Residents learned about the proposal when Council member Neil Harris publicized it on his social media and the neighborhood organizing app Nextdoor...
Monday, April 9, 2018
a number of residents shared concerns about the proliferation of small cell towers on utility poles near their homes and schools
County Residents Express Concern About Adding Antennas To Deliver 5G: Council to consider bill allowing more small cell towers in downtown areas
Sunday, April 8, 2018
@KathleenDumais1 SB132/HB500, contrary to proponents’ statements would not in fact give justice to the children victimized by Lawrence Joynes, Jose Pineda, John Vigna, Mark Yantos or Daniel Picca.
Oppose SB132/HB500
Crimes - Child Abuse and Neglect - Failure to Report
March 27, 2018
Written testimony respectfully submitted by
Jennifer Alvaro
Licensed Certified Social Worker – Clinical, MD
Licensed Clinical Social Worker, VA
Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider, VA
Clinical Member, ATSA
During the past 24 years, I have worked in the field of child sexual abuse; as a child protective services worker, sex offender therapist and also conducting prevention and mandated reporter trainings. Most recently, I have been advocating for changes in Maryland due to what I have learned in the past 6 years. And what I have learned in the past six years is for decades many, many, many mandated reporters in the Montgomery County Public School system and other systems across the state have violated the law by failing to report their suspicions of child abuse. This is not a baseless accusation or unfounded speculation. I say this because advocates and news media have documented proof via court testimony, MPIA requests, interviews and admissions in public meetings. Admissions made by mandated reporters showed that they knowingly chose not to report suspicions and knowledge of severe cases of abuse to authorities.
Disgracefully, Maryland is one of only two states in the country with no penalty for failure to report.
Because many mandated reporters have no fear of being held accountable for breaking the law, they
have, far too often sacrificed children to further abuse in order to protect themselves or the systems
reputation.
That is why for the past six years, I have advocated strongly for adding criminal penalties for the
egregious cases of failure to report we have seen far too often in MCPS schools.
Heartbreakingly, I am submitting this testimony to OPPOSE this bill. This bill will not only fail to right a wrong, it will make things worse and more dangerous for children in Maryland.This bill’s use of actual knowledge and not including mandated reports of victims after they turn 18, will set safety for our children back, instead of moving it forward.
This bill, contrary to proponents’ statements would not in fact give justice to the children victimized by Lawrence Joynes, Jose Pineda, John Vigna, Mark Yantos or Daniel Picca. All MCPS teachers, all left in the classroom by MCPS officials who knew for a fact they were dangerous and had them on written “restrictions” to stop touching children.
For those reasons, I am dismayed to be forced to oppose this bill and urge you to issue
an unfavorable report.
Crimes - Child Abuse and Neglect - Failure to Report
March 27, 2018
Written testimony respectfully submitted by
Jennifer Alvaro
Licensed Certified Social Worker – Clinical, MD
Licensed Clinical Social Worker, VA
Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider, VA
Clinical Member, ATSA
During the past 24 years, I have worked in the field of child sexual abuse; as a child protective services worker, sex offender therapist and also conducting prevention and mandated reporter trainings. Most recently, I have been advocating for changes in Maryland due to what I have learned in the past 6 years. And what I have learned in the past six years is for decades many, many, many mandated reporters in the Montgomery County Public School system and other systems across the state have violated the law by failing to report their suspicions of child abuse. This is not a baseless accusation or unfounded speculation. I say this because advocates and news media have documented proof via court testimony, MPIA requests, interviews and admissions in public meetings. Admissions made by mandated reporters showed that they knowingly chose not to report suspicions and knowledge of severe cases of abuse to authorities.
Disgracefully, Maryland is one of only two states in the country with no penalty for failure to report.
Because many mandated reporters have no fear of being held accountable for breaking the law, they
have, far too often sacrificed children to further abuse in order to protect themselves or the systems
reputation.
That is why for the past six years, I have advocated strongly for adding criminal penalties for the
egregious cases of failure to report we have seen far too often in MCPS schools.
Heartbreakingly, I am submitting this testimony to OPPOSE this bill. This bill will not only fail to right a wrong, it will make things worse and more dangerous for children in Maryland.This bill’s use of actual knowledge and not including mandated reports of victims after they turn 18, will set safety for our children back, instead of moving it forward.
This bill, contrary to proponents’ statements would not in fact give justice to the children victimized by Lawrence Joynes, Jose Pineda, John Vigna, Mark Yantos or Daniel Picca. All MCPS teachers, all left in the classroom by MCPS officials who knew for a fact they were dangerous and had them on written “restrictions” to stop touching children.
For those reasons, I am dismayed to be forced to oppose this bill and urge you to issue
an unfavorable report.
Friday, April 6, 2018
Clarksburg Student Expected To Plead Guilty to Bringing Gun to School
Clarksburg Student Expected To Plead Guilty to Bringing Gun to School: Sentencing will take place April 24
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Parents Have Mixed Reactions to News about MCPS Search for New Curriculum
Parents Have Mixed Reactions to News about MCPS Search for New Curriculum: Some welcome change of course, while others wonder about waste of time, resources
Gaithersburg residents object to school plans
GAITHERSBURG — More than two dozen city residents came to City Hall Monday night to voice opposition to a proposal by Montgomery County Public Schools to construct a new elementary school on the site of Kelley Park. Located in the Saybrooke neighborhood on the city’s east side, the park includes green space, playground and baseball diamonds which are used in the summer by the Cal Ripken Collegiate League.
School construction has long been a hot button issue in Gaithersburg, where many of the MCPS elementary schools which serve the city are operating over capacity.
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Former Youth Minister at Rockville Church Sentenced To 3 Years for Sexual Abuse of Teen
Former Youth Minister at Rockville Church Sentenced To 3 Years for Sexual Abuse of Teen: Police arrested him in 2016 for abuse of then-16-year-old
8 Schools: Former Montgomery County school aide charged with abuse of 7-year-old
Police have accused a former school aide in Maryland of sexually abusing a female student who as a second-grader allegedly searched for candy in the aide’s pants pocket and touched his genitals.
Hector Hermes Lagos Toro, 58, was arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a minor and a third degree-sex offense for the alleged conduct at Stedwick Elementary School — the latest in a line of onetime Montgomery County school system employees accused of inappropriate contact with students.
Toro, who worked for the Montgomery County school system for more than a decade as a classroom aide and lunch-hour assistant, left the system in 2012 and is a longtime Spanish-language teacher at extracurricular foreign language programs across the county...
...Most recently, Toro worked as a Spanish-language instructor for before- and after-school foreign language programs run out of county elementary schools — one called FLES and the other, Foreign Language for Kids.
Since 2000, he worked with the FLES program operated by Big Learning, which was created by Montgomery’s countywide council of PTAs. This school year, he taught with FLES at Potomac Elementary and at Thurgood Marshall Elementary and Whetstone Elementary, both in Gaithersburg.
Since 2015, he also worked for Foreign Language for Kids, an educational company in Potomac, through which he taught at schools including Wilson Wims Elementary in Clarksburg, Carderock Springs Elementary in Bethesda and Seven Locks Elementary in Potomac.
Three arrests at one elementary school alarm parents and raise safety questions
When a substitute teacher was accused last month of sexual misconduct, Jim Bartley and other parents at Cloverly Elementary School were stunned. It was not just that they found the allegation horrifying. It was also how often the same Maryland school had been rocked by an arrest.
“Three in 21 months,” said Bartley, a father of four. “We have had enough.”
Bartley spoke as he and a small group of other parents rallied near the Silver Spring school one recent morning in a near-freezing rain to highlight concerns the school has faced in the suburb just outside Washington. They gathered with posters and young children, hoping to get the attention and help of top school officials in Montgomery County...
...Parents such as Bartley, whose youngest child still attends Cloverly, said the 2017-2018 school year began with little communication about the Vigna case and no visible changes in school procedures. That frustrated some families, and their concerns grew when a lunch aide, Sean Kelley, 30, was arrested on child pornography charges in January...
...Principal Melissa Brunson declined to comment through a district spokesman...
...Jennifer Alvaro, a longtime clinician and advocate on sex abuse issues who served on a school system advisory panel, said that best practices should be used at all schools immediately and that it would be unethical to add safety measures at just one school in a 205-school system.
She called for an outside investigation of all cases of sexual abuse in Montgomery County schools and urged the school system to do more to step up background checks, body safety classes and sexual harassment reporting. School culture needs to change, she said.
“I understand Cloverly’s pain and frustration,” she said. “But this is about more than one school.”
WTOP: 3 arrests at Md. elementary school spark concern, meeting with superintendent
Smith met behind closed doors with parents and staff members Tuesday evening.
“It’s terrifying to send these kids to school, every single day, not knowing if they’re going to be safe,” said parent Jennifer Miller, who has three children attending Cloverly, and attended the meeting.
“It makes me sick to my stomach.”...
...“Last year we started that process of re-fingerprinting employees,” said Smith. “It does require their signature, and that it be notarized, so it’s a bit cumbersome, and we’d like to see that law changed.”...
...“Apples go bad after a period of time, you have to keep checking,” echoed Robin Ficker, a Republican candidate for county executive, who attended the meeting.
According to attendees, Smith said he couldn’t guarantee that no child would be abused, but was committed to making changes to promote safety.
“Everybody offends for the first time,” said Smith. “When you do the fingerprint, and the background check, going back and doing that on a periodic basis, it’s a good move.”..
...Smith told parents he would present several security options at future meetings, and gather parental input on which measures could be immediately put in place, and discuss which could be implemented in the near future...
3 Hour Meeting - Cloverly Elementary School parents demand answers after recent arrests
SILVER SPRING, Md. (ABC7) — Frustrated parents packed a meeting at Cloverly Elementary School on Tuesday, hoping to speak directly to the superintendent about a recent string of arrests involving school staffers.
The most recent arrest took place in March...
..."It happened once, then twice, then three times! What is going on that this is slipping through the cracks? These are innocent children’s' lives and safety at risk and no one seems to care or be doing anything. It has to stop," said parent Jennifer Miller.
Miller was one of many parents who attended Tuesday's community meeting with Cloverly's Principal and Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jack Smith.
The nearly three-hour meeting was closed to the media, but Miller said the superintendent spent most of it listening to parents about preventative measures and possible solutions...
ABC7 News spoke to Smith after the meeting about what it will take to restore trust in Cloverly Elementary.
Smith said he heard a lot of different ideas from parents and hopes to hold additional community meetings over the next few weeks, to get more feedback.
So what were some of the proposed solutions?
"Having parents engage in personal body safety units that children learn, having parents learn those too was one idea," said Smith. "Another one was making sure all staff members have a clear understanding of policies and procedures around child abuse. Not just the reporting of it, or the fact that they don't behave that way themselves, but really to understand how it all fits together with the state attorney's office, the police department, the special victim unit, and child protective services."..
http://wjla.com/news/local/parents-demand-answers-after-3-men-accused-of-crimes-involving-kids-at-elementary-school
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Where Companies Welcome Refugees, the More, the Better
From The New York Times, reporter Patricia Cohen, April 1, 2018. For the whole story go here.
And then there's this:
SILVER SPRING, Md. — With forecasters expecting the unemployment rate to sink further this week, the chorus of complaints about worker shortages — from custodians to computer prodigies — has swelled.
Yet companies that turn to labor recruiters like Ray Wiley tend to have an especially tough time: The jobs they offer are in out-of-way places; the work is low-paid and disagreeable; and native-born Americans, particularly white men, are generally not interested.
“We have employers call us all the time,” said Mr. Wiley, who primarily works with meat-processing plants and lumber mills that have trouble retaining workers even when the jobless rate is well above its historically low level of 4.1 percent.
And then there's this:
“I was dragging my feet,” Ms. Johnson said. But after coming up for a day to check the area and the classrooms her two children would attend in Woodstock, Va., she was convinced. “I loved the school just by looking at it,” she said. Most important, she saw no signs of the drugs, violence and bullying that plagued the White Oak neighborhood of Silver Spring, where they were temporarily doubled up with family. “And there’s no roaches and mice or rats.”
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Police: After-school teacher's aide robbed, assaulted at Takoma Park ES; coworker charged
TAKOMA PARK, Md. (WJLA) — A pack of women, including a teacher's aide, is accused of attacking a fellow coworker with mace in the parking lot of Takoma Park Elementary School, authorities said in court records obtained by ABC7 News.
According to Takoma Park Police, on Monday, January 29 — around 3:39 p.m. — seven women approached the victim in the elementary school parking lot.
One woman allegedly sprayed the victim with mace, while the others kicked and dragged her across the chilly ground...
...At the time of the alleged incident, Pemberton and the victim both worked as teacher's aides for Kids Adventures, which provides before and after school childcare services at a number of area locations...
Einstein HS student choked, flung, punched, stomped during lunch break; classmate charged
KENSINGTON, Md. (WJLA) — An Albert Einstein High School student was choked, flung, punched and stomped on by three classmates, resulting in hospitalization for a broken eye socket, Montgomery County Police say.
According to a criminal charging affidavit obtained by ABC7, the teenage victim was walking down a hallway during lunch break on Friday, January 19, when fellow student Keampa Thompson-Smith, 17, of Rockville, Maryland, hugged him. Thompson-Smith brought the victim to two other male classmates. Together, the group of three began to remove the victim's jacket and backpack...
Silver Spring Man Allegedly Produced Child Pornography, Brought It to Japan
Silver Spring Man Allegedly Produced Child Pornography, Brought It to Japan: U.S. Navy employee federally indicted
Monday, April 2, 2018
MCPS Holding Workshop at Cloverly Elementary School, April 3rd 7 PM with Superintendent Jack R. Smith
 |
| From the Cloverly ES PTA calendar
Cloverly Elementary School parents will be meeting with Superintendent Jack R. Smith on April 3, 2018, to ask for their school to be a pilot program.
From the public comment of a Cloverly Elementary School parent:
...Dr. Smith graciously responded to our call immediately. He has meet with the staff at Clovery, the very next day and plans to meet with school parents on April 3rd, 2018. We are so happy to have his support. Now we are requesting your support.
We are requesting at our meeting with Dr. Smith a pilot program for recommendations for more safety and security at our school. It is our hope, that if we can create the right model so we can make all Montgomery County Public Schools safer in the future. We would love to have your commitment and funding to making Montgomery County Public Schools the model schools that they once were when I attended them. If our schools are safer and more secure, then we all can focus more on why we are here – Education.
We understand that the overall budget has been finalized for the upcoming year. However, we ask for flexibility in the budget in order to provide Cloverly Elementary School a pilot program for security and safety. It is our greatest hope if approved and implemented correctly our school can be the model for all Montgomery County Public Schools for security and safety...
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MCCPTA, Wison Wims ES, Stedwick ES, South Lake ES: Germantown Man Allegedly Sexually Abused Student When Working as MCPS Paraeducator
...MCPS hired Toro in 2001 and he worked at Stedwick Elementary from 2001 to 2012, according to Kimball. He also worked at a summer school program at South Lake Elementary School in Montgomery Village from 2001 to 2006.
Kimball wrote Toro currently works for an extracurricular after-school language program not run by MCPS, but contracted through parent-teacher associations. In that role, he worked with children at Wilson Wims Elementary School in Clarksburg. Kimball wrote MCPS is looking into whether he worked at any other schools through the extracurricular program, which she didn’t name...
Germantown Man Allegedly Sexually Abused Student When Working as MCPS Paraeducator: Faces sex offense charges in connection with incident at Stedwick Elementary School
Arrest of former MCPS aide: Toro, in his role as a paraeducator, allowing a 7-year-old female elementary school student to reach into his pants pocket to look for candy.
Former Montgomery County Public Schools Employee Charged with Sexual Offense
Detectives with the Special Victims Investigations Division (SVID) have charged Hector Hermes Lagos Toro, age 58, of Locustdale Drive in Germantown, with sexual abuse of a minor and a third degree sex offense. The charges stem from an incident that occurred in the 2010 – 2011 school year and involve Toro, in his role as a paraeducator, allowing a 7-year-old female elementary school student to reach into his pants pocket to look for candy.
In March 2018, the victim, (who is now 15), came forward to police and reported the abuse. The victim stated that on a date in the 2010-2011 school year, Toro was monitoring second grade indoor recess as part of his role as an instructional assistant at Stedwick Elementary School. The victim stated that Toro allowed her to reach into his pockets and manipulate his private area as she searched for candy.
During an interview with detectives, Toro confirmed that children at the school frequently placed their hands in his pockets in search of treats.
Toro was arrested on the strength of a criminal warrant on Friday, March 30, and was transported to the Central Processing Unit. He was released on bond.
Detectives are requesting that parents of juveniles who may have had contact with Hector Hermes Lagos Toro to talk to their children about any interaction with him and contact SVID detectives at 240-773-5400 if they believe their child was victimized.
School construction funding fight is part of ongoing drive to strip power from the governor
Maryland’s governor has long been considered one of the most powerful in the country, mainly because of his control over spending and appointments.
The Maryland General Assembly has for decades sought to chip away at any governor’s power, mainly through spending mandates and other legal restraints.
Last week’s action in the Senate and House to pass a new mandate on school construction and take the governor out of the decisions on what schools should be funded is just another chapter in that ongoing drive to shift the balance of power.
Removing the Board of Public Works from doling out the school construction money was ostensibly based on Comptroller Peter Franchot’s persistent cajoling of local public officials about hot classrooms, cold kids and crumbling buildings.
The legislators are certainly ticked at Franchot, but the real target is Gov. Larry Hogan, who often joined Franchot in lambasting superintendents, executives and even bureaucrats who worked directly for them...
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