Reply to What's going on at Churchill?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The MCCPTA advocated for an alert system after the bomb threat incident at Churchill years ago under Benz.  Both that incident and last week’s assault highlighted the most vulnerable times of the school day is when students are coming to school - either at the beginning of the school day or at lunch.  These are the times doors are unlocked and students are outside coming into the building. Not an easy time to lockdown the building or get students to safety.

MCPS needs to wake up and realize safety attacks will come at these periods of vulnerability, not on their class schedules. [/quote]
And how should MCPS address that risk?[/quote]

Use the same robo phone, text, and email service that Mr. Taylor uses for his Sunday announcements.  You can prepare a general lockdown alert that tells students on campus to go into the building and secure themselves in a classroom. For students not on campus should go home till it is safe to go to school.

College campuses have used such alerts for over a decade.  MCPS has the technology but has never used it to improve school safety.[/quote]

The point is that the first priority is addressing the situation, which takes some time.  It's only once there are enough adults there heading off the situation that anyone will have the bandwidth to alert the central office.  Then they will need to compose a measured script, record it, and get it sent out.  This incident probably spanned all of 5 minutes and in the best circumstances, the above will take more than 5 minutes.  The real question is whether they believed the knife-bearing student was a danger to the neighboring community or had left the area (i.e., did they get into a car or just run into the neighborhood). [/quote]

Addressing the situation includes getting all students to safe and secure locations. College campuses and private schools in our area have an instantaneous alert system to help with that goal.

The carefully scripted Central Office letter can come much later.  That is not for student safety and normally gives far less information than parents get from local media outlets.  Principal Taylor’s letter hours after last week’s events is a perfect example.

Safety should be the TOP priority.  Google the Virginia Tech shooting and you will see the consequences of not having an emergency alert system in place.[/quote]

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