It’s just one element of the school district’s redistricting plan that would draw new boundaries in the state’s largest school district.
Throughout the meeting, parents held up signs and many wore tee shirts emblazoned with a large “W” featuring stars and stripes...
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A Montgomery County Public Schools substitute teacher says in a federal lawsuit that she was required to assist students as young as three years old to transition genders at school, in violation of her Christian faith.
The Maryland school district’s gender identity guidelines also require employees to withhold from unsupportive parents when their child is transitioning genders, unless the child consents, according to the suit filed Tuesday. The guidelines apply to students of all ages and a related form requires minors “exhibiting transgender inclinations or actions to identify a ‘Support Level’ they believe would be provided by their parents,” the ...
"We have one very clear pattern here in Montgomery County, and that clear pattern is of the adults in charge hiding," he said. "We don’t see them speaking about these cases. We don’t see them standing up for victims. We don’t see them supporting the victims in any way, shape or form."
FOX 5 reached out to Montgomery County Public Schools and received no reply...
SAN DIEGO, June 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Frantz Law Group announces that the Montgomery County Public School District joined 500 school districts nationwide in a lawsuit filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco against Meta, TikTok, Snap, YouTube, and other social media companies. In the lawsuit the plaintiff school districts allege that these companies are knowingly causing emotional harm to children through their platforms.
With over 160,550 students in 210 schools, the Montgomery County Public School District is the largest school district in the state of Maryland. The lawsuit alleges that various social media companies have caused a mental and emotional health crisis marked by higher proportions of anxiety, depression, thoughts of self-harm, body dissatisfaction, disordered eating behaviors, and low self-esteem among children and students. Many are further subjected to often harmful, exploitative and addictive content that encourages disorderly behavior, unhealthy social comparison, and cyberbullying. This litigation seeks to provide the funding and staffing resources needed to mitigate the damage that school districts are currently encountering.
In May of this year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, in which he states, "…there is growing evidence that social media use is associated with harm to young people's mental health." The Advisory cites research finding that one-third or more of girls aged 11-15 say they feel "addicted" to certain social media platforms, that 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse, and that 64% of adolescents are "often" or "sometimes" exposed to hate-based content through social media. The Advisory also points to studies that show "a relationship between social media use and poor sleep quality, reduced sleep duration, sleep difficulties, and depression among youth."
Moreover, in October 2021, former Meta employee Frances Haugen testified before Congress that Meta's own internal research indicated how harmful their products are to the mental health of child users and, in particular, teenage girls.
...A complaint, which lists Thomas’s mother, Karen Thomas, as the plaintiff and was filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, alleges that the county deprived Thomas “of his right to a reasonably safe and secure public education” and that the school system did not take any action to curb rising reports of violence on school grounds after students returned to campuses after remote learning during the beginning of the pandemic...
Family of student shot at Magruder sues county, school board (msn.com)
Bowen Levy’s parents filed a federal suit against the school system last year, saying its negligence is responsible for their son’s November 2019 death. The family said Bowen had a compulsive condition that caused him to swallow and eat nonfood items.
“Bowen’s death has had an enormous impact on many, but nowhere has that impact been more massive than on his beloved family. We recognize that nothing that occurs from here forward will ever fill the void in their lives,” AACPS said in a statement...
The civil lawsuit was filed on March 14, in Montgomery County Circuit Court. It requests a six-person jury trial to span an estimated six days in pursuit of a judgment in excess of $75,000...
The purpose of this email is to update the community on the state of our turf field and it’s use for sports and activities. The field has been used throughout the fall by multiple Whitman teams and outside organizations like MSI soccer. During the fall season, we have collaborated with MCPS in monitoring its condition. Subsequently, the field has undergone repairs and been assessed multiple times by MCPS facilities specialists to ensure the safety of our students and outside users.
Out of an abundance of caution, we will not be using the field for the remainder of the fall sports season, specifically two home playoff games for girls soccer and field hockey respectively. Both of these games will be played at Walter Johnson High School on the evening of Friday, November 4. Whitman field hockey will play Urbana High School at 6:00pm and Whitman girls soccer will play Parkdale High School at 8:00pm.
With the fall regular sports season concluded, we will collaborate with MCPS to further evaluate the playing surface of the field in order to identify any necessary repairs that need to be made in the months ahead. We will keep our community updated on any actions that are taken.
While we are disappointed that we are unable to use the field for these two important games, we are nonetheless proud of all that our student athletes accomplished during the fall sports season at Whitman. As always, our students and parents are encouraged to attend these playoff games at Walter Johnson High School to support our field hockey and girls soccer teams.
Sincerely,
Robert W. Dodd, EdD
Principal
Walt Whitman High School
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Image above shows Picture #27 of seam tears in Whitman High School/MSI artificial turf football/soccer field from October 19, 2021 Maintenance Report below:
Walt Whitman High School - ... by Parents' Coalition of Montg...
Terms of the final settlement with Dr. Vanessa Garcia have not been made public. That deal still must be approved by the Metro School Board, according to Metro deputy law director Mike Safley.
Latest case to be settled from Shawn Joseph tenure
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By: Phil WilliamsPosted at 3:53 PM, Jan 06, 2020 and last updated 5:12 PM, Jan 06, 2020
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Lawyers for Metro Nashville Public Schools have reached a proposed settlement of a $1.2 million sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former district administrator.
Terms of the final settlement with Dr. Vanessa Garcia have not been made public. That deal still must be approved by the Metro School Board, according to Metro deputy law director Mike Safley.
The proposed settlement, disclosed in a new court filing Monday, came less than three weeks after U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. rejected numerous efforts by the school district's lawyers to throw out various claims made by Garcia.
Garcia's lawsuit accuses former Metro Schools administrator Mo Carrasco of grossly inappropriate sexual comments, as well as one occasion when he allegedly put his hand on her breast at a district Christmas party.
After Garcia filed a formal complaint back in November 2017, other witnesses came forward - and Carrasco resigned. In May 2018, Garcia herself lost her job as part of a so-called "realignment."...
...The mother of Taylor Walton, a 14-year-old Gaithersburg High School student, filed the lawsuit after Taylor’s death in 2015 after an asthma attack in gym class.
The complaint claims that Taylor started having trouble breathing during her gym class on Nov. 30, 2015, and asked permission to get her inhaler out of her locker. Her gym teacher wouldn’t let her leave class after two requests.
Taylor later left the class without permission and was found unconscious near the gymnasium a short time later, according to court filings.
The federal complaint claimed that two Gaithersburg High School teachers were grossly negligent in refusing Taylor’s requests to leave class to get an inhaler and violated her civil rights by denying her permission to leave, and that the Board of Education was negligent in hiring and supervising employees...
http://thedailyrecord.com/2015/04/06/court-reinstates-verdict-sans-90m-award-in-teens-death/?utm_source=WhatCounts+Publicaster+Edition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TDR+Insider+4%2f7%2f15&utm_content=Court+reinstates+verdict%2c+sans+%2490M+award%2c+in+teen%27s+deathANNAPOLIS — A Maryland appeals court has reinstated a jury’s verdict — but not its $90.3 million damages award — for the parents of a 13-year-old girl who was struck and killed by a car six years ago while crossing a four-lane street trying to reach her school-bus stop in Temple Hills.
The Court of Special Appeals said the trial judge was wrong to toss out the jury’s verdict against the Prince George’s County Board of Education based on his erroneous finding that it owed no duty of care to the girl and that her negligent crossing of the street contributed to her death. In its 3-0 decision, the intermediate court said the board owed a duty to the girl under a regulation governing bus-stop locations and that a jury reasonably concluded she was not contributorily negligent.
“It was a very important ruling by the court,” said the family’s attorney, John F. X. Costello. “Because that regulation was not complied with, this little girl was forced to cross the street.”
The Court of Special Appeals, however, said state law calls for the award to be reduced to the school board’s insurance policy limit, but not to less than $100,000. The board has the defense of sovereign immunity from damages for amounts greater, the court said in remanding the case to Prince George’s County Circuit Court to determine the award...
“Many of these governmental caps have not been adjusted in [many] years and are drawing the attention of the General Assembly,” said Maloney, of Joseph, Greenwald & Laake P.A. in Greenbelt.
...The Prince George’s County Circuit Court jury had found in April 2013 that the school board fatally breached its duty of care to Ashley Davis by not providing a school-bus stop on the same side of Brinkley Road as her home, thus requiring the freshman at Crossland High School in Temple Hills to cross the four-lane thoroughfare.
Ashley was killed while crossing Brinkley Road on Sept. 1, 2009. The driver admitted no liability in reaching a $20,000 settlement with the family.
The jury, in finding the school board liable, concluded that Ashely was not contributorily negligent...
...But the Court of Special Appeals reinstated the verdict, citing Maryland State Board of Education regulation 13A.06.07.13, which pertains to “Reporting and Operating Procedures.” Subsection C of the regulation states that “on four-lane highways, students shall be picked up and discharged on the side of the roadway where they reside.”
Subsection C is “designed to protect public-school students who ride county-provided buses to and from school from the risks associated with crossing a four-lane highway, including the risk of being hit by a car,” Judge Deborah S. Eyler wrote in the appellate court’s reported opinion filed Friday.
“As a public-school student living on a four-lane highway, in a school district in which the board had taken it upon itself to provide bus transportation to school, Ashley was within the specific class of people that [Subsection C] was designed to protect,” Eyler added. “And she suffered precisely the kind of injury that the regulation was intended to protect against. Accordingly, the board owed Ashley a legal duty of care to provide a bus stop on her side of Brinkley Road sufficient to support the duty element of a cause of action in negligence.”...
... Section 4-105 of the Maryland Education Article requires county school boards to have at least $100,000 in liability coverage. Section 5-518 of the Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, titled “Immunity – County boards of education” provides that the boards “may raise the defense of sovereign immunity to any amount claimed above the limit of its insurance policy….”
The Charles County Board of Education paid $225,000 in settlement of a former office assistant’s claim that the board transferred, demoted and left her no choice but to quit after she complained of being groped and sexually harassed by her boss.http://thedailyrecord.com/2014/01/23/charles-county-discloses-settlement-amount/
The settlement with Stephanie Rosa was reported Dec. 17 but the school system declined to disclose the amount at the time. The Daily Record filed a request for the amount under the Maryland Public Information Act, citing the use of public funds, and counsel for the school system responded by email dated Jan. 17.
The school board admitted no wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement, which also covers Rosa’s claims against her former boss, Patrick A. Tague. Rosa agreed to be ineligible for future employment with the board under the settlement.
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| Twitter screen showing that Superintendent Starr retweeted a tweet from @nawlins. Starr's picture is on far right side at bottom of screen shot. |
