Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Gazette: Cover-up at Northwest High School

In a Gazette online article last Friday, staff writer Meghan Tierney reports:
A girl was viciously beaten at Northwest High School the same day another student was arrested for bringing a gun onto school property, but school officials did not call 911 nor notify students and parents about the beating incident.

[...]

The school did not tell parents or the students about the incident, and Principal Sylvia Morrison refused to answer questions from increasingly frustrated parents at the meeting. Morrison said after the meeting that she could not talk about the assault because she wanted to respect the students' privacy and because police are investigating.

Last May, the MCPS Internal Auditor reported numerous deficiencies in the principal's management of the Independent Activity Fund (IAF), including use of the fund to make personal loans to employees and to purchase gifts for employees. The auditor noted similar misuse of student funds from the IAF in two previous audit reports.

In 2006, Principal Morrison received the Mark Mann Excellence and Harmony Award. The winner of the award is selected by a panel appointed by the superintendent.
She inspires me in the way she goes about her work,” Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said upon presenting Morrison with the award at the Sept. 20 administrative and supervisory meeting. Children are her passion, Weast noted. “It’s a legacy from her family–– a legacy she has passed on to thousands and thousands of children at one of our largest high schools.”

2 comments:

  1. MCPS' Bob Hellmuth says that more security cameras mean less security staff.

    http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/03/mcps-more-cameras-less-security-staff.html

    What is the point of security cameras when schools don't even call the police? Would less security staff have been helpful in this situation? What would a camera do to break up an incident?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also from the same MCPS website extolling the principal:

    "Northwest was the county’s first high school to initiate and embrace the Collaborative Action Process, a plan established to identify incoming freshmen with academic difficulties and guide them throughout their high school years."

    Is this the same CAP program that MCPS just discarded recently, because it "didn't work?" (and, P.S., I thought the purpose of the CAP program was to prevent inappropriate referrals to special education and disproportionality).

    ReplyDelete

If your comment does not appear in 24 hours, please send your comment directly to our e-mail address:
parentscoalitionmc AT outlook.com