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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Administrators at ESS sat idly by while police harassed and tormented a five-year-old student in their care. I wouldn’t send my child there. [/quote]

That's an unfortunate event, but before this I'd heard nothing but good things about that school from its community.[/quote]

Criminal incident; not “unfortunate event”. [/quote]

I guess it is criminal that a cop was bullying a 5-year-old but I'd describe it as unfortunate that the administration didn't intervene. However, the video I saw was outside of the school so likely it happened before they even knew what was going on.[/quote]

I'm an ESS parent and I absolutely think the AP should have intervened (the principal was not on site). A lot of parents in the community agree, and have publicly and privately pushed MCPS and MPCD to take action against the folks responsible, including the two police officers, the AP, and others who were in the room as this child was abused by the cops.

If one watches the whole video, a ton of the cops yelling at this child is happening in the school building. Some of it happens in front of the AP and the (now retired) reading specialist. Some happens in front of and with the consent of the child's mother.

But here's the thing I'd caution folks about - this could happen in your school just as easily as it happened at ESS. This was the result of the police not taking action against abusive cops, of MCPS putting two inexperienced white administrators at a school that is predominantly Black, and of MCPS never teaching staff and administrators the limits of police authority inside a school building. I've talked to probably 15 teachers from around the county, and none of them had any idea of whether they could just tell the cops to....leave. They have not been trained to deescalate situations when the escalated party is law enforcement.

As the seniormost person in the building, the AP had a responsibilty to act, but she had no training on how to do so. I think that's probably why MCPS has reassigned her rather than terminating her. White people are, in general, overly deferential to police and she was new to administration. Basically, she had none of the tools in terms of identity, exposure, or experience, to handle this appropriately. That's on MCPS for not training administrators, and, again, for not ensuring that schools have administrators who look like and share some experiences with their student body.

Honestly, the only administrator I've ever run across who I think would have done the right thing in this situation is the previous ESS principal. She would hever have stood for this, but she had a lot going for her in terms of experience and exposure to law enforcement that this AP did not. [/quote]

She had no training in how to intervene on behalf of  child?  Ask them to wait in the hall?  Ask them to be respectful (and be respectful themselves)?  While all the adults were in the wrong, I had the most issue with the school staff that should know how to protect children.  I do not think MCPS needs to have a specific training on what to do in this exact situation...[/quote]

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