Incidents are up all over the country, including at schools with SROs. |
So, having them is better than not. And, more would be better. |
That's an assumption you're making there. |
| Maybe instead of SRO's we should start holding parents accountable instead. |
What would be better then? |
|
The problem with this whole debate is inherent bias about *who* is a risk. For the most part, school violence happens from within the school (ie other students). Security measures are often designed to keep outsiders from getting in. Students who go to these schools everyday know the blind spots of security anyway. All the metal detectors, SROs etc are doing is making parents feel better. At the same time, those very security measures do two not so great things for students: they increase fear and feelings of not being safe (and yes there are studies on this) and second they increase disproportionate removals of students of color and with disabilities. Security measures don’t prevent violence.
MCPS is wrong for not getting enough mental health support in the doors quickly enough and not connecting with community providers. Bringing back SROs isn’t going to fix that. |
|
Bring back SROs. Expel habitual offenders (yes, those ones who are to far gone to be "restored"). More CCTVs. More Metal Detectors.
Get a service that can do the surveillance of the digital footprints and social media rantings of all MCPS employees and students. Also, criminal background check of all MCPS employees and contractors. |
What do you base these statements on? Incidents are up everywhere in the country, which indicates that the problems in Montgomery County are NOT caused by removal of the SROs. |
SROs don't accomplish much of anything but make the right-wing extremists feel better by making public schools (which they hate) have more of a prison feel. |
Metal detectors, too. |
Exactly. |
Citation please. |
Mental health professionals aren't going to help either and give a false sense of everything is ok. Guidance counselors do referrals for community providers. Worrying about mental heath and behavior when it gets to the high school level is too little too late. The intervention needs to be done at the elementary level and its not. Having 1-2 social workers to provide referrals is meaningless as the same parent ignoring the issues now are going to ignore them and not follow through and the good ones already have their kids in mental health therapy. In a large high school the kids struggling are generally kids no one would identify as they are the kids who just show up, do their work at B/C level, maybe in an activity or two but otherwise don't stand out and are ignored. The behavior kids are already identified as a problem and the really smart kids already get the attention. MCPS needs to deal with safety. Mental health professionals don't deal with safety. There have been multiple knife incidents so metal detectors catching them and stopping them from coming into the school is a good start. Having more patrols around the schools is a good start. MCPS is not providing any extra mental health resources and the county has a lot. Remember the guy who demanded SRO removal is the same man who has his kids in private. He doesn't care about safety. He cares about his political statement and popular votes. And, news media. |
What is your proposal because No SRO's and we've had multiple incidents at the "good" schools. One of those knife fights could have been deadly. We've also had more assaults on campus in locker rooms. |
Oh, boy! We can live in a police state! The radical right's wet dream! |