Interview with an MCPS 9th Grader about School Safety, MCPS Issues, Mental Health, and Generational Expectations

Last week I sat down to interview a really bright MCPS 9th grader who was introduced to me because they didn’t feel safe at their school and wanted to speak out about it.

Our almost 2 hour long talk ranged over a vast array of topics but chief among them were the changing atmosphere at school regarding safety, mental health, generational differences, and drugs and alcohol abuse.

Instead of providing a summary of our discussion, the format of this post will be like a Q&A leaving as many words and full statements from the interview as I can while protecting their identity.

Q: You mentioned several topics about schools – gun violence, drugs, normalization, what are your general thoughts on these?

The reason we’re having this conversation in the first place is that kids in my school have become more tense, you can really feel a bit of stress whenever the lockdown drills happen, and what used to be brushed aside now has at least one kid partially freaking out. I have had more conversations than normal with others about it [Gun violence].

It doesn’t feel as safe as it used to in the last 10 months or so. Post Christmas there were so many more shootings in the last 27 days <nationally> than should be acceptable in a year, or even 10 years. So many instances of gun deaths nationwide for such a short period of time, and that takes its toll on people living the same life that those people who were killed did.

Q: What do you think can be done at a local level to make things safer in our schools?

I would say even just the way that MCPS administration seems to be handling it could improve. I’m not a parent and as a younger person I could be more impressionable than most, but the way they handle it is rubbing me the wrong way. Not being open with parents. They are coming out with news with an angle.

MCPS said the way they handled Magruder was different than it actually was. They said they started reuniting students with their parents in 45 minutes, however it was actually found to be 4 hours later. If you’re a parent of a kid who goes to a school, and you hear someone is shot, you’re going to be worried. They only came out now saying they goofed the process and parents should have known/been informed only 20 minutes later. It creates an US vs THEM mentality with the way MCPS is handling it, and how hard it is to find information if it seems MCPS is straight up hiding it.

Even just following their Twitter, there are pretty irate parents all over the comment sections. ‘Just another shooting and here you are posting about diversity.’ I’m all for that [talks on diversity,] but we need to create an environment of openness where people feel comfortable talking about what is going on, because that will protect people. Sweeping it under the rug will undoubtedly cause more events if we have less and less awareness of what’s going on.

Q: Every generation has their different traumas, what do you think is the biggest for yours?

Every generation has multiple traumas. Their biggest could be argued. Was the 2008 crash your [millennials] biggest trauma? Were conflicts in Cuba and the war in Vietnam the biggest trauma for those generations?

Almost all the struggles come from progress and that’s why it is so difficult to predict them. I wouldn’t be shocked if it became the introduction of AI into society, but right now it is probably the horrid state of the political world.

Q: I feel we put too much on kids, expecting them to solve all the world’s problems and wonder if this weighs on kids of your generation more?

Actually just last week, as a joke, one of my teachers asked our class, “When are you guys going to fix climate change?” We’re expected to come and fix everyone’s problems. I know it may sound cliché, but we have to take jobs that pay less than what’s needed to eat. People look down on the homeless who are there because of policies you [previous generations] chose. We’re going to be hit by climate change. We have to fix the political systems. It’s all coming to an end right around generation Z.

I can say I promise school is nowhere near as about fun as it was before. I feel I have never been a kid. I can say I, and many of my friends felt we never had the opportunity to do that. With technology, I now had access to college level courses on YouTube, so of course I decided to start educating myself on that, and I thus learned that there is more important stuff than sitting here playing video games. And it’s not just me, I gravitate towards people of the same type. No matter what, people keep voting for the same policies that put them in shitty situations in the first place. The people who caused them still say the same things. Gen Z will have to pick up the pieces.

Suicide rates are higher than they’ve ever been in. 70% feel America is heading in the wrong direction. We have a gap larger than ever before, splitting the country down the middle. I don’t know what others expect us to do and I don’t see what we can do. Half the country supports people in power fighting progress.

I don’t know what is expected of our generation, and I know I won’t be able to fulfill those expectations.

Q: How can we denormalize this? I worry the media publicizes too much when bad things happen, which creates a cycle of more issues, since people want attention?

I think that’s a very interesting question and discussion. I would say to both sides of the issue that if you use the “it gives them what they want” mindset, that regardless of what you do; people will do things anyway. Instead of reacting after the event, give them what they want before. Access to help with therapy, mental health, counselors. We’re refusing them help and attention BEFORE they do this. They get mental help after they commit shootings. However, if we stop reporting on shootings it could almost become more normalized. Some angry kid isn’t going to think through it like that. Their thought process will be more like “this kid pushed me over how can I ruin his life.” I think we need to not think it through and just take action before.

I feel like what you and anyone could do is give a lot more concrete solutions to the issues.

Here, put $5,000 into adding A, B, C into school and make sure kids come home knowing X, Y, and Z. EX. We need to ban ghost guns, concrete solutions like that.

I don’t remember who, but they came to school and explained a ghost gun, saying “if you’re found with one or the tools to make one you will be in big trouble.” Kind of felt like “Scared Straight” (TV show in which bad kids are introduced to life behind bars). On one hand I know it’s really important, and I understood it, but the people you’re getting through to are probably the ones who already know it, it’s not getting through to those who aren’t paying attention.

The real specific things that people come up with are what will make a difference.

It’s like sex education. Instead of giving people the information (nationally not necessarily in Maryland,) that will be needed to make good decisions, we’re ignoring it, and making it taboo hoping it goes away. It’s about damage control and education. It’s a lot easier to get a kid to wear a condom than it is to get them to not have sex. In 8th grade they had us do the relatively classic ‘carry around an egg and if it breaks you don’t have what it takes to have a kid.’ I see the same issues with drugs… it needs to be an environment of openness… we’re all on the same team, let’s act like it.

Q: What do you think specifically MCPS, our board of education, and the county council can do for working on the problems of gun violence and drugs in schools?

We get stagnation – money goes to the same problems that don’t exist anymore [or are lesser so] instead of looking to the next problem.

One thing I take issue with is the teacher pay. I will say, I have noticed a large decrease in the quantity and quality of teachers. Posts all over social media about teachers ‘being done with bad behaved kids, bad pay.’ Over 30 kids for a teacher. Too many kids for the teachers to handle.

I personally considered going into a field of teaching. I’d love to teach about topics I love, but I can’t realistically look at teaching to pay my bills. If I wanted to live alone in a townhouse maybe, but I want to raise a family.

Could we use bonds or fund raising for MCPS/the county to fix more problems now? Pay for more mental health and buildings now, and hope the maintenance cost saved will help us more in the long term?

Tossing a few drops into a fire every 5 minutes won’t do anything, throwing a bucket on it, then teaching people to keep an eye out for it to happen again will.

Education – teaching people more about it and making an environment where anything is more open and people can share. Just like the ghost gun presentation – that was them on the right track.

Interested in sharing your story?

Have thoughts on County issues or a local story to talk about?

Contact us and tell us what you’d like to talk about and we’ll consider it for a future interview.

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