Skip to main content

Counterpoint

All text printed in italics is from this article in the HoCo Times by Kate Magill:

Howard County looks to add door locks, 4 officers to bolster school security 


Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman announced Tuesday that he is committing $1.1 million in his upcoming budgets for school security initiatives, including more door locks at high schools and additional police officers for middle schools.

AltonSterling

Three new school resource officers, and a supervisor, would join the three officers assigned to serve six middle schools: Mayfield Woods, Patuxent Valley, Wilde Lake, Harper's Choice, Lake Elkhorn and Oakland Mills.


Stephon Clark


Until the additional school resource officers arrive, Gardner said the department will mandate all patrol officers to add public and private schools in their beats to their regular patrol rounds.
Tamir Rice 

“So the role here is for our road officers, in their beats, to make at least one check per day of going in, checking in with school administration and staff, getting to know them, also if time allows walking in the school, interacting with students and if time permits, to even have lunch with the students,” Gardner said. “This is not something new, this is something that officers have done on their own in the past, but this is now just formalizing that program.”


Philando Castille

Martirano said the school system plans to have “enhanced communication” with families about the increased police presence in schools to ease anxieties that parents or children may have, but he did not provide specifics.



Eric Garner


The idea of an increased police presence has been met with concern from some community members, including Howard County NAACP President Willie Flowers, who said while he sees the value in helping officers and students to get to know one another, he didn’t believe the initiative has been well communicated to parents. 
Michael Brown 

I know they mean well. I know they feel they are simply doing their jobs, doing the best they can to protect students using the resources they have available to them. But I wonder. I wonder if our new director of Diversity and Inclusion, Kevin Gilbert, was seated at the table when these plans were being made. 

Sandra Bland

We know that learning is adversely affected by stress. The County Executive and the Superintendent are hoping to allay fears about school shootings.

Freddie Gray

What about the learning of students whose life experiences have taught them to fear police?

Walter Scott

I don’t know. I just don’t.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Columbia Chance Connection

  Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!”  We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...