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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The kids are not okay. SMH.[/quote]

Schools need to be smaller. 500 for MS. 1000 for HS. Classroom sizes need to be much smaller. 15 for MS. 20 for HS. Stagger the school day and make school year round so there is an AM shift and a PM shift. Cramming adolescents together in packed hallways and classroom increases their stress and helps leads to stupid disputes. But smaller populations cost money so MCPS just adds additional security.[/quote]

The stupid disputes 9/10 have nothing to do with school. They tend to be about:

1) Perceived slights of disrespect (sometimes influenced by older gang affiliated teens who egg the fights on for their entertainment and/or to initiate them into the gang). These slights are sometimes amplified by social media and group chats that spread the humiliation.
2) Fights over girlfriends/boyfriends
3) Trash talking that goes too far either in games or sports. This trash talking can be amplified by group chats and social media as well.

I'm not saying there's not some merit to smaller schools, but that isn't why these kids are fighting.[/quote]

What do you expect when the county has built multiple low income housing communities in that area? Of course sending all the poor section 8 kids to the 2 high schools in that area would cause problems. what do you expect from communities that lack strong parents and are raised to get upset and take offense at every little comment. I live in that area and it's scary as shit. [/quote]

Before I respond in further detail, I want to preface that low-income housing communities are definitely correlated with crime, violence, instability, etc. But we have to be fair and clear that there are also plenty of hard-working, honest, low-income families too. We can't paint everyone with a broad brush, but yes, the instances of those negative things are definitely much higher in those communities.

Honestly, I don't know what MCPS or MoCo can do. They're providing those families with housing and food and education, but it's not the government's job to teach values, ethics and morals. That's society's, the community's and the family's.

This is where I feel for MCPS because they can't fix dysfunctional families. The best they can do is isolate, contain and refer them for treatment and services, but no government entity can make anyone become a better person. So the situation seems like one with no solution.

[b]I do agree with a PP that we need Mark Twain back. You can't have broken and dysfunctional kids bleeding all over everyone else emotionally and spreading their trauma and chaos with no safety net. It's not fair and it's not safe[/b].[/quote]

This will never happen here. Then all you'll have is a school that is filled with kids who misbehave and do crime. MCPS is not interested in making schools like prison. 
What they need to do is start clarifying what types of behavior are accepted and won't be accepted, holding kids accountable without regard to who did it and why, and bringing up SROs to support the already overwhelmed staff who are stuck dealing with these fights. [/quote]

Mark Twain should be brought back but not in its previous form. Think of it more as a detox and recovery center, that kids who need therapy, support, love and attention. They should be able, with a track record of good behavior.

So Mark Twain should have double or triple the counselors and social workers as the traditional school, with a focus on repairing, healing and restoring these students so they can return to their home school. This is similar to how substance users have to be isolated and treated before you dump them back into society. They can't do that work in their normal everyday environment for their safety and everyone else's.[/quote]

Yeah MCPS has that, it is called Alternative Programs. [/quote]

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