Safety in Portable Classrooms
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Anonymous
| With today's lockdown, I wonder how Montgomery County can ensure the security of portable classrooms? Our school is about to add them. |
Anonymous
| I just sheltered in place with my child--was visiting the class--in a portable. The teacher locked the doors and closed the blinds so you couldn't see inside. Can't say I felt completely safe, but the kids seem to understand the process. |
Anonymous
| My one DC was in a portable last year. I always felt very uncomfortable about the portable's security. Like today.. what happened if a child really needed to use the bathroom, like they ate something wrong, and had diarrhea or something? Would they let the student into the building to use the bathroom? I hate portables. |
Anonymous
| I agree and had the same fears, particularly on a day like today. Must be nice for the W schools that don't have portables. Damn you, Governor Hogan, for cutting school funding and making our kids stay in these damn portables. |
Anonymous
"The kids seem to understand the process" is a sad statement. |
Anonymous
I'm a teacher. My kids "understand the process", in that they know when they hear those words on the loud speakers the blinds are closed, and recess is indoors. They know to ask "is it the type where we stay away from the windows?" but they don't "understand" or need to "understand" beyond "The principal says to do this". Today one of my kids said "It must not be a tornado because we aren't in the hallway. Maybe a lot of rain?" I didn't correct them. |
Anonymous
Just so you know, it was a shelter-in-place at all MCPS schools, not a full lockdown. They are different types of events and have different procedures. At our ES, the portable doors are always locked on "regular" days. (As a parent who goes from portable to portable to deliver or pick-up things for PTA, I can assure you it isn't a lot of fun knocking on the windows to get someone to open the door.) |
Anonymous
The kids understand the process because the school has drills. I think it's a good thing that the school has drills, though I agree that it's sad that schools in the US have to have drills for what to do if there's an active shooter in the school building. |
Anonymous
| Who says W schools don't have portables? We are in a W feeder and DD has been in a portable for 3 of 6 years including this year. |
Anonymous
If the school was in a lockdown then no one would have access to a bathroom. Kids inside the building would not be allowed to leave their classrooms to go to the bathroom. I suppose the exception might be for K or Pre-K classes who have a bathroom inside their classroom. But in a lockdown they would be hiding and staying silent, not using the bathroom. In a shelter they might contact the police to see if it's safe to bring everyone in a portable inside the building (for instance if the threat isn't in the immediate neighborhood). I remember taking my class to the media center one year during a shelter. I can't remember the circumstances. I teach in one of the rooms on the exterior of the building and today my principal came through and had us combine classes with an interior classroom. I've taught in portables and classrooms inside the building and I don't feel any safer in one vs. the other. It's all a terrible feeling of feeling like you're a target no matter what, honestly. |
Anonymous
| DS is in a portable and they sheltered in place. He was at an ES close to the Aspen Hill shopping center. I would rather him not walk from one place to another in an active shooter situation but if someone had an assault rifle they could use it to shoot through those portable classrooms much easier than shooting through a brick school building. But if there is no room in the schools then what options are there besides protables? |
Anonymous
| The portables around my school are fenced in and locked. The fences are pretty high however they could still be climbed. But it does create some sort of security |
Anonymous
I'm afraid to say a gun can shoot through a fence and the walls of a portable, pretty easily. But you'd need someone determined and that be their focus of destruction. Today's events were far from that. |
Anonymous
the portables at my DC's school are exposed, no fence around it. Anyone could easily walk up to one. And those doors are not that sturdy. A big man could easily kick one in. |
Anonymous
|
Q: "But if there is no room in the schools then what options are there besides portables?"
A: stop spending capital dollars on stuff like artificial turf football fields and use the money to expand brick-and-mortar school buildings. Stop giving away capital assets (like the Berman school building), make them pay market price for it or redistrict and make use of existing capacity. Mark Twain School (now the Ewing center) could be used to take excess enrollment at nearby schools. MCPS does very poor capital planning and enrollment projections. That's one reason we have portables. |