It’s something Christine Handy, the president of the Montgomery County Association of Administrators and Principals, said is being seen more often at elementary schools.
“Increasingly aggressive behavior towards our staff,” Handy said. And that aggressive behavior isn’t from students — it’s “parents and community members.”
In testimony before the Montgomery County Board of Education during its June 27 meeting, Handy told board members, “a male parent invaded the personal space of a female principal in a threatening manner and had to be banned from the property.”
From that point, Handy said, the principal “had to call her cluster security leader to assist when this parent was picking up his child.”
In another instance, Handy shared with the board, a female principal was told by a male parent, “I know that you work late.”
Handy noted that full time security assistants staff middle and high schools, but she said, “our 136 elementary schools do not have security assistants.”
The MCPS budget for 2024 included funding for new security assistants, and Handy asked that some of those positions be put to use at “certain” elementary schools.
“It is imperative that we prevent our schools from becoming places where visitors can intimidate or endanger our dedicated staff members,” she told board members.
WTOP contacted the school system for comment, asking about safety concerns among middle and elementary school principals.
“We’re coming out of the school year where across the nation, there has been an increase in hate or violent incidents and dangerous trends to illicit substances by our youth. Unfortunately, MCPS is not immune to this trend,” said Jessica Baxter, spokesperson for MCPS, in an emailed statement.
The statement outlined actions the school system has taken, including deploying additional assistants to secondary schools, but made no mention of issues at elementary schools.
Baxter also mentioned that the school system, “shared ongoing student, staff and family messages about safety,” and that MCPS had hosted “listening sessions” to hear “various perspectives of stakeholders,” regarding the issue.
“The criteria for security allocations will be based on student enrollment, building square footage, campus layout, considerations for programs, serious incident data, and current use of school-based security staff,” Baxter told WTOP.
When asked Monday if she had heard back from the Board of Education about her request, Handy wrote in an email to WTOP that her group had not.
“Presently, we see a need in some, if not all of our elementary schools, as we are seeing an increase in concerning adult behaviors in visitors to schools,” Handy said.
