A2 News Jan. 27, 2021 silverchips Montgomery Blair High School 51 University Boulevard East Silver Spring, MD 20901 (301) 649 - 2864 Winner of the 2015 National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker and the 2019 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Medal
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Oliver Goldman Tony González Renata Muñoz Anika Seth LA ESQUINA LATINA EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Tony González Renata Muñoz MANAGING NEWS EDITORS Abby Brier Lilia Wong MANAGING OPINIONS EDITORS Aviva Bechky Clark Zhang MANAGING FEATURES EDITORS Anna Fisher Lopez Abednego Togas MANAGING CULTURE EDITORS Khayla Robinson Ishaan Shrestha MANAGING SPORTS AND COVID-19 EDITORS Adam Chazan Emilie Vigliotta LA ESQUINA LATINA EDITOR Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo OMBUDSMAN Kathryn LaLonde DESIGN EDITORS Aviva Bechky Simran Thakkar Grace Walsh COLUMNISTS Ayush Dutta Ashley Thommana Charles Wiebe SENIOR WRITERS Rekha Leonard Sarah McKinzie ENGLISH STAFF WRITERS Jon Eckert Maia Egnal Leila Faraday Marijke Friedman Annie Goldman Sean Li Annie Mount Maybelle Patterson Samantha Rodriguez Sofia Roehrig Jasper Swartz Cal Tobias Luther Voltaire LA ESQUINA LATINA WRITERS Cecilia Clemens Vargas Lugo Angela Ramirez Sofia Roehrig EXECUTIVE BUSINESS DIRECTORS Marina Deane-Gonzalez Ryan Peralta Harris Devasena Sitaram BUSINESS STAFF Kevin Gehl Maddie Whipple MANAGING ART EDITOR Shashi Arnold ARTISTS Jay Chao Jennifer Hu Leela Mehta-Harwitz Sonia Pivovarov Marissa Rhice MANAGING PHOTO EDITORS Miles Grovic Robert Padmore PHOTOGRAPHERS Christina Chen Arielle Granston Sarah Martin Delia Moran Edson Orellana Henry Reichle Elenora Rue Esther Tang MEDIA EDITOR Alex Dong PUZZLE EDITOR Alex Grosman COPY EDITORS Eva Allred Anika Dasgupta Isabella Fan Maya Guise Eric Lei Valentina Simon Shariar Vaez-Ghaemi Bracklinn Williams Colin Wu LA ESQUINA LATINA ADVISORS Dianette Coombs Maria Eugenia Tanos ADVISOR Jeremy Stelzner
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Superintendent proposes FY 2022 MCPS operating budget By Abby Brier News Editor
On Dec. 17, outgoing MCPS Superintendent Jack Smith released a projected $2.7 billion operating budget for fiscal year (FY) 2022. The budget proposal is a 1.5 percent decrease from the previous year’s budget, amounting to a reduction of about $42.6 million. According to Dan Marella, Associate Superintendent of Finance for MCPS, mental health resources and recovery of learning loss will be prioritized in the FY 2022 budget. “Mental health and wellness, that’s something that’s going to happen for all who need that support. We are here to provide that support for everybody so that everybody can be successful,” he said in a Board of Education meeting on Jan. 14. Laura Stewart, the Vice President of Advocacy for the Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations, also thinks the mental health aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic is a critical element of the new budget. “Everyone knows all this isolation has really been hard on certain populations with their mental health,” Stewart said. “So a huge focus for next year is counselors, social workers, [and] psychologists.” The MCPS proposed budget plans to add approximately 112 positions in the special education program, which amounts to $5,290,793. This would pay for approximately 16.8 special education teacher positions, 76.8 special education paraeducator positions, 15.6 speech pathologists, and 2.45 occupational therapist positions. During FY 2021, $58 million was directed toward the Continuity of Learning program, MCPS’ plan for virtual instruction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the current proposal for FY 2022, $43 million of these funds will be either cut or redirected to their original sources, including unfilled positions and associated employee benefits, hiring teachers, and transportation and building utility costs.
The budget also specifies that $264,702 should be provided to hire 4.6 new ESOL teachers countywide in order to accommodate projected enrollment growth of the ESOL population. At the state level, the proposed FY 2022 Maryland operating budget from governor Larry Hogan includes $53 million to expand full-day universal pre-kindergarten. Thus, the MCPS FY 2022 budget reflects a $149,828 increase in state grant funding for the Head Start Program, which provides free pre-kindergarten education in MCPS. This new funding is expected to add 0.5 teacher positions, fund project salaries using grants from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) instead of through local money, and provide additional employee benefits to the current 11.7 Head Start teachers, according to an MCPS presentation on Jan 14. to the Board of Education. That presentation also indicated a potential loss of $17.1 million from state aid and $39.7 million due to this year’s enrollment decrease of about 5,200 students and the associated Maintenance of Effort (MOE) laws. MOE laws require every local government to spend at least as much per student annually as it did in the previous year in order to receive additional state education funding. This means the county must spend the same amount of money per student but will have less money to do so. As a result of this potential loss, Smith requested in his budget $40 million more than minimally required to satisfy state MOE laws. These losses are in part due to the economic impact of COVID-19, which resulted in decreased state tax funds. Schools impact taxes, which is a tax category allocated to fund schools after new construction developments, decreased by approximately $35.3 million. Additionally, recordation taxes,
BUDGET CHANGES which is a tax category allocated to fund schools after land transfers (such as purchasing a new home), decreased by approximately $32.8 million. According to county executive Marc Elrich’s county capital budget proposal, these decreases necessitate reduced funding for MCPS Capital Improvements Projects (CIP), which are geared to improve infrastructure. “Part of the way we pay for new school buildings is from this impact tax,” Stewart said. However, FY 2020 allowed for the acceleration of several construction projects, including at Seneca Valley. Thus, approximately $68.4 million funds were preemptively reserved and spent in FY 2020 for FY 2021 and FY 2022. Although the county budget appears to have reduced FY 2021-2026 funding for MCPS CIPs, county funding to support MCPS projects has not changed, only stagnated. MCPS also faces a potential loss in funding of approximately $27.4 million due to Hogan’s veto on the Blueprints for Maryland’s Future bill, a public school reform law that would increase Maryland public school funding with an emphasis on educational equity. Based on this loss in projected income, salaries for one literacy specialist position and about 44 elementary paraeducator positions will be paid
through local funding instead of state grants in FY 2022. Many community members expect the Democratic majority in the state legislature to override Hogan’s veto in February, which Smith hopes will restore this state funding to MCPS. However, even if the legislation passes, MCPS might still not regain all funding. The bill’s language stipulates that if a county’s “fiscal condition significantly impedes the county’s ability to fund the maintenance of effort requirement,” they can apply to the State Board of Education for a waiver to delay the MOE requirement for one year. Without the MOE requirement in place, the county government would not be mandated to give public schools as much money as is currently allotted. Regardless of MCPS funding, record amounts of state money will be allocated toward education in FY 2022. State lottery revenue allocated to supplement education funding formulas is expected to amount to an additional $375 million for education in the next fiscal year, with these dollars spanning all districts statewide. Overall, $7.5 billion will be invested in public school systems across the state.
According to Roxanne Fus, Blair’s senior class co-sponsor, MCPS has not yet released information on the Plan C contingency or the COVID-19 metric thresholds that will factor into graduation decisions. Instead, the county is exploring different options to maximize safety, including limiting attendance of friends and family. “I think one of the options might be for graduation to be held without guests, depending on health metrics, and how many people can be in a venue at once,” Fus said, specifying that this information is her own view and is not based on any specific directives from MCPS. Furthermore, MCPS is looking to establish standardization across
graduation events. Last year, seniors’ experiences varied based on their school. “Some schools did yard signs for seniors… and some schools didn’t,” Fus said, “so the county is trying to make sure that whatever is done is done across the board for all seniors in the county.” As of now, out of all 25 high schools and six alternative programs in MCPS, eight are scheduled to graduate seniors at UMBC, including Blair. Fourteen will graduate at DAR Constitution Hall, and six will use their own facilities. An additional four will use other schools’ grounds or alternative locations. All graduations across MCPS are set to occur between June 2 and June 17.
Cal Tobias and Lilia Wong contributed reporting.
Blair announces June 2 graduation date By Sean Li and Anika Seth Staff Writer & Editor-in-Chief On Jan. 14, Blair administration announced that seniors will graduate on Wednesday, June 2 at 10:00 a.m. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus (UMBC), according to emails from principal Renay Johnson to Blair staff and families. This date and time, however, is pending contract finalization by the county and a review of COVID-19 transmission metrics. On Jan. 22, the Student Member of the Board of Education, Nick Asante, posted more graduation details on Instagram. According to his post, Blair’s announcement is part of MCPS’s “Plan A” for graduation, which involves
traditional in-person graduations at existing venues, namely UMBC and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. The county is scheduled to decide on or before April 15 whether to continue with Plan A or to switch to “Plan B,” which would direct schools to use either their own outdoor stadiums or the Gaithersburg High School stadium for graduation. Similarly, the county is scheduled to decide on or before April 30 to either pursue one of the first two plans or switch to “Plan C,” which prescribes all-virtual graduations. The post further states that all schools should prepare throughout the second semester for Plan C.
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‘It was supposed to be a hospita
Maryland students describe abuse w Trigger warning: This article contains information about and somewhat graphic descriptions of physical violence, suicidality, sexual abuse, and substance abuse.
W
hen 15-year-old Alexander Sanderson stared down the former St. Peter’s Seminary building in southwest Baltimore, he had no idea what the next eleven months would have in store. It was July of 2016, and the state had just referred Sanderson to the Baltimore facility of the Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents (RICA) due to school truancy. He would then spend almost a full calendar year in a residential mental health treatment program. The two-story red brick building hidden inside the brush of Baltimore was founded in the late 1950s during the peak of a national shift in attitude around mental health treatment. This approach, called deinstitutionalization, emphasized the importance of transitioning individuals diagnosed with acute mental illness into life outside of residential care—and RICA emblemizes that newer concept. Originally housed at the former Rosewood state hospital, RICA Baltimore became a state-funded residential treatment facility in Maryland in the 1950s and then moved to St. Peter’s Seminary near the
U.S. National Cemetery in the 1970s. While there are several privately-owned mental treatment organizations, a second publicly-provided facility emerged in Rockville in 1980. Both facilities serve as both behavioral and academic treatment programs, with associated residential schools, for Maryland students struggling with mental illnesses, autism, specific learning disabilities, and other mental health impairments. The RICA vision, as stated on the MCPS website for the Rockville campus, is to provide a space where
They had thrown me into a restraint chair, so I was strapped into a chair. No movement, no nothing. They had drugged me, and I was nodding out… when I woke up for a little bit, all the staff were freaking the f*** out. ISABELLE PEREIRA
“students will learn and grow academically, socially and emotionally in a safe, secure and nurturing environment.” But it didn’t take long for Sanderson to realize that the facility was far from being a mental health haven. “It was supposed to be a hospital, but it basically was a prison,” he says.
Abusive environment
“We were essentially being kept isolated from the outside world and our family members,” Sanderson recalls. He was monitored during 15-minute phone calls with his parents and was once forced to hang up when he brought up the unfavorable living environment at the facility. He remembers many students, including himself, collectively wondering how long they would live in a foreign environment under heavy surveillance. “There was no real answer.” Some students felt more unsafe at the hands of staff rather than fellow students. Sanderson reports that staff members often exhibited unnecessary physical force, cruel taunts, and racist remarks. Sanderson notes that violence was more prevalent from staff than it was from students. “There were fights sometimes and stuff like that… but it was the staff who were mainly at times very violent,” he remembers. One specific example he offers was watching in horror as one of his friends was abused by a staff member. “I saw one of the staff members, just with his hands around [my friend’s] neck… choking him.”
According to Sanderson, this incident did not yield any real consequences for the staff involved. He also describes a personal story of staff-perpetrated abuse after he was placed on suicide watch. “At one point, I became suicidal… because I wanted it to be over. And so I wasn’t allowed to do much,” Sanderson says. “I went into the kitchen because I wanted to snack, and apparently I wasn’t supposed to be in there without supervision. [A] staff member followed me in there… he grabbed my arm and just twisted it really hard up behind my back… and he just marched me out of the kitchen.” Sanderson was then asked to remove his clothing so the staff members could check for dangerous items. He initially refused. “I’m not doing that, I’m not exposing myself in front of all these people. That’s not appropriate,” he recalls. But he says the employee would not take no for an answer. “[The staff member] puts [their] knee into my back, strips me completely naked… [and then just] leaves me in there, closes the door, locks it. Then I was in there naked for, like, two hours.” Sanderson did not struggle alone. Another former resident, 17-year-old Isabelle Pereira spent a year and a half in the residential program at the Rockville RICA facility, while Sanderson was housed in Baltimore. Though their reasons for institutionalization differed—his for truancy, hers for mental illness and substance abuse—Pereira described a similarly bleak experience, with abuse ranging from violent disciplinary measures to neglect. “It was really hard being there and being gaslighted into believing that I needed this treatment: being physically abused, sexually abused, psychologically abused, and being gaslighted to the point where I thought that I was crazy and… that I deserved it,” she says. The RICA Rockville Director of Community Resources and Development, Marlayna Proctor, declined to comment on the allegations of abuse. Pereira partially credits these aggressive methods to the background of Rockville RICA founder John L. Gildner, who also served as the facility’s CEO for twenty years after retiring from his position as an Air Force Colonel and hospital administrator. Pereira believes his military background impacted the facility’s disciplinary tactics. “There’s a lot of army style types of treatments and discipline… [but] if you’re going to be in a place to attack those mental health issues, you shouldn’t be treated like a criminal,” she says.
Admissions
Pereira experiences a range of emotional difficulties as a result of her borderline personality disorder—a mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships. However, she feels her condition was aggravated by an oppressive environment at RICA and does not believe her institutionalization at the Rockville facility was appropriate for her needs. “I don’t think I ever met the requirements for being in such highly intense care; I don’t think many kids do,” she says. “The people who truly needed the residential treatment were benefited by it… But a lot of the children there, they
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al, but it basically was a prison.’
within residential mental institutions didn’t [need it]—I know I didn’t.” According to their website, RICA admits adolescents who “chronically exhibit behavior, which is unacceptable at home in school, and in the community; and for whom community resources have not been helpful in the past.” Each case is evaluated based on a series of specific emotional challenges. According to Pereira, many admitted patients— like herself—suffer from acute mental illness, and many are also on the autism spectrum. In the 20192020 school year, over 95 percent of the 112 students enrolled at the affiliated school had needs requiring special education services, per MCPS-provided demographic data. Based on both Sanderson and Pereira’s testimonies, despite the vast differences in the specificities of each individual case, the approaches and tactics used in patient treatment are standardized and largely congruent across the board.
Treatment approach
According to the RICA Baltimore website, their primary methods for treatment are various kinds of therapy—individual, family, group, recreation, art, and movement—behavior medication, and psychopharmacology. However, Sanderson feels a large number of the residential staff members were not adequately trained to handle students with mental health issues. “The majority of the time, the kids spent their days with just regular staff hires who had barely any mental health experience,” he notes. According to a 2014 study by Louisiana State University, substance abuse treatment efforts are most effective through long-term therapeutic residential care and intensive outpatient mental health aftercare. However, both Sanderson and Pereira described an overreliance on medication to treat patients’ mental illnesses. “[Therapy] would just be like throwing a medication at somebody,” Sanderson says. Charles Gischlar, Deputy Director for the Maryland Department of Health, explains that the process of prescribing medication at RICA facilities is multipronged. “The Maryland Department of Health operates the RICA facilities in accordance with Maryland statutes, regulations from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare,” he writes in an email. “Policies for medication fall within the regulatory guidance from these same entities.”
Medication impact
While often beneficial in appropriate dosages, when used as replacement of therapy or in excess, medication can interfere with recovery and exacerbate emotional distress. Moreover, since some RICA patients already struggle with drug or substance abuse when they enter the facility, overuse of sedatives while in residential treatment could exacerbate a student’s pre-existing condition. According to Paul K.B. Dagg of the British Columbia Medical Journal, when patients have antipsychotic medications or other prescription drugs in their system already, “the addition of a [sedative] does absolutely nothing other than increase the risk of side effects and toxicity.” Despite evidence— like the 2014 study— that residential treatment should focus more on effective therapeutic methods than
medicine, Pereira and Sanderson feel that RICA observes a strict reliance on sedative medication. Pereira describes in detail one terrifying encounter that she had with sedation while in the care of RICA. “They had thrown me into a restraint chair, so I was strapped into a chair. No movement, no nothing. They had drugged me, and I was nodding out… when I woke up for a little bit, all the staff were freaking the f*** out,” she says. In Maryland, the use of restraining chairs with emotionally distressed patients must be “appropriate to the developmental level of the student” and must not exceed 30 minutes, according to Maryland Seclusion and Restraint Statutes. After her incident, Pereira learned that she had been kept in the restraining chair for 2.5 hours. Other students described similar traumatic encounters with sedation and medication. In a Google review of RICA Baltimore, one former student writes, “therapy here is really just shoving pills down the throats of patients. I still have nightmares from this place.”
RICA Rockville 2019-2020 demographic breakdown
Transition into independent life
Though Sanderson thought his emotionally tumultuous experience would conclude after he was discharged, he soon realized his struggle was far from over. After his eleven months living at the Baltimore facility, he developed severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which impeded his ability to enjoy and be productive during his final years at Winston Churchill. “I was getting panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares,” Sanderson says. He was forced to miss school and had difficulties with administration as a result of the lasting emotional traumas he was still processing. “I explained to a lot of the school district what I was dealing with… at that point, they provided me zero support.” According to the Maryland Department of Health website for JLG-RICA, “The child’s eventual return to the home, community, or other less-restrictive setting is an integral goal of treatment from the first day of admission to the residential program.” However, students like Sanderson and Pereira feel that RICA does not offer enough support to students during this transition. Pereira reported that the staff at RICA Rockville did next to nothing to help her transition back into independent life. “I have had a lot of issues with finding myself again, and kind of regrouping… because of how I was treated,” she says. She adds that many of the people she met at the facility returned to engaging in self-destructive behaviors once they left as a result of the lack of followup that RICA provided. “The majority of people I know who were there who got abused, they went back to gangbanging, they got hooked on dope again, they started on the wrong path as soon as they got out of there,” she says. While information about students’ experiences within residential facilities like RICA remains widely obscured, the accounts given by Sanderson and Pereira attest to the contrast between the program’s written objective and their lived reality—from staff abuse to treatment methods to life after discharge.
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN According to MCPS school data, 122 students were enrolled at the Rockville RICA facility in the 2019-2020 school year. The largest racial group was comprised by Black students at 36.6 percent of the student body, followed by white students at 31.3 percent and Latino students at 22.3 percent.
Story by Leila Faraday and Sofia Roehrig Art by Shashi Arnold Photos by Esther Tang Design by Aviva Bechky and Grace Walsh Graphic by Anika Seth