Reply to Northwest HS student arrested for attempted murder

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Northwest HS student arrested for attempted murder"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's the text of the community letter from the Northwest HS principal that came out on Wednesday:

[QUOTE]Dear Northwest High School Families,

I write this evening to make you aware of very unfortunate news concerning the arrest of one of our students. We were made aware of a Montgomery County Police Department news release concerning a community incident not related to our school. We are alarmed at what the police have discovered and while this did not occur on school campus, we know this information can be concerning.

The safety and security of our students remain our top priority. We continue to work every day with our partners in the MCPS Department of School Safety and Emergency Management and the Montgomery County Police Department to ensure that we are providing a safe environment for our students and staff.

As your principal and a school system leader in Montgomery County Public Schools, I am aware of the rise in violence in our community and across the nation. Our students are aware of these instances, too, and in addition to the support we provide for students on a daily basis, MCPS has a great deal of mental health, wellness and crisis support measures in place for use during times of need.
[/QUOTE]

[b]He and MCPS are lying. They knew about the arrest and they knew what it entailed. They just thought they could get away with not reporting about the arrest to the community since the arrest technically happened off-campus. [/b]They didn't account for the police charging the student having a gun on school property though, which directly links and implicates MCPS for its failures.

Furthermore, didn't Marcus Jones just say that the "clarifications" he was doing between MCPD and MCPS around the MOU were meant to eliminate these gaps in communication and collaboration between the two agencies? Why is MCPS learning anything via a press release from MCPD about the arrest of one of its students, especially when one of the charges is related to said student having a gun on school grounds? The MOU is not worth the paper it's printed on.

[/quote]

Agree with this.  As a parent at a different school, we saw this happen at our HS when there was an incident.  Just as what happened in the rape case at Damascus.

I don't blame the Principal though.  Admin is in a tough spot because they are told how to handle these situations by Central Office.  The issues are with Central Office and MCPS leadership.  And the BOE - all of those entities care more about optics than they do about actual student safety.  [/quote]

The thing is, both things are true, I believe.

It is true Central Office and MCPS leadership care about optics over student and teacher safety. But it's also true that many principals suck at their job and fail to do basic, common sense things that contribute to these security and safety failures. But instead of taking accountability for their missteps and failed leadership, they blame Central Office, their bosses, the BOE, the Maryland legislature or DJS and pretend like their hands are tied to save face and protect their jobs. This then devolves to finger pointing and no one in the parent community really knows who to blame and hold accountable.

But I will say this: Principals have A LOT of power in MCPS. Moreso than most people think. And their directors and associate superintendents actually can't really make them do very much. MCAAP is powerful and has enshrined principals with an impenetrable armor of protection. It's part of the reason why Beidleman felt invincible and that he could get away with what he was doing forever. We really need to restructure the amount of unchecked power we allow to rest at the principalship level.[/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