BOE Daughter Gets Immediate Action from Principal after Story Published in School Newspaper

On March 8, 2022, the Whitman High School newspaper published an article about an annual event called Vike-A-Thon.  The article alleged that the event is associated with rampant sexual abuse of students by other students. 

Within hours of the article being published the principal notified parents, guardians and students that the event was being cancelled and that the Montgomery County Police were being consulted.  Students were encouraged to report unsafe behavior or serious incidents to administrators immediately. [Note:  But please go straight to the police!]  

The Whitman High School school newspaper article was written by Eliana Joftus, the daughter of new Montgomery County Board of Education member Scott Joftus.

Since being appointed to the Montgomery County Board of Education on December 2, 2021, Scott Joftus has remained relatively quiet and has not taken a public stand on any significant MCPS matters.  His new re-election website makes no mention of the decades of cases of sexual abuse of MCPS students by MCPS staff, nor has Mr. Joftus spoken up in support of the dozens upon dozens of known victims of sexual abuse by MCPS staff.  

Bravo to Eliana Joftus for investigating and documenting the information she obtained about an annual, toxic school event and making that information public. 

Whitman Student Newspaper Reports on Sexual Abuse at Annual Event, Principal Cancels Event in Response to Story

  Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 4:04 PM, Robert Dodd <donotreply@mcpsmd.org> wrote:

Dear Walt Whitman High School Community Members,

The purpose of this message is to inform you that Vike-a-thon, a school dance that is typically held as part of our SGA’s Charity Month effort, will be canceled this school year. We were recently made aware of disturbing allegations involving the well-being of our students while attending past Vike-a-thon events by reporting from our student publication, the Black & White.  After meeting with our SGA leaders, we came to the conclusion that holding this event in light of these serious concerns would be inappropriate.

The allegations involve bullying, harassment, and inappropriate and potentially unlawful behavior of a sexual nature. We are taking these allegations very seriously. I will be working with my administrative team and MCPS central office officials to properly follow our guidelines on reporting serious incidents of this nature. We will also be consulting with our partners in the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) where necessary to ensure an adequate investigation is conducted. In addition, any students who may have been directly or indirectly impacted by these incidents will have access to all available resources from our school staff and our partners in the Office of Family Engagement and Supports.

As always, student safety is our first priority at Walt Whitman and we appreciate that the Black & White brought these safety concerns to our attention. We are committed to working closely with the SGA, in addition to other student groups, to thoroughly assess the culture of our school and future activities to ensure we are providing our students with the best educational experience possible. 

We urge students to share any information about unsafe behavior or serious incidents with school administrators immediately so we can preserve the well-being of our students and school community. Linked here are important resources and multiple ways (Spanish Version) for students to report bullying, harassment, and inappropriate behavior to our school administration.

Thank you for your continued support.  

Sincerely,

Robert W. Dodd, EdD

Principal

Whitman HS: It’s been 10 years too long. Vike-A-Thon needs to go. Stop the underage hookup culture, or pick a new event: taking an honest look at Vike-A-Thon

By Eliana Joftus

MARCH 8, 2022

Content warning: This story contains language that pertains to sexual assault and drug use. Students’ names have been changed for anonymity. 

As a freshman, junior Lacey put all of her energy into preparing for Vike-A-Thon on the afternoon of the event. She straightened her hair, put on the sparkly outfit that she had purchased specifically for the party and meticulously applied glitter on her upper cheekbones to add a radiant shine to her face. But the night wasn’t all about Instagram-worthy experiences. 

At Vike-A-Thon, Lacey was sexually assaulted. 

Vike-A-Thon is a rave-style fundraising event that has served as the pinnacle of Whitman SGA’s “Charity Month.” Tickets cost between $30 and $40, and from 9 p.m. until midnight, students pack together in the school’s darkened gymnasium as music blares and neon lights strobe. 

Vike-A-Thon was once a “dance marathon” previously known as “bRAVE” during which students were locked in school for 12 hours on a weekend night. bRAVE started in 2012, but due to excessive underage drinking and drug use, the SGA re-branded the fundraiser in 2016 as Vike-A-Thon. The last time the SGA held Vike-A-Thon in February of 2020, sales raised $24,000, more than the funds from every other Charity Month fundraising event combined.

While organizers advertise the event as lighthearted and fun, the event’s appeal is rooted in a toxic atmosphere, one that’s ripe for sexual abuse — particularly involving exploitative power dynamics between upperclassmen and underclassmen. It’s been 10 years too long. Whitman’s SGA or school administrators need to cancel Vike-A-Thon...

https://theblackandwhite.net/71844/opinion/its-been-10-years-too-long-vike-a-thon-needs-to-go/

The CDC’s new mask guidance guarantees we’ll be too slow for the next surge

 

The shift in focus away from case counts could lead to a delay in much-needed public health interventions

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revealed new guidelines for coronavirus control in the United States, increasing the thresholds of disease that trigger recommendations for mask-wearing. In the blink of an eye, the CDC pivoted from recommending that nearly everyone wear a mask to saying it was necessary for only about 30 percent of Americans.

The guidelines’ chief innovation is to combine case levels with hospitalization figures — those related to hospital admissions as well as occupancy levels of staffed beds — rather than using case numbers alone. Under the old guidelines, a case rate of 50 per 100,000 in a county was enough to trigger a recommendation that individuals mask indoors; now the case rate must be four times that for the recommendation to kick in. (At lowercase rates, high hospitalization numbers can also trigger masking recommendations.)..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/08/cdc-mask-guidance-mistake/

Loudoun Co. schools open distance learning portal for next school year

 

As other Virginia-based schools scale back on their COVID-19-related health restrictions, Loudoun County Public Schools is reminding students and parents of its virtual learning program for middle and high school students for its upcoming school year.

Students interested in distance learning need to apply through an online web application to be considered for enrollment in the program. The application portal will close on March 31, according to a news release...

https://wtop.com/loudoun-county/2022/03/loudoun-co-schools-opens-distance-learning-portal-for-next-school-year/?fbclid=IwAR3CXSVNX2mwsUlZdefkEL1mgMlCS8dFw6mswLBCftVP7U-kKrnV8mJ1UBI

An omicron 'subvariant' is doubling in NY, just as mandates lift

Just as New York case rates drop and officials roll back health requirements for schools and businesses, another coronavirus variant is showing signs of derailing the state’s recovery from the winter COVID surge.

Known as BA.2, this virus is an offshoot, or sublineage, of the omicron variant that just swept through New York State. It’s like a kid sister, and some experts even call it “Omicron 2.” But it spreads about 30% faster than its sibling — BA.1 — and is just as severe, according to the World Health Organization...

https://gothamist.com/news/an-omicron-subvariant-is-doubling-in-ny-just-as-mandates-lift

MCPS Racial and Systemic Barriers Survey: Teaching Staff Version

 

New developments in Damascus High School sexual assault case

I

On October of 2018, allegations of assault in Damascus' junior varsity football locker room led to criminal charges. Families of students impacted filed a civil suit. Fox 5’s David Kaplan reports live from Damascus High School.

https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1040978

Opinion: Is Increased Authority for Student Members of School Boards a Good Idea?

 

By Gene Harrington

The writer is a resident of Ellicott City.

The Maryland House of Delegate’s Ways and Means Committee will hear testimony Thursday on legislation that will fundamentally change the makeup and mechanics of almost every local board of education in the Old Line State.

Specifically, the panel will formally begin its consideration of House Bill 797 – a measure expanding voting rights for student members of local boards of education and officially add student members to boards that don’t legally recognize them.

Many school boards throughout the country have a student representative who participates in open meetings and casts advisory votes. Moreover, California, New Jersey, New York and Virginia all have laws in place regarding student representation on school boards. Maryland, however, is believed to be the only state in the country that permits 16- and 17-year-old student members to cast binding votes on many crucial issues.

Currently, state law permits student members of the board of education in eight jurisdictions – Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Charles, Harford, Howard, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore City – to cast binding votes. Most Marylanders are almost certainly not aware of this fact...

https://www.marylandmatters.org/2022/03/02/opinion-is-increased-authority-for-student-members-of-school-boards-a-good-idea/?fbclid=IwAR2rKdeg3bAQIkXvLbS5WXY4OEH4HIRjcUxB9hWPaaH4-8V6lFEx_jElUUY

Longtime MCPS elementary school teacher running for school board

Valerie Coll, a retired MCPS teacher, plans to challenge BOE member Brenda Wolff for the District 5 seat.

Story in Bethesda Beat, reporter Caitlynn Peetz. Read the entire article here.

Valerie Coll of Silver Spring filed to run against incumbent Brenda Wolff for the District 5 seat on the Board of Education.

And:

"If elected, Coll said, she would examine the district’s budget priorities and determine if “they make sense” and she would try to rebuild confidence and trust in the district’s leadership.

She highlighted that in recent months, the district’s employee unions representing teachers, administrators and support staff have each criticized MCPS leadership’s response to the pandemic. MCEA passed a vote of no confidence and each of the other unions also voiced several concerns.

...

Coll said she was skeptical, too, that an allocation of $500,000 in the recently passed Fiscal Year 2023 budget to hire a communications firm was necessary.

Cops: Montgomery County middle schooler who made gun threats, acted out at previous school

DAMASCUS, Md. (7News) — A John T. Baker Middle School student who threatened to "light up" his school with a Glock firearm, had similar behavioral issues at his previous middle school, Montgomery County Police sources tell 7News. Around 3 p.m. last Thursday, staff at Baker called police to report the troubling remarks. School security told officers the juvenile male student — who 7News is not identifying — claimed he was going to "get his Glock and light up the school" the following day. Minutes earlier, the student reportedly made "explicit sexual comments" about several female students, prompting a fellow classmate to tell him to knock it off. That pupil-on-pupil reprimand, cops say, prompted the boy to make the weapons threat... 

  https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-public-schools-police-gun-threats-baker-kingsview-middle-damascus-germantown-restorative-justice

A🧵on new @CDCgov recommendations. Let's take a walk through their slide set. 1/

Gregg Gonsalves

A🧵on new @CDCgov recommendations. Let's take a walk through their slide set. 1/ 

So, we're an under-vaccinated and radically un-boosted country. But now @CDCgov says infection-induced immunity counts and we have broad access to vaccines, drugs and testing. 2/

So, the @CDCgov by over-selling our rates of vaccination. These maps tell a different story. 3/

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497889516274606087.html

The 'Mask Nerd' of Minneapolis wants you to be safe [Aaron Collins tested the masks distributed by @mcps with mixed results]

Aaron Collins is standing in his bathroom, holding a white mask to his face while stretching its straps to the back of his head.

Here in the "lab" at his Minneapolis home, Collins is launching experiment No. 520 — the latest installment in his 18-month quest to help people use masks for better protection against COVID-19.

Just a few minutes earlier, Collins turned off a machine whirring like an air compressor that's perched at the edge of his bathroom sink. A clear tube leads from the mask he's wearing to a separate piece of scientific equipment sitting on the window sill.

Collins, 37, points excitedly to the screen on his laptop where a squiggly line has suddenly fallen like a rock.

"This is really a high-performing mask," he says on this mid-February afternoon, wearing a red-and-black checked shirt that's like many he wears on his YouTube channel...

https://www.startribune.com/the-mask-nerd-of-minneapolis-wants-you-to-be-safe/600150603/?refresh=true

NYC Event: #MaskingForAFriend

Join us! pic.twitter.com/MV5V4mOOfu

— PRESS NYC: Responsive Equitable and Safe Schools (@safeschoolsny) February 28, 2022

Petition: MCPS Needs to Keep Masking Requirements

MCPS BOARD OF EDUCATION

MCPS Board of Education will vote at their next meeting on March 8th to make masks optional in MCPS facilities. This action would needlessly put at risk the health of thousands of MCPS students and their family members who remain at high risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19. Furthermore, this action would force some parents to make an impossible choice, risking their child's educational progress with in-person learning or risking their health in an unsafe school.

To: MCPS Board of Education

From: [Your Name]

Please protect our most vulnerable MCPS students by keeping the current Mask Mandate in place.

According to Montgomery County Commission on People with Disabilities, 85,852 individuals with disabilities live in Montgomery County and MCPS currently educates 20,585 students with disabilities. We know that people with disabilities, especially those who are immunocompromised, have a high risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19. In addition, MCPS facilities have student populations who are still too young to receive a vaccine, including all of the 3,596 Pre-K students and not all students eligible have have had enough time to be fully vaccinated.

Removing the mask mandate would force some MCPS families to make the impossible choice of risking the academic progress of their student or knowingly sending them into a high health risk environment. Removing the mask mandate would violate these students' rights to a free and appropriate education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Keeping masks mandatory is the right thing to do to keep students and our community safe.

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/mcps-needs-to-keep-masking-requirements?source=ptx&fbclid=IwAR39-8JhSkQISAbQf01Q-cvnTAWLySTrBa2P8vNZ-lWw_aR4EWJ9-goZ2Fk

@Theresa_Chapple The CDC wants you to remain masked during a 2-hour flight where we can document the number of air exchanges per minute, but not at your job or your child's school building where we may or may not have data on ventilation. Why is that?

The CDC wants you to remain masked during a 2-hour flight where we can document the number of air exchanges per minute, but not at your job or your child's school building where we may or may not have data on ventilation.
Why is that?

— Dr. Theresa Chapple (@Theresa_Chapple) March 1, 2022

@DrZoeHyde · This is concerning. Vaccine effectiveness against the omicron variant seems to be waning rapidly for young children (but not adolescents, who received a higher dose). We need to keep mitigation measures in schools (masks, ventilation) until we have better (and updated) vaccines.

This is concerning. Vaccine effectiveness against the omicron variant seems to be waning rapidly for young children (but not adolescents, who received a higher dose).

We need to keep mitigation measures in schools (masks, ventilation) until we have better (and updated) vaccines. https://t.co/AFjrSFqrnk

— Dr Zoë Hyde (@DrZoeHyde) March 1, 2022

Baltimore County school bus driver quits over safety, says students 'out of control'

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/baltimore-county-school-bus-driver-quits-over-safety-says-students-out-of-control?fbclid=IwAR0q8x4L5Y5-NCyUb5NsOMYhAG6CSzMXXYb3Z85iAp0nZFWSLSjddfNt7VU

"allowing the public to testify on ZOOM instead of having to drive to Annapolis, find a parking place and wait hours in committee rooms was a big victory for ordinary people." .@SenBillFerg #KeepMDSenateVirtual

Maryland’s motto for the new year: prevention and preparation | GUEST COMMENTARY

By JIM ROSAPEPE and JOSELINE PEÑA-MELNYK

FOR THE BALTIMORE SUN |

JAN 22, 2022 AT 5:11 AM

We know from centuries of human history — and two years with COVID — that viruses don’t surrender easily. They morph in unpredictable ways. The plague of the Black Death in 14th Century Europe lasted more than a half dozen years — and reappeared periodically into the 19th Century. There were four waves of the Spanish flu in the early 20th Century.

We’ve already had more than four surges and three significant variants of COVID. Will this winter’s omicron be the last? Not likely.

...Last, all organizations — including health providers, schools, retailers, nursing homes and the legislature — need to embrace, not reject, what we’ve learned from this crisis, both to minimize short-term disruption and, as President Joe Biden says, to build back better. We know that telemedicine, online retail, telework and online education have worked for many. Even in our legislative work, allowing the public to testify on ZOOM instead of having to drive to Annapolis, find a parking place and wait hours in committee rooms was a big victory for ordinary people. It has made our democracy and our families’ health safer. Let’s make it permanent.

Maryland’s motto for the new year: prevention and preparation | GUEST COMMENTARY - Baltimore Sun

Do We Need a LGBTQ Audit? Park this reality: One in three LGBTQ teenagers attending the Montgomery County Public Schools (@MCPS) have a plan in place to commit suicide. @mocoboe

by Joseph Hawkins

In March, the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) will survey students, and others, as part of a systemwide Antiracist Audit. You can find information about the surveys and the audit at this website: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/antiracist/.

After MCPS finishes its Antiracist Audit, and based on data presented below, MCPS might ponder undertaking a systemwide LGBTQ Audit. Data from MCPS LGBTQ teens is both concerning and disturbing. Is it not concerning a third of our LGBTQ have in place a plan to commit suicide and another third have no adult they can turn to for help?

Since the 1990’s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has monitored the health-related behaviors of young people that contribute to causes of death and disability. Monitoring is accomplished through a system of surveys. The official CDC system is referred to as the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS). You can read more about this CDC system at this website: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/index.htm

Several survey cycles back, CDC started allowing teens to self-identify their sexuality. The two survey questions used to self identify as LGBTQ are:

Which of the following best describes you?

• Heterosexual (straight)

• Gay or lesbian

• Bisexual

• Not sure

Some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel about their gender. Are you transgender?

• No, I am not transgender

• Yes, I am transgender

• I am not sure if I am transgender

With CDC guidance, Maryland’s Health Department takes this information and generates a “Sexual Identity Report.” You can find the complete report here:

https://health.maryland.gov/phpa/ccdpc/Reports/Documents/2018%20YRBS%20YTS%20Reports/Montgomery/2018MDHS17%20Sexual%20Identity.pdf

From that report, one might notice immediately that MCPS LGBTQ teens are way more likely to be bullied on school property than are straight teen peers—24.7% versus 12.8%. Also, MCPS LGBTQ teens are more likely to have in place a plan to commit suicide than are straight teen peers—34.0% versus 10.7%. Disturbing? Concerning? Perhaps disturbing and concerning enough for a separate MCPS LGBTQ audit?

(Note: The MCPS data below are from 2018. Currently, Maryland is collecting data for the 2021/22 school year.)