At the Jan. 9 Montgomery County Board of Education business meeting, multiple parents, students and community advocates urged faster, more consistent safety upgrades in elementary schools after several recent incidents, including a December threat at 7 Locks Elementary that parents say has left young students frightened.

The meeting’s public-comment period was dominated by safety concerns and requests for specific measures. Philip Hill, a 7 Locks parent, said his third-grade daughter sat next to a classmate who threatened to “bring a gun in his bag and shoot everyone in the school” on Dec. 18; Hill said he asked for a bag search and class reassignment and that the school refused. “How is it that an 8‑year‑old can have a clearer sense of what constitutes a danger than an elementary school principal?” he asked.

Several speakers requested more consistent ID enforcement districtwide. Anova Malu, a Montgomery Blair High School junior who spoke as a student, proposed making IDs serve an extra everyday function to encourage wearing them, and suggested building systems that let students use school IDs to access supplies discreetly. Parent Victoria Hill called for standardized security assessments at all 136 elementary schools, saying some buildings lack cellphone reception, emergency call buttons and monitored camera systems.

School staff and district officials responded during the meeting. Adnan Mamoun, deputy chief of facilities for MCPS, said fencing work at Harriet Tubman Elementary is underway and that playground fences are being installed at four feet where appropriate; he noted the turf field is shared with the city of Gaithersburg and requires coordination for any additional enclosure. Chief of Safety and Security Marcus Jones and others described equipment work already in progress across the district — middle school camera upgrades funded by a state grant, scheduling for vape-sensor installations, and a vendor review for a possible districtwide crisis alert system — but also emphasized that technical fixes must be paired with consistent on-site practice and staffing.

Board members acknowledged the concerns and asked staff for follow-up. Board member Rita Montoya said she wanted more detail about the Harriet Tubman fencing timeline; Deputy Chief Mamoun replied the gates and playground fencing are being installed now and that city coordination continues for the turf field. Multiple board members urged staff to return with data-based recommendations on panic-button options, radio/phone coverage gaps and staff deployments.

District officials also described steps the system is already taking: expanded training for security assistants on de‑escalation and crowd management; a near-complete rollout of upgraded cameras at middle schools; and partnerships with Montgomery County Police Department for cluster-based community engagement officers (the Northwest High School cluster position remained open at the time of the meeting but was expected to be filled).

Why it matters: Parents said the immediate problem is not just policy but practice — inconsistent checks, unclear follow-up after threats and uneven infrastructure across schools. Several speakers appealed to the board for both short-term fixes (panic buttons, standardized parent notifications, targeted facility repairs such as fencing) and long-term investments (additional security assistants and improved cellular/critical-communications redundancy).

What’s next: Board members asked staff to produce more granular, school-level assessments and implementation plans and to return with recommendations. Chief Jones and safety staff said they will complete high-school assessments in the current round and move into middle-school assessments in the next semester; the board asked that elementary-school needs be prioritized in follow-up reports.

Context and limits: Speakers described incidents and local facility issues; board members repeatedly stressed that investigations and formal discipline follow defined district procedures. District officials said many services and pilot measures are in progress and that data collection is ongoing; specifics on vendors, costs and firm timelines were not available for every requested item at the meeting.