Thursday, January 17, 2013
Wednesday's community action forum on school safety draws crowd.
Dozens of concerned parents packed the Montgomery County Public Schools headquarters in Rockville Wednesday night to hear police, County Council members and school officials pledge efforts to make schools safer, including increasing police presence. County Councilman Craig Rice (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown, a vocal advocate of school resource officers stationed in schools, told the meeting, "We are going to double the number of school resource officers from 6 to 12." The school resource officer, or SRO, program historically has stationed police officers in schools as an added safety boost. In recent years budget cuts have limited the SRO program to one officer per police district, in addition to one Gaithersburg City SRO. Now county …
Do guns belong in schools? How do we handle bullying? Should schools be a fortress or remain relatively open?
There are seven armed police officers in high schools, 214 school security officials placed throughout the county, buzzer entry systems, locked doors and security cameras—but is it enough to keep Montgomery County’s public school children safe? Dozens of Montgomery County parents packed the Montgomery County Public Schools headquarters in Rockville last night for a community discussion on school safety, but Wednesday's meeting was just the beginning of an ongoing conversation, according to officials. What are your thoughts on safety in Montgomery County public schools? Some talking points from recent county discussions: Tell us your answers in the comments below.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
The debate surrounding school resource officers continues. Montgomery County Council members and the county police chief have suggested a roundtable to address the issue.
What place do police officers have in Montgomery County's public schools? The issue of how to fund school resource officers continues to baffle county officials. The county's schools, police and council all recognize the benefit of the placing officers at local public high schools, but disagree as to its implementation and its scope. Police Chief Thomas Manger in January told the council that adding officers to schools would greatly impact the department's ability to deal with youth crime. With the budget cuts in previous years, only one SROs has been assigned to each police district, although previously the county boasted one officer per school cluster. The cities of Gaithersburg and Rockville supply officers to their city high schools…
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Montgomery County residents and officials are advocating the return of a full school resource officer program in Montgomery County schools to help with preventative public safety.
Montgomery County officials, police and parents are hopeful that the fiscal 2013 operating budget will allow the county to increase police staffing where they say it could have the greatest impact on public safety: in public schools. "Many of our high schools are virtual cities, many with over 2,000 students and hundreds of staff per school," said Susan Burkinshaw, an advocate of the school resource officer program and co-chair of the Safety and Health Committee of the county council of PTAs. "We don’t need officers in our schools because our schools are not safe; we need officers in our schools to keep our schools and communities safe." With recent budget cuts, school resource officers—traditionally a police officer stationed within high …
Patti
11:01 am on Saturday, January 19, 2013
There are 200+ public school in Montgomery County. How exactly is doubling the SROs from 6 to 12 going to make much difference? more ›