After experiencing back-to-back lockdowns at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School last week, junior Faris Smith was so frustrated that she found it difficult to even listen Tuesday night when Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) leaders and county police held a community meeting to discuss school safety.
“It’s so hard to hear what you’re saying, and then to come here and then see that none of my school’s leadership or teachers can bother to show up,” Smith told those leading the meeting organized by county Councilmember Andrew Friedson (Dist. 1) in the downtown Bethesda school’s auditorium.
Smith told Bethesda Today after the meeting that lockdowns like those that occurred last week – one for an off-campus fight involving gunfire and another for a weapon reported on campus – are becoming normalized — although that doesn’t take away the fear that students experience when an incident occurs.
“There is that recurring fear, like, ‘Okay, am I going to be the next victim of gun violence?’ ” she said. “With the repeated lockdowns, it’s just repeated fear, so as a student that does impede my learning, day to day … it’s very unpredictable.”
Tuesday’s meeting followed a similar session last week at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring where the PTSA hosted a discussion about how to improve safety with MCPS leaders following a back-to-back lockdown and shelter-in-place that occurred in January.
During the meeting at B-CC, Friedson noted the frustration in the auditorium was palpable, with several expressing anger that B-CC leadership didn’t attend the meeting, as members of the audience of about 100 asked questions and demanded action from police and MCPS leaders following two lockdowns within six days after incidents involving guns in or around the campus at the end of February.
“Something needs to change. We cannot keep meeting like this,” former PTSA President Lyric Winik told the group.
Lockdowns, school response
On Feb. 19, a large group fight that involved shots fired at Chase Avenue Urban Park at 4701 Chase Ave. in Bethesda caused the high school and a nearby private school to go into a lockdown. No one was injured in the incident. The high school at 4301 East West Highway is less than a mile away from the park.
Two suspects were arrested in connection with the shooting: Nicolas Blanco, 18, of Bethesda, and an unnamed juvenile. Charging documents state Blanco and the juvenile suspect were identified as B-CC High students after school officials reviewed video footage that was taken of the incident. Blanco faces charges of first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and firearm-related offenses and is being held without bond at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds while he awaits a preliminary hearing scheduled for March 21.
On Feb. 25, the school went into a lockdown again after a student reported to B-CC administrators that another student had a gun in a backpack and was displaying it in a school bathroom. After a “thorough search of the building” and review of security footage, school staff determined the student believed to have a gun had left the building before the lockdown began.
Officers searched for the student in the community and ultimately took him into custody at the intersection of Maple Avenue and Leland Street in Chevy Chase, which is nearly 1 mile from the high school. The student was allegedly in possession of an airsoft gun, which shoots pellets and resembles a handgun, and he now faces charges of possession of a weapon on school property and other offenses. The student wasn’t identified because he is a minor.
Following both incidents, the B-CC PSTA sent questions to MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor, questioning why it took so long for the school to enter a lockdown on Feb. 19.
In an emailed response to questions, Taylor said “validating information is not nearly as easy as it seems in the rearview” and that there were conflicting directions from law enforcement.
According to the email, county police advised the school to remain in normal operations, Taylor said in the email. Once it became clear B-CC students were involved in the incident, the school entered a shelter-in-place, then a lockdown, despite continued police guidance against changing school operations.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Marcus Jones, the former county police chief who now heads the MCPS Department of Security and Compliance, said police help keep school administrators informed about public safety incidents, particularly when incidents occur outside the schools, but the decision to call a lockdown is ultimately the principal’s decision.
Jones said the MCPS Office of Systemwide Safety and Emergency Management has a direct line of communication with the police department’s Community Engagement Division. Officials speak to each other daily, including on weekends and even into the evening and early morning hours.
Brigid Howe, president of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs, said MCPS was putting a lot on the plates of principals by asking them to be security experts while also acting as school leaders.
“It’s not fair to them in the community to expect them to be security experts in addition to everything else they do,” Howe said.
Reactions, impacts of the lockdowns
Several parents spoke at the meeting about the lockdowns’ impacts on their children, even if their students don’t attend B-CC, but attend nearby schools like Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School in Bethesda, which also went into lockdowns due both incidents.
Winik read a text from a student that a fellow parent shared at the meeting.
“Mom, I’m going home after this, once this is over, I’m going home. This was traumatic,” Winik read from the text. “I had to run into a random classroom. I was in the hallway and shoved into a closet, and they said the threat was on the floor I’m on. I’m still shaking.”
Winik said her heart breaks for all of the students that have experienced repeated lockdowns.
B-CC Junior Oslin Diaz told Bethesda Today that many students are desensitized to the lockdowns, but the incidents create additional stress on top of other school stressors.
MCPS Chief of Schools Peter Moran said schools should be having “debrief” conversations with students following lockdowns, but multiple people told him that wasn’t occurring. Moran said he would follow up with B-CC to “find out exactly what the misunderstanding is.”
“Whether you’re 8 or you’re 18, you lose a day of learning,” Moran said. “And you not only lose one day of learning. You don’t really know how many other days of learning that you lose because of the impact that the lockdown had.”
Safety, violence prevention in the school moving forward
Friedson said he has received a “tremendous number of questions” about whether weapon detection systems would be installed at school entrances.
Weapons detection systems are being “actively looked at,” Jones said. His office has been researching weapon detection systems but added that installing the security systems would require funding and training for staff, he said.
Moran said it would cost $100 million to implement weapon detection systems in all 25 high schools. There is not funding in the fiscal year 2025 budget or in the fiscal year 2026 budget for weapon detection systems.
Jones said he wasn’t expecting to have weapon detections in place by the end of the school year, but was working with vendors to conduct “assessments” to explore processes and procedures that would need to be implemented to make the systems work smoothly.
“Our schools are not exactly the same,” Jones said. “They are incredibly different with their entrances and with their staff and the amount of students that attend those schools … . It does require being able to get our students in and out [of the] building in a very efficient manner, without disrupting their school day.”
Moran said MCPS is also considering making B-CC a closed campus. Some high schools, including B-CC, are open campuses, meaning students can leave during their lunch period. Shifting B-CC to a closed campus would end that practice.
“With that comes a commitment from the community and the students as well,” Moran said.
Jones noted other safety initiatives underway: high schools are installing vape detectors in bathrooms and he was looking to hire a consultant to conduct safety audits.
Several speakers also asked about prevention measures, including Howe, who noted that Street Outreach Network (SON), a youth violence prevention group with the Montgomery County Department for Health and Human Services, was no longer working in the high school.
Jones said the group had a previous relationship with a B-CC administrator who left, and the change may have to the end of SON;s involvement at the school.
Echoing comments he expressed at the Kenndy High safety meeting, Moran said the culture, habits and discipline at schools were important to ensuring students don’t feel like their school is unpredictable. Moran said MCPS was also in the process of rewriting the student code of conduct to better reflect the high expectations the district has for students.
“Following the pandemic, we lowered expectations academically, and we lowered expectations for the character and conduct of our students,” Moran said. “We do have high expectations for the character of our students [and] there is a correlation between what you do and what the consequences are.”
Moran ended the meeting with a list of action items he would follow up with, including looking into temporarily increasing the number of security staff and having the high school cluster security coordinator work out of B-CC.
