Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who summarized the meeting (thank you) did you or anyone else ask about the things that weren't mentioned?

I kind of get the feeling there's one person who had a bad experience with track and keeps bashing it. I don't believe that all that would go without investigation or unnoticed if it really was a problem. Wasn't there a parent who recently posted that track has more students than ever before?

From what I know, violations supposedly were found during the MCPS investigation. These are some of the reasons my children will not participate on Cross Country or Track as long as the two problematic coaches are rehired for these teams. Other parents may have more information because I am not the only poster:

1) Financial improprieties - the coaches asked parents to write checks to them personally for team expenses and deposited the checks into their personal accounts. All school staff are required to use MCPS IAF accounts and have parents write checks to the school so there is a paper trail and accounting for expenses. Otherwise, fraud can occur where more money is collected than spent.

2) One coach was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes on the team. He cursed, chastised, and used language that the other coach acknowledged that could not be used in the classroom. Boys were told in practices and at meets phrases such as - you sucked, that was sh*t, you are not trying hard enough, you don't have discipline, you are a cry baby, you are not worth my time, etc. - no matter if a child had successes or not. There was no balance of looking at what was being done well and constructive critique of what specifically a child could do to get better. That type of treatment sucked the joy and pride of representing Churchill for my son. It ate away at his self esteem and went against the RAISE values MCPS Athletics is supposed to represent. RAISE stands for - Respect and Sportsmanship - Academic Excellence - Integrity & Character - Spirited & Safe Competition - Equity & Access.

3) The same coach who was verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes was also inappropriate in how he interacted with female athletes. He made comments on their appearance such as those shorts look nice today or is that a new sports bra. He called them fast ass b*tches. In general, girls got a creepy vibe and tried to never be alone with the coach. However, this coach put a female athlete last year alone in a car at a travel meet and drove off from the group with her.

4) The other coach gave gifts to a male athlete that was not approved by school administration. One that the team saw was a sweatshirt that matched what the coaches wore. He also sent private texts without parental permission to contact a male athlete 24/7 that was more than just coaching or teaching instructions. He used the text access to get male athletes alone in his car on multiple occasions.

5) MCPS interviewed multiple children last year without notifying parents or giving parents the opportunity to be present. The events above were never publicly explained by MCPS to parents.

Some children were hurt by what the experienced, told MCPS, and MCPS has supposedly taken corrective action. The Athletic Director dismissed much of what happened and called it a different type of coaching style. He said that he has full trust in the coaches that he hires so he had no plans to remove them. However, I personally do not trust these men and my children will no longer be on these teams. Based on the posts that were not mine, other parents feel the same way.

Finally, there are no statistics that were posted that shows if enrollment is actually up or down or the breakout of any numbers. It could be just spin that someone who wants to cover his butt and job just posted as fiction on this thread. It could be a factor that there was a large influx of Freshmen runners so they obviously wouldn't know what has been going on for years on these teams. It could be a factor that some children were targeted more than others. It seems that Varsity runners were more in the bullseye for the treatment than Junior Varsity runners. It could be a factor that not all parents were clued into what happened or the signs of trauma students were experiencing.

For any parent who has noticed a concerning change in a child's behavior, the counseling office has resources on how to get help for your child or you can contact Tree House Assessment Center at http://treehousemd.org.

This does not surprise me - the AD at Churchill is a problem. I reported a previous thread where a number of people were reporting inappropriate behavior of this coach. This was in August. I copied the AD and emailed the principal. The AD immediately responded defensively and inappropriately without copying the principal. She was gracious in thanking me for letting her know. I then forwarded her the AD response and just said FYI and said that it looked like there was a problem. She was again gracious and thanked me for forwarding his communication.

I'm not a parent of a child there. I'm fairly active with athletics elsewhere in MCPS. I've gone through the coach's training, etc.

the AD is a problem and I would guess is hiding things. If you are a Churchill parent, I would just immediately start cc'ing the principal and Jeff Sullivan (the AD's other boss). And post here to let others know so that they can then also contact Sullivan. The AD is Sullivan's and the principal's problem and I'd start putting it on their lap. That's the only way to help students.

Good luck. I'm sorry you all have to deal with this. It's terrible.

If problems were reported in August, then why is this coach still coaching? Why is he the track head coach for the upcoming winter and spring seasons? Shouldn't Churchill be advertising for a new head coach?

The MCCPTA Health and Safety Committee is looking at the coaching culture in athletics countywide to identify problem areas and schools. Please contact Gillian Huebner - gillianhuebner@gmail.com to share information. She has been a strong advocate for all students in MCPS on this issue and needs specific details about Churchill to move forward and expedite your complaint to the decision makers within Central Office.

As you already found out, the AD will bury your complaints. The principal is non-reactive because she is new and might not know what to do. Mrs. Heckert definitely doesn't know the history within the athletic program or how damaging this coach can be to children. Mr. Sullivan did not even meet with parents for previous complaints and he knows there's an issue with the AD. Please reach out to the MCCPTA so they can help advocate for our school.

Also, if you have not done so - fill out the MCPS Bulling and Harassment form to formally document your complaint. An email just gets deleted and no paper record is created regarding your complaint. Just how MCPS operates. They will bury this until outside eyes know the details but they can't destroy a Bullying and Harassment complaint form. This would be the appropriate form to document bullying including verbal abuse and also sexual harassment:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/forms/pdf/230-35.pdf

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing people aren't understanding.

#1 Traffic studies are expensive.

#2 You can't just add an arrow at Gainsborough and Tuckerman without changing the timing on the light which then impacts all of the traffic along Tuckerman, Falls, Seven Locks etc... all carriers of massive amounts of traffic during that same time period.

#3 Given #1 and #2 the traffic study would likely be more extensive and expensive than just this one intersection.

#4 Given all of the above and the variety of needs in our county I don't know how anyone could justify this expense just to shave 5 minutes off of the 15 minute experience of this small subset of citizens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was late to school today and there was still traffic surrounding Churchill at 8:00.

Parents can speed as much as students. The school dropoffs are also on neighborhood two lane roads which are prone to being congested. Just because the driver was a parent doesn't mean the school community should dismiss the incident. Any earlier, a student pedestrian could have been struck when the car left the road.

A van with a speed camera is regularly parked on Gainsborough near Cabin John. Why can't one be parked in front of Churchill or a permanent camera errected like Wootton has? Is the county waiting for a magic number of accidents or a fatality before doing something?

Speeding is not the only issue. DO you know how many times I see parents on their phones? You would think with all the fancy cars parents at Churchill drive, they would learn to use the Bluetooth.

So is running the red light at Gainsborough/Tuckerman to get to school drop-off in the morning which I've seen parents do MANY times. Very dangerous. There needs to be a red light camera there.

They need a turn signal at that intersection. It is incredibly difficult to make a left onto Gainsborough from Tuckerman in the morning and afternoon. If they want to disable it during other parts of the day fine, but I've seen where only 2 cars can get through that light and mostly it's on the yellow turning red.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was late to school today and there was still traffic surrounding Churchill at 8:00.

Parents can speed as much as students. The school dropoffs are also on neighborhood two lane roads which are prone to being congested. Just because the driver was a parent doesn't mean the school community should dismiss the incident. Any earlier, a student pedestrian could have been struck when the car left the road.

A van with a speed camera is regularly parked on Gainsborough near Cabin John. Why can't one be parked in front of Churchill or a permanent camera errected like Wootton has? Is the county waiting for a magic number of accidents or a fatality before doing something?

Speeding is not the only issue. DO you know how many times I see parents on their phones? You would think with all the fancy cars parents at Churchill drive, they would learn to use the Bluetooth.

So is running the red light at Gainsborough/Tuckerman to get to school drop-off in the morning which I've seen parents do MANY times. Very dangerous. There needs to be a red light camera there.

Anonymous wrote:My child was late to school today and there was still traffic surrounding Churchill at 8:00.

Parents can speed as much as students. The school dropoffs are also on neighborhood two lane roads which are prone to being congested. Just because the driver was a parent doesn't mean the school community should dismiss the incident. Any earlier, a student pedestrian could have been struck when the car left the road.

A van with a speed camera is regularly parked on Gainsborough near Cabin John. Why can't one be parked in front of Churchill or a permanent camera errected like Wootton has? Is the county waiting for a magic number of accidents or a fatality before doing something?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child was late to school today and there was still traffic surrounding Churchill at 8:00.

Parents can speed as much as students. The school dropoffs are also on neighborhood two lane roads which are prone to being congested. Just because the driver was a parent doesn't mean the school community should dismiss the incident. Any earlier, a student pedestrian could have been struck when the car left the road.

A van with a speed camera is regularly parked on Gainsborough near Cabin John. Why can't one be parked in front of Churchill or a permanent camera errected like Wootton has? Is the county waiting for a magic number of accidents or a fatality before doing something?

Speeding is not the only issue. DO you know how many times I see parents on their phones? You would think with all the fancy cars parents at Churchill drive, they would learn to use the Bluetooth.

Anonymous wrote:My child was late to school today and there was still traffic surrounding Churchill at 8:00.

Parents can speed as much as students. The school dropoffs are also on neighborhood two lane roads which are prone to being congested. Just because the driver was a parent doesn't mean the school community should dismiss the incident. Any earlier, a student pedestrian could have been struck when the car left the road.

A van with a speed camera is regularly parked on Gainsborough near Cabin John. Why can't one be parked in front of Churchill or a permanent camera errected like Wootton has? Is the county waiting for a magic number of accidents or a fatality before doing something?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who summarized the meeting (thank you) did you or anyone else ask about the things that weren't mentioned?

I kind of get the feeling there's one person who had a bad experience with track and keeps bashing it. I don't believe that all that would go without investigation or unnoticed if it really was a problem. Wasn't there a parent who recently posted that track has more students than ever before?

From what I know, violations supposedly were found during the MCPS investigation. These are some of the reasons my children will not participate on Cross Country or Track as long as the two problematic coaches are rehired for these teams. Other parents may have more information because I am not the only poster:

1) Financial improprieties - the coaches asked parents to write checks to them personally for team expenses and deposited the checks into their personal accounts. All school staff are required to use MCPS IAF accounts and have parents write checks to the school so there is a paper trail and accounting for expenses. Otherwise, fraud can occur where more money is collected than spent.

2) One coach was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes on the team. He cursed, chastised, and used language that the other coach acknowledged that could not be used in the classroom. Boys were told in practices and at meets phrases such as - you sucked, that was sh*t, you are not trying hard enough, you don't have discipline, you are a cry baby, you are not worth my time, etc. - no matter if a child had successes or not. There was no balance of looking at what was being done well and constructive critique of what specifically a child could do to get better. That type of treatment sucked the joy and pride of representing Churchill for my son. It ate away at his self esteem and went against the RAISE values MCPS Athletics is supposed to represent. RAISE stands for - Respect and Sportsmanship - Academic Excellence - Integrity & Character - Spirited & Safe Competition - Equity & Access.

3) The same coach who was verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes was also inappropriate in how he interacted with female athletes. He made comments on their appearance such as those shorts look nice today or is that a new sports bra. He called them fast ass b*tches. In general, girls got a creepy vibe and tried to never be alone with the coach. However, this coach put a female athlete last year alone in a car at a travel meet and drove off from the group with her.

4) The other coach gave gifts to a male athlete that was not approved by school administration. One that the team saw was a sweatshirt that matched what the coaches wore. He also sent private texts without parental permission to contact a male athlete 24/7 that was more than just coaching or teaching instructions. He used the text access to get male athletes alone in his car on multiple occasions.

5) MCPS interviewed multiple children last year without notifying parents or giving parents the opportunity to be present. The events above were never publicly explained by MCPS to parents.

Some children were hurt by what the experienced, told MCPS, and MCPS has supposedly taken corrective action. The Athletic Director dismissed much of what happened and called it a different type of coaching style. He said that he has full trust in the coaches that he hires so he had no plans to remove them. However, I personally do not trust these men and my children will no longer be on these teams. Based on the posts that were not mine, other parents feel the same way.

Finally, there are no statistics that were posted that shows if enrollment is actually up or down or the breakout of any numbers. It could be just spin that someone who wants to cover his butt and job just posted as fiction on this thread. It could be a factor that there was a large influx of Freshmen runners so they obviously wouldn't know what has been going on for years on these teams. It could be a factor that some children were targeted more than others. It seems that Varsity runners were more in the bullseye for the treatment than Junior Varsity runners. It could be a factor that not all parents were clued into what happened or the signs of trauma students were experiencing.

For any parent who has noticed a concerning change in a child's behavior, the counseling office has resources on how to get help for your child or you can contact Tree House Assessment Center at http://treehousemd.org.

This does not surprise me - the AD at Churchill is a problem. I reported a previous thread where a number of people were reporting inappropriate behavior of this coach. This was in August. I copied the AD and emailed the principal. The AD immediately responded defensively and inappropriately without copying the principal. She was gracious in thanking me for letting her know. I then forwarded her the AD response and just said FYI and said that it looked like there was a problem. She was again gracious and thanked me for forwarding his communication.

I'm not a parent of a child there. I'm fairly active with athletics elsewhere in MCPS. I've gone through the coach's training, etc.

the AD is a problem and I would guess is hiding things. If you are a Churchill parent, I would just immediately start cc'ing the principal and Jeff Sullivan (the AD's other boss). And post here to let others know so that they can then also contact Sullivan. The AD is Sullivan's and the principal's problem and I'd start putting it on their lap. That's the only way to help students.

Good luck. I'm sorry you all have to deal with this. It's terrible.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who summarized the meeting (thank you) did you or anyone else ask about the things that weren't mentioned?

I kind of get the feeling there's one person who had a bad experience with track and keeps bashing it. I don't believe that all that would go without investigation or unnoticed if it really was a problem. Wasn't there a parent who recently posted that track has more students than ever before?

From what I know, violations supposedly were found during the MCPS investigation. These are some of the reasons my children will not participate on Cross Country or Track as long as the two problematic coaches are rehired for these teams. Other parents may have more information because I am not the only poster:

1) Financial improprieties - the coaches asked parents to write checks to them personally for team expenses and deposited the checks into their personal accounts. All school staff are required to use MCPS IAF accounts and have parents write checks to the school so there is a paper trail and accounting for expenses. Otherwise, fraud can occur where more money is collected than spent.

2) One coach was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes on the team. He cursed, chastised, and used language that the other coach acknowledged that could not be used in the classroom. Boys were told in practices and at meets phrases such as - you sucked, that was sh*t, you are not trying hard enough, you don't have discipline, you are a cry baby, you are not worth my time, etc. - no matter if a child had successes or not. There was no balance of looking at what was being done well and constructive critique of what specifically a child could do to get better. That type of treatment sucked the joy and pride of representing Churchill for my son. It ate away at his self esteem and went against the RAISE values MCPS Athletics is supposed to represent. RAISE stands for - Respect and Sportsmanship - Academic Excellence - Integrity & Character - Spirited & Safe Competition - Equity & Access.

3) The same coach who was verbally and emotionally abusive to the male athletes was also inappropriate in how he interacted with female athletes. He made comments on their appearance such as those shorts look nice today or is that a new sports bra. He called them fast ass b*tches. In general, girls got a creepy vibe and tried to never be alone with the coach. However, this coach put a female athlete last year alone in a car at a travel meet and drove off from the group with her.

4) The other coach gave gifts to a male athlete that was not approved by school administration. One that the team saw was a sweatshirt that matched what the coaches wore. He also sent private texts without parental permission to contact a male athlete 24/7 that was more than just coaching or teaching instructions. He used the text access to get male athletes alone in his car on multiple occasions.

5) MCPS interviewed multiple children last year without notifying parents or giving parents the opportunity to be present. The events above were never publicly explained by MCPS to parents.

Some children were hurt by what the experienced, told MCPS, and MCPS has supposedly taken corrective action. The Athletic Director dismissed much of what happened and called it a different type of coaching style. He said that he has full trust in the coaches that he hires so he had no plans to remove them. However, I personally do not trust these men and my children will no longer be on these teams. Based on the posts that were not mine, other parents feel the same way.

Finally, there are no statistics that were posted that shows if enrollment is actually up or down or the breakout of any numbers. It could be just spin that someone who wants to cover his butt and job just posted as fiction on this thread. It could be a factor that there was a large influx of Freshmen runners so they obviously wouldn't know what has been going on for years on these teams. It could be a factor that some children were targeted more than others. It seems that Varsity runners were more in the bullseye for the treatment than Junior Varsity runners. It could be a factor that not all parents were clued into what happened or the signs of trauma students were experiencing.

For any parent who has noticed a concerning change in a child's behavior, the counseling office has resources on how to get help for your child or you can contact Tree House Assessment Center at http://treehousemd.org.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver of one of the vehicles was a Churchill dad who just had dropped off his 9th grader at school. His car was hit so hard to eject him out the passenger side of the car and the car was pushed into the utility pole. Makes you wonder how fast the car that hit him was traveling down Gainsborough and if there were other factors that contributed to the accident including the bottleneck of traffic around the school in the morning. Yes, this is the 2nd accident in 3 months but quite serious for the family of the student.

There is no bottleneck of traffic around the school 20 minutes after school starts, which is when the accident occurred. I wish people would stop making up facts to fit their narrative.

Same with you, actually. Though school starts at 7:45, there are plenty of late arrivals and drop-off traffic can remain heavy up to 7:50 or 7:55. Then once you pull out on Victory and turn right to head toward Gainsborough, there is often a back-up and pressure to get through the stop sign. So there can be bottlenecks for awhile after the bell rings. The accident likely happened a few minutes before police were called, not exactly at 8:04. Sounds like you may not be familiar with that area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The driver of one of the vehicles was a Churchill dad who just had dropped off his 9th grader at school. His car was hit so hard to eject him out the passenger side of the car and the car was pushed into the utility pole. Makes you wonder how fast the car that hit him was traveling down Gainsborough and if there were other factors that contributed to the accident including the bottleneck of traffic around the school in the morning. Yes, this is the 2nd accident in 3 months but quite serious for the family of the student.

There is no bottleneck of traffic around the school 20 minutes after school starts, which is when the accident occurred. I wish people would stop making up facts to fit their narrative.