Reply to What is MCPS doing to make schools safer?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "What is MCPS doing to make schools safer?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Oh more facts - I read through the other link from a PP with the 12 case studies of where SROs were helpful in preventing a shooting incident. Of those 12 studies, which the authors apparently found to be the best 12 examples they could find, only 3 of them had the SRO in any sort of physical role during the event, such as defending someone or apprehending a suspect. The others were mostly cited as being involved because students told them about planned attacks, and they then told other law enforcement and helped with the investigation. Reading the narratives, administrators, custodial staff, and students were at least as helpful in preventing tragedy during almost every incident as the SRO.[/quote]

I am the PP who posted the link to the case studies. Let me start by saying a sincere "thank you" for providing facts and for typing in such a reasoned manner. I am very pro-SRO, but I am always willing to listen to opposing viewpoints. Hopefully I have time to comment on the post above later, but to start with the 12 case studies:

I don't think we can discredit SROs of the 9 case studies in which they did not have a direct, physical role. SROs work as part of a team. I am also the poster above who wrote about having direct interactions with SROs. Yes, I have seen SROs remove weapons from students four times, one of which was a massive butcher knife taken from a backpack during my class. I am also aware that sometimes SROs call in other officers who then intervene. My husband, a LEO, was one who was called in at a local school. He removed a gun from a student who, from the student's own admission, brought it school in order to solve a disagreement with another student. The SRO in that case was a vital connection between the school and the squad that patrols the surrounding area. An SROs presence in the school can mean that information gets communicated immediately and in proper protocol to local law enforcement.

Schools are communities and they work best when people have defined roles. The counselors are there to provide social / emotional support, teachers provide instruction, etc. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the social / emotional needs of our students blur those lines. Whether or not that is because of Covid, video games, working parents, etc.... I'm not sure that matters. As a teacher, I spend a considerably higher percentage of my day counseling students. That scares me because I am not trained in that area, so I want to fall back on a team of people who have a ton of different specialities. I want to know that I can reach out to the counselor, provided they aren't too over-burdened since their caseloads are criminally too large. I want to reach out to a health team, like the nurse who helped me when I found a student cutting herself at school. Yes, I also want to know that I can reach out to an SRO, somebody who is present and (most importantly) trained for those real, terrifying threats. What statistics can't show clearly is how many times SROs actually stopped threats. The four I mention above? I'm very certain they never made it into a case study or report. How many more thwarted attempts at violence happen that never get reported? How can we accurately report what does *not* happen? All I have to go on is my lived experience.

Again... thank you. I see the concerns you raise and I respect them. It's conversations like these that will get us somewhere. 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics