daughter will be safe. Hopefully the school administrators are closely supervising the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I would never make such a stupid statement. But no-one has said that any teenagers were abused (e.g. sexual advances or physical force used) by coaches at Churchill.

(BTW, my teenager has friends on the team who also seem quite happy. Its a great group of kids.)

I don't think the track program should be interrupted because a parent has grudges against the coaches.

It might well be that rules about driving were broken. I am not privy that information. But it does seem that there is no discussion of car pools with the coaches this year. And the coaches seem to be supplying more information about detecting signs of abuse. So if the coaches are now following the rules by the letter, it seems like a win-win situation, and you can end your obsessive complaints in this forum. Congratulations!

It depends on the context. For example, the buses drive the kids from Churchill to the meet, and then drive them home after the meet. But yes I could have been more explicit about my teenager being driven back to Churchill after the meet. (I only wrote one sentence about the incident.)

BTW, this happened more than a year ago.

PP - I have kids on other teams at Churchill. The coaches on the other teams never drive the kids. The coaches on the other teams do not text the kids. The coaches on the other teams do not give individual athletes something that is not given to all the athletes. Normally what is given out to all the athletes is organized by parent volunteers, not the coach. BTW - the track coaches also asked for parents to write them checks, something other coaches at the school seem to know not to do and is considered a serious financial offense in MCPS because of the ability to commit fraud. The checks are traceable so there is evidence that this happened.

I find it odd that you are still back peddling to support coaches that had a long list of problems. Now you specify that the coach who drove your child home from a meet did that more than a year ago so before he was disciplined for driving individual children alone in his car. I find it also odd that you are reporting that the coaches are supplying more information about detecting signs of abuse. How pray tell are they doing this for parents or did your child say they are doing this in practice? Again, this is not being done on the teams my children are associated with so it seems like an odd comment to make.

As a parent, I would be concerned about past offenses that the school knows occurred but has kept silent and the coaches remain in place. I would be concerned that potentially these men have hurt children, maybe not your daughter, but another child. I wouldn't want my child on a team with men that have disregarded the rules in the past because I love my children and would want to protect them from harm.

The only person with an agenda seems to be someone trying to protect his job. You do not sound like a parent and your story has the need for so many clarifications that it comes across as false.