Scandal Poolesville High School Student Arrest

[Anonymous]

And back…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop jumping to conclusions.

A child was arrested for a crime but we don't know if they are guilty and won't for a while.

We don't know the child's history. This could be the first crime the child is accused of in which case there was no reason to not have him in a mainstream school.

There are other kids who go to the alternative program, do not have further issues, and then do really well in life and I for one am glad they had the opportunity to do so.

Obviously, that was not the case here. System failed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone in local Poolesville FB group posted a copy of a court record: the juvenile in question was arrested for rape on 2/14 and a 20 year-old with the same last name was arrested for illegal gun possession on the same date (his brother). So probably two of them kidnapped a girl at Clarksburg HS at gunpoint and the younger brother raped her… All of this was not informed to the school/local community until the FB group revealed it. Now the principals of Poolesville and Clarksburg sent out the letters explaining the details. There will be a community meeting on this incident in Poolesville tomorrow night.

That seems unlikely because if that is what happened the older one would be charged with kidnapping and accessory to rape. More likely they stopped to ask the brother questions or went to house to look for him and saw the weapons, leading to the weapons charge. If he had kidnapped a girl at gunpoint resulting in her rape, the weapons charge would be the least of his problems.

[Anonymous]

One of the challenging things about what to do with kids who are arrested for crimes is that they are not yet proven guilty so consequences or punishment are probably not technically appropriate. But I also don't want a kid arrested for rape sitting next to my daughter in math class. It would be interesting to know what is permissible to do with kids who are being adjudicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the challenging things about what to do with kids who are arrested for crimes is that they are not yet proven guilty so consequences or punishment are probably not technically appropriate. But I also don't want a kid arrested for rape sitting next to my daughter in math class. It would be interesting to know what is permissible to do with kids who are being adjudicated.

They sit in class next to your daughter until their trial date.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop jumping to conclusions.

A child was arrested for a crime but we don't know if they are guilty and won't for a while.

We don't know the child's history. This could be the first crime the child is accused of in which case there was no reason to not have him in a mainstream school.

There are other kids who go to the alternative program, do not have further issues, and then do really well in life and I for one am glad they had the opportunity to do so.

Obviously, that was not the case here. System failed.

Doesn't mean the system itself is a failure for everyone, and we really don't know whether this child is guilty or not yet.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone attend the online community meeting at 6 pm today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone in local Poolesville FB group posted a copy of a court record: the juvenile in question was arrested for rape on 2/14 and a 20 year-old with the same last name was arrested for illegal gun possession on the same date (his brother). So probably two of them kidnapped a girl at Clarksburg HS at gunpoint and the younger brother raped her… All of this was not informed to the school/local community until the FB group revealed it. Now the principals of Poolesville and Clarksburg sent out the letters explaining the details. There will be a community meeting on this incident in Poolesville tomorrow night.

That seems unlikely because if that is what happened the older one would be charged with kidnapping and accessory to rape. More likely they stopped to ask the brother questions or went to house to look for him and saw the weapons, leading to the weapons charge. If he had kidnapped a girl at gunpoint resulting in her rape, the weapons charge would be the least of his problems.

"Probably" this is what happened? That's quite a leap based on nothing but your warped mind. Stop making crap up. You do not know what happened.

[Anonymous]

Does it occur to anyone that there must have been a lot of evidence and a threat in order for a warrant to be issued on a juvenile and to have the police show up during school hours vs arresting them before or after school? how would you feel if you heard this kid has a parent allegedly in MS-13? Do you still think it’s ok to go back amongst regular school kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Does it occur to anyone that there must have been a lot of evidence and a threat in order for a warrant to be issued on a juvenile and to have the police show up during school hours vs arresting them before or after school? how would you feel if you heard this kid has a parent allegedly in MS-13? Do you still think it’s ok to go back amongst regular school kids?

I was at the meeting and they said they try not to arrest during school hours. It means the crime was very serious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Does it occur to anyone that there must have been a lot of evidence and a threat in order for a warrant to be issued on a juvenile and to have the police show up during school hours vs arresting them before or after school? how would you feel if you heard this kid has a parent allegedly in MS-13? Do you still think it’s ok to go back amongst regular school kids?

I was at the meeting and they said they try not to arrest during school hours. It means the crime was very serious.

May I ask what else was talked about at the meeting?. I wasn’t able to attend. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks are so quick to blame MCPS for shuffling around kids that have problems. There’s no other solution. They can’t build more alternative schools to stick the kids who don’t want to “do school” because the schools end up being failing schools which don’t meet the requirements of the public schools to provide a free and fair public education. Kids that used to drop out at 16 can’t since the age of mandatory attendance was raised to 18 around 2015. As a society we have no actual plan to support children 11-17 who need real support to overcome trauma / poverty / learning disabilities and become productive citizens. We just hope that we can use the schools to contain kids until they grow up.Shuffling the trouble makers around used to separate them from other kids and reduce poor behaviors, but now with cells phones and easy transportation, they easily stay in contact with each other.

This.

I am a special educator at a large MCPS HS.

You nailed it here.

I'm sure a lot of you would be surprised to hear the nitty-gritty details of the cases we work on for kids who attend school right alongside your sweet little angels.

I briefly worked in a public school and the little I saw was eye opening. And it can look like the nicest kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks are so quick to blame MCPS for shuffling around kids that have problems. There’s no other solution. They can’t build more alternative schools to stick the kids who don’t want to “do school” because the schools end up being failing schools which don’t meet the requirements of the public schools to provide a free and fair public education. Kids that used to drop out at 16 can’t since the age of mandatory attendance was raised to 18 around 2015. As a society we have no actual plan to support children 11-17 who need real support to overcome trauma / poverty / learning disabilities and become productive citizens. We just hope that we can use the schools to contain kids until they grow up. Shuffling the trouble makers around used to separate them from other kids and reduce poor behaviors, but now with cells phones and easy transportation, they easily stay in contact with each other.

I think you are mostly right but let's clarify that the call isn't for alternative programs for kids who "don't want to do school."

It is for programs to meet the legal requirement to educate kids who have committed crimes, and not to mainstream those kids back into regular high schools so they can rape their classmates four months later.

The context for this thread was kids who commit crimes. Not all kids who don’t want to do school commit crimes, but almost all kids who commit crime aren’t interested in school (based on the grades of HS students that go through our school who get into trouble.)

There used to be schools for kids like this, but they got shut down under No Child Left Behind around 2005-07 timeframe because according to the data, these were failing schools because the kids couldn’t read/do math. It didn’t matter that the educational opportunity was there, the outcomes weren’t acceptable.

Again, as a society we don’t have a good solution for this. What I think children like this need are special boarding schools in remote areas that address mental and physical health, education, and vocational training. Put them in construction trade training while repairing homes for the elderly in Western Maryland. Have them help with parks services clearing invasive species, building rain gardens, planting trees, cleaning waterways. Get them into pre-apprenticeships learning electrical grid/solar farm/wind farm work. Teach them household skills such as cooking and cleaning while they help to maintain their group home. Pay for enough qualified adults to do this work with these kids. These type of programs are expensive up front, but they save society money down the road in reduced crime, legal system costs and running prisons.

Experience shows that MCPS often has the absolute worst solutions to these sorts of problems, though. I don't know why, maybe because a district near the nation's capital draws people always looking for the next thing, but this district is chockablock with half measures that look good on paper for about one year, and then start falling apart in the implementation, but it doesn't matter because the person whose brainchild it was has moved to a new role.

So, the question is this: MCPS is not the only school district in the country dealing with adjudicated youth. What do other districts do?

Other districts have the previous SRO model. PG even has it. The SJ warriors of MoCo have this huge issue with having police officers inside the school when in fact we had them for years and Obama was a huge proponent. MCPS principals advocated for their presence in the schools since they were not only a deterrent to violent behavior, they actually acted as role models for some students who didn't have one outside school. I'm convinced that one of the reasons for the uptick in crime and violence on the schools in recent years was a result of removal of the previous SRO model. The CEO model is not the same.

[Anonymous]

So what *is* the likely scenario? The kid's name has been released on social media. Will he return to PHS while being arraigned?

And what exactly is the threshold for kids being "released" from Blair Ewing? Why wasn't he sent back to CHS after his time at the Alternative School? I just don't understand the rationale behind the decisions.

And finally - for kids getting into trouble - why can't they go to Virtual Academy? For the school system, this is just a check off - making sure every kid gets an education irrespective of their interest in education.

And before everyone starts yelling at me, I'm saying this as a MS parent where we frequently get transfers from other schools in the area. Because kids talk, sometimes we know why they were transferred from the previous school. One kid brought in a knife, other kids were doing drugs on campus, and almost all of them were involved in fights. It's not a surprise that most of them have gotten into trouble at our middle school too. Fights, racial epithets, bullying etc. One (off hand) threatened to rape my kid.

[Anonymous]

The question of virtual academy was asked. The principal said that virtual school is not an equal education with regular school, which is required by law.

It’s sometimes in the best interest to send the kid to another school per principal. It was implied that PHS is gets these kids even though it’s further away because they don’t want one school to have too many troublemakers.

They said they consider that the kids are safe before moving them but I call BS to that.