Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) has seen an alarming increase in weapons at schools with many schools around the county being affected by various incidents. This trend is worrying many Montgomery County (MoCo) residents, disturbed by the increasing frequency with which students have been put in danger. Citizens around the county are angry students are being repeatedly targeted at school and are fearful for students’ safety. Most students share the sentiment that schools are solely a place for learning and find weapons in such an environment absolutely unacceptable.
The latest reports on weapons in the MCPS community stem from Richard Montgomery High School, Gaithersburg Middle School and Albert Einstein High School.
According to MoCo 360, a trusted MoCo newspaper, a former RM student was found on school premises with a handgun on Tuesday, Jan. 24. The school staff was made aware at around 2:45p.m. by a security officer. The Rockville City Police caught the former student and arrested him under the pretense “firearms-related charges.” The police also released a statement that the incident was not related to another incident reported at RM a little over a week before on Friday, Jan. 13. The separate incident included a school-wide lockdown where students reported seeing a gun on campus but no weapon was found. This lockdown was caused mainly by “a dispute involving Richard Montgomery High School and a neighboring school.”
RM students have been especially vocal about these incidents. Freshmen Katherine Hu reports she does not feel safe at RM. “Anyone can go into the portables, really…the school is surprisingly easy to get into during open lunch,” Hu said.
RM has an open lunch policy, which allows students to leave the campus at any point during lunch and visit neighboring stores for lunch and fun. These policies make school more entertaining for students but also leave the school almost completely accessible to people who aren’t students during the lunch period.
According to MoCo 360, both these incidents were a consequence of the open lunch policy and students letting in people that weren’t actually supposed to be in the school. As a result, RM has implemented a policy where all students entering or leaving the building during the lunch period must wear their school ID to verify they are students of the school.
RM freshman Sophie Ng believes the school environment could still be unsafe for students. “An actual student could still bring a gun,” Ng said. “There’ve been two incidents in the past few weeks that could’ve ended in school shootings.”
MoCo 360 also reported incidents at Gaithersburg Middle School and Albert Einstein High School. At Gaithersburg, Montgomery County Police retrieved and confiscated a pellet gun. The police were called from inside the school and all the investigation resulted in was the “toy gun.”
In addition, at Einstein, a student was found “with brass knuckles and a knife” on Friday, Jan. 17. The student was also found with marijuana and charged with possession of all three. The school went into lockdown as a student alerted the police about their concerns. A BB gun was found at “the Kensington School, but could not be linked to any particular person.”
MoCo citizens were also concerned about the efficiency of MCPS’ emergency contact with parents. According to MoCo 360, “an email to inform parents was misdirected, and parents were not told of the situation until after the lockdown had been lifted.”
Written by Malena Martin of Richard Montgomery High School
Photo courtesy of MCPS BoE