When it comes to school safety, school board candidates are calling for the hiring of officers and mental health services

Officer Edward Toves, school resource officer at an Arizona school, shown in a 2018 file photo. Maryland school board candidates largely support school resource officers, including on school safety efforts . File photo: Faith Miller/Cronkite News

By Emily R. Condon and Colin McNamara

In Montgomery County, school board candidate Brenda M. Diaz worries that “knife-wielding vandals” have easy access to schools because the district has removed police officers who are present in the rest of Maryland’s public school districts to try to keep the peace.

Across the Eastern Shore, school board candidate Karla Wieland-Cherry of Talbot County told Local News Network in a candidate survey that teachers feel threatened by some of their students.

And in Howard County, school board candidate Andrea Chamblee — whose husband, John McNamara, was shot and killed in the 2018 Capital Gazette mass shooting in Annapolis — said the threat of a school shooting is just one stressor life-threatening children in the county.

“Bullying, mental health issues, addiction to technology, unreliable transportation, larger class sizes, fewer opportunities for art enrichment, portable classrooms, overcrowding, poorly maintained buildings, food insecurity, poor indoor air quality and bigotry – all of this worsens the well-being of our students, students and staff,” Chamblee said.

“Students who don’t do well can’t learn well,” she said. “To focus on academics, we must address security challenges and ensure a stable learning environment for students and staff.”

Concerns about school safety in Maryland are statewide — which is why candidates in Maryland school district races are highlighting the issue. Of the 74 candidates who responded to a Local News Network questionnaire, 48 said they were not completely satisfied with school safety in their district. Many people have called for more law enforcement officers and mental health counselors in local schools.

Diaz supports the return of school resource officers to Montgomery County schools, but statistics and comments from school board candidates across the state make it clear that school safety and student behavior are not easily controlled by school cops alone.

School safety in brief

The problem of school safety is a nationwide one. According to Educator’s School Safety Network, violent incidents increased 49% in schools across the country during the 2023-2024 school year.

The state of Maryland has not yet released its statistics for 2023-2024, but according to the Maryland Center for School Safety, the number of anonymously reported incidents of bullying or cyberbullying increased from the previous year from 91 to 107 in the 2022-2023 school year. harm increased from 83 to 98. The number of complaints about general school safety increased from 62 to 104.

The school safety center also monitors critical life-threatening incidents, which are legally defined as events resulting in death or serious injury or acts of mass violence. In total, there have been 17, 18 and 18 such incidents over the last three school years.

Among these events are the following:

• On October 27, 2023, at a high school in Baltimore City, a student, together with both parents, attacked and shot three other students.

• In April 2024, Montgomery County police arrested a high school senior who wrote a 129-page manifesto about his plans for a school shooting.

• The Somerset County Sheriff’s Office said a high school student was arrested in January 2024 after he threatened mass violence and arson at the school. A press release from the county said the student had previously been caught with a gun at school.

School board candidate Matthew Warren Lankford, whose son was at school at the time of the latest incident, said the student has since returned to school. “This student requires special attention and should never be allowed back into school as a normal student,” Lankford said.

School Resource Officers

School resource officers – the official name for trained school resource officers under the Maryland School Safety Act of 2019 – are assigned to certain schools in every Maryland jurisdiction except Montgomery County. Many school board candidates have expressed support for hiring more school resource officers.

“I am satisfied with the safety of large, catastrophic events,” said Jaime Brennan, a candidate for Frederick County School Board. “But I am not satisfied with the daily acts of violence… that are taking place. I think it would be helpful to expand the school resource specialist program to have an SRO designated in every middle and high school.”

The Maryland Center for School Safety is responsible for training school resource officers in the state and reports annually on their presence in schools. The total number of schools with a full-time official increased from 273 in 2021-2022 to 288 in the 2022-2023 school year.

In Calvert County, another candidate running for re-election, Antoine White, said he meets regularly with his board’s safety liaison and the local sheriff’s office. White voted to increase the number of school resource officers in his district.

But another Calvert County candidate, Paul Harrison, said he wasn’t happy with the lack of armed officers at six schools and said he would try to fill those gaps.

And Montgomery County ended its school resource officer program in 2021 amid concerns that students of color are being disproportionately disciplined. The district currently has a Community Engagement Officer program in which officers patrol school neighborhoods and enter schools as needed.

PTA president running for the county school board, Rita Montoya, said officers allowed to work in schools must be properly vetted.

“Providing opportunities for healthy and positive engagement between students and officers is a necessary next step,” Montoya said.

More school districts are advocating for a constant, visible law enforcement presence. Worcester County Board of Education member Jon M. Andes touted his district as the first in the state with school resource officers.

“We must continue to work with our law enforcement partners, improve our safe school summer retreats and strengthen our proactive approach to preventing problems,” said Andes, who is running for re-election.

On the other hand, Gerry LaFemina worries about the abuse of officers in Allegany County schools, where he is running for school board.

“I don’t like the idea of ​​giving the impression that our schools are under attack because it creates an atmosphere that encourages distraction,” he said. “I am also concerned about the use of police in schools, which can often lead to escalation of problems rather than solutions through mediation.”

Other than LaFemina, none of the 74 candidates who responded to the Local News Network poll questioned or opposed the assignment of police officers to schools.

More advisors?

However, many candidates made it clear that school staff cannot solve the problem of school safety on their own. Twenty-five candidates listed improving their mental health or counseling intervention as an important step in their survey responses.

“Schools should prioritize not only physical safety, but also the social and emotional well-being of students,” said Tiffini Andorful, a candidate for Prince George’s County School Board. “This could include increasing the number of support staff and providing access to resources and training to deal effectively with conflict. I also believe there needs to be more emphasis on emergency preparedness and more support for gun control at higher levels.”

Many people also emphasized the importance of building a healthy atmosphere at school from an early age.

“We really need to focus on social-emotional learning and fostering a culture of acceptance of others, from the early grades up,” said Erica McFarland, a candidate from Anne Arundel County.

McFarland said she thinks this type of focus can help prevent bullying, which is a common reason for students to feel unsafe at school.

Meg Ricks, a candidate from Howard County, said increasing counseling services would likely prevent other problems as well.

“We need to start when students are young to give them the tools to deal with conflict and seek help when needed,” she said in response to the survey. “I would like to see more counselors in our schools so that we can provide students with productive solutions to the challenges they face.”

Meanwhile, 13 candidates across the state said the secret to solving the school safety mystery lies not only in the help of school officials and mental health services, but also in old-fashioned school discipline.

“We need to revisit school discipline measures and take better steps to reduce threats and, in some cases, violence,” said Talbot County’s Wieland-Cherry. “Teaching and learning cannot take place in an environment where people feel unsafe.”