The debate around the role of police officers in schools has restarted following Monday’s shooting at Wootton High School that injured a 16-year-old boy.
The School Resource Officer (SRO) program — a program between the county public schools system and county police department — was changed starting in the 2021-2022 school year to become the Community Engagement Officer (CEO) program. Officers were no longer stationed in a particular school but instead were assigned to school clusters.
According to Rockville Police, the CEO assigned to Wootton was attending to an issue at the nearby Lakewood Elementary School at the time of Monday’s shooting.
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy
“It was a terrible mistake to take the SROs out of our schools,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said after Wednesday’s bond hearing for the 16-year-old Wootton shooting suspect. “Again, we’ve had two shootings here in Montgomery County in our schools since the SROs were removed.”
The 2022 Magruder High School shooting is known to be the first school shooting in Montgomery County Public Schools. After the Magruder shooting, school officers became a hot topic again, and now once again, it is being discussed following the Wootton shooting.
“I really do hope and pray that we will make the investment again as a community to make the intelligent step to bring those police officers back, where they had great relationships for the most part with all the students in the school, and bring some safety and security there,” McCarthy said.
County Executive Marc Elrich
County Executive Marc Elrich said during a briefing Thursday that correlation is not causation. He said the biggest problem is the growing prevalence of guns, availability of ghost guns — which was the type of gun used in both the Magruder and Wootton school shootings — and the failure to prevent people who shouldn’t have guns from getting them.
“This is the root of the problem whether it’s a Canadian problem or American problem,” Elrich said. Multiple people were killed in a school shooting in Canada this week.
County Councilmember Will Jawando
County Councilmember Will Jawando, who pushed to remove SROs from schools in 2020, told MCM in a written statement Thursday that research has found “no connection between having an armed police officer in a building and any reduction in violence.”
“But what we do see, consistently, is that permanently stationing officers in schools leads to ordinary student behavior being treated as criminal, with Black students, particularly Black boys, and students with disabilities bearing the brunt of that burden,” said Jawando, who is chair of the council’s Education and Culture committee.
He said what actually works is a comprehensive approach including security, fully-staffed schools, mental health professionals, restorative justice, and collaboration with law enforcement.
“We cannot make decisions impacting the safety of our children based on emotions or conjecture,” he said.
Jawando said every program should be continuously evaluated for effectiveness and gaps. He said MCPS is planning a formal evaluation of the CEO program, “which I support.” It will show what is working, where gaps are, and what changes will make schools safer. He noted school security staff “are critically understaffed and underpaid” and while MCPS recently made investments, the level is still not where it needs to be.
Council President Natali Fani-González
During a briefing Tuesday when asked if changing the school officer program had been a mistake, County Council President Natali Fani-González said the fact that the council added security personnel to schools last year “answers that question.”
Fani-González, who was elected in 2022 after the SRO changes, said she wants to hold a full council briefing on school safety.
Background
In August 2021, the SRO program became the CEO program, in which officers were assigned to school clusters. They were not stationed inside the school building or on campus but in surrounding neighborhoods outside the school. But incidents of violence, including the Magruder shooting, prompted officials to establish an updated officer model, called the “CEO 2.0 Program.” Under the updated model, CEOs have a direct line of communication with schools but do not respond for routine school discipline. They have a private office space at each high school but are not permanently stationed inside any school.
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