Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Council to Review School Security Jan. 14th @ 9:30 AM

On Thursday, January 14, 2010, the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee and Public Safety Committee will meet at 9:30 AM in a joint session to review the MCPS publication "2008-2009 School Security and Safety at a Glance". The briefing packet prepared by Council staff for the joint meeting is below.

This is a timely meeting coming on the heels of WTOP Kate Ryan's 12 part report on bullying in public schools.  The WTOP report focused on incidents at one MCPS elementary school as an example, and cited the absence of information in the MCPS School Security and Safety at a Glance report.

The joint Council meeting will not be televised on Cable Channel 6. (UPDATE - Meeting was televised.)The public can attend this open session in the 7th floor conference room of the Council building, or 24 community members can access an audio feed of the meeting via telephone. The phone number for the 7th floor conference room is shown in the box to the right. Please note, if the meeting is moved to a different room the call in phone number will change.

Question: Will Superintendent Jerry Weast be presenting this document to the joint Council meeting? If not, why not? Isn't he in charge of running our public school system?

Update: Please see comment from blog reader below post, is this true?
January 14, 2010 Montgomery County Council Education Committee

2 comments:

  1. Please call or e-mail your council member today and ask them to REJECT this report. Ask them not to accept the report until it provides accurate, valid information, as required.

    Serious incidents are dramatically under-reported.

    Some MCPS principals are using the "bloodshed and bullets" standard - or as Mr. Zagami said on WTOP - they don't consider an incident "serious" unless the school calls an ambulance or police.

    That is the standard for an internal report but it is NOT the standard promised to the public for the Safety at a Glance Report.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here's the question, then: If I recall correctly, there was an article in the paper about a girl was who was terribly injured at Northwest HS (I think it was Northwest), and the school DIDN'T call an ambulance, and when she lost consciousness as her parent drove her to the hospital....was a "serious incident" report filed?

    ReplyDelete

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