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Monday's Most Active Threads
The topics with the most engagement yesterday included MCPS school bathrooms, an angry coach, a trip to Japan, and living expense problems.
Earlier this month one of the most active threads that I discussed was focused on articles in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School's student newspaper describing drug use in the school's bathrooms. In that thread, parents demanded that something be done about the problem. It turns out that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), did do something. The school system restricted access to the bathrooms. The most active thread yesterday, titled, "Bathroom security announcement" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum, was about that policy change. Generally, posters were in agreement that these restrictions are a bad idea. Some posters described the policy change as "collective punishment" which was unfair and would be ineffective. Many parents said that it would be harmful to students who had medical needs for unfettered bathroom access and menstruating girls. However, there was strong disagreement about what should be done instead of restricting bathroom access. As I have written before, the MCPS forum has a contigent that strongly supports the return of School Resource Officers (SROs), police officers stationed in schools. Other posters are not convinced that armed police officers raiding school bathrooms is the solution. Whenever someone mentions SROs, a poster or posters immediately bring up the failure of police at Parkland and Uvalde. Those schools were mentioned so frequently in this thread that one could be forgiven for thinking they were MCPS schools. Several posters complained that the school security guards don't do anything to stop kids vaping or using drugs in the bathrooms and want these employees to enforce school rules. Others who responded see the bathroom issue in the context of greater societal issues which should be addressed, particularly gun control (there have been a number of gun-related incidents in MCPS schools including a shooting in a school bathroom). It is unlikely that this will be the end of the bathroom controversy so this is probably not going to be the last thread on the topic about which I write.