A new report issued by the Montgomery County Office of the Inspector General contains alarming findings about the safety of students in Montgomery County Public Schools. An investigation by IG Megan Limarzi and her office found that thousands of MCPS employees' criminal histories are not being monitored by the school system, about 4,900 employees currently have access to students but have not undergone a Child Protective Services background check, and that MCPS does not ensure that contractors and volunteers undergo a criminal history check before they begin working inside the school system. These are violations of Maryland law and MCPS' own rules, Limarzi wrote in her report.
MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor wrote a response to the OIG report's conclusions in which he accepted responsibility for the security failures, but also cast blame on the OIG for slowing the school system's response to the lapses, and for not recognizing the cost of implementing the report's recommendations, which Taylor estimated would be $2 million. Limarzi called Taylor's accusations "perplexing," and said she and her staff are disappointed "by the apparent attempts to transfer blame to this office" for "serious issues that have been well known at MCPS for years and yet have gone unaddressed."
"We appreciate the work of Inspector General Megan Limarzi and her team for bringing this important issue to light and providing the public with an impartial evaluation of the MCPS Background Screening Office," County Council President Kate Stewart and Vice-President Will Jawando said in a joint statement yesterday. They wrote that the Council's Audit Committee will conduct oversight hearings on the matter beginning September 26, 2025. Additional meetings will be held by two other Council committees later in the fall. "[T]he urgency with which these issues must be corrected cannot be overstated," Stewart and Jawando wrote.
This is only the latest revelation about lax security measures at MCPS. Previously, a lack of security cameras - and staff to actively monitor the ones that exist - came to light after violent crime and hate graffiti incidents inside MCPS schools. And a 2016 State of Maryland audit of MCPS uncovered lax cybersecurity protocols that did not adequately shield private student information from those accessing MCPS computer systems from inside - and outside - the organization.
6 comments:
You mean the same employees trying to groom elementary school kids behind the parents back, spent lots of taxpayer dollars losing at SCOTUS? Say it isn't so...
This is no surprise. MoCo government employees are the most incompetent of any bureaucrats. They are corrupt union trash, from whom the County Council is afraid to insist on honest services. Sad state of affairs. Thank you, democrats!
Will ANYONE be fired or reprimanded for this incompetence? Not a chance. Can’t wait to move out of this County, Just 2 more years till retirement and freedom from these goof balls. Please don’t shit the bed and ruin property values too much before I go!!!
1:52 - Excellent point. And don't be fooled. The Socialists you've elected to run this county are in lock step with the nut running for NYC mayor who recently said he'd pay for any gender reassignment surgery for anyone in the country who wanted one. There isn't much daylight between MoCo rulers and him and that should terrify anyone with a brain.
It wasn’t employees so much as the school board power structure. These people did squander a lot of tax dollars defending something quite pointless: that grade school children need to be exposed to deviant sexualities, when they could have just let it go. The left almost never does that, they always need to “fight.”
And by the way, the MCPS super makes in excess of 300k per year. Nice.
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