Reply to What's going on at Churchill?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It would be nice after all of the “debriefing” Mr. Taylor has with staff, students, and parents that he sends out an update as to what improvements will be made in the future.  Some students were terrified during shutdown because there wasn’t a clear message that the school was in shutdown out of an abundance of caution and there was no immediate threat in the building. Parents had to wait 3 hours for the email from Mr. Taylor sent when our immediate concern by 12pm was whether our children were safe.
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Did you attend the virtual PTSA meeting where Mr Taylor discussed what happened and addressed questions from parents about this? Several emails went out from the school that he would be attending the PTSA meeting and answering questions.  He explained why the email didn’t go out, and answered many other questions from parents and some students. [/quote]
DP.  I did not as I had work.  Can someone give us a synopsis?[/quote]

Sorry-- it was a very long meeting entirely devoted to this subject.  I came away appreciating that they had done the best they could and actually really had the situation under control, but had a couple of places they were improving (he mentioned they had the tech people out the next day increasing the volume of the PA system so teachers and students could better understand the messages being sent out and changing the security configuration in outside on half-days since the kids are dropped off at different times than they had anticipated).  But there was just too much detail to remember and synthesize. [/quote]

Multiple parents advocated for the return of SROs.  Mr. Taylor said that he and the majority of MCPS principals support having SROs in schools but parents needed to advocate to the County Council and Board of Education for the return of SROs.

Parents want a text, phone, and email alert system when the school is in shutdown or lockdown. The long Central Office crafted letter with details can come after the fact since it took 3 hours for the official letter to be approved, but basic directions and a message that there was no internal threat in the school would have gone a long way in relieving parent and student anxiety during the shutdown.  Mr. Taylor agreed that 3 hours was too long to wait and next time he should send out a message and ask for forgiveness from Central Office later. A more proactive approach is for MCPS to have planed communication notices for shutdowns and lockdowns as a template for what information can be sent during an emergency.

The emotional needs of students were raised by two parents.  One raised the lack of trauma care for the students directly involved with the incident.  The other pointed to the trauma of students who were scared and not given clear information that they were safe during the lockdown. There is follow up needed to address the emotional well-being of students after such a serious incident.

Follow up is needed by Mr. Taylor and I hope he clearly communicates how student, staff, and parental concerns will be addressed. As pp pointed out, the PTA meeting was only attended by a small fraction of the school community.[/quote]

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