Harford County public school leaders gave their endorsement Monday to statewide legislation that could lead to putting police officers in every middle school in the county.

Although members of the board of education raised plenty of concerns about unfunded mandates and the cost of complying, they voted to endorse HB1160, known as the Safe Schools Act of 2010, after their lobbyist advised them the bill is going to pass in some form in this session of the Maryland General Assembly.

The bill, which has the sponsorship of House of Delegates Speaker Michael Busch behind it, will require that every secondary school — high and middle school — have a school security officer designated by the local superintendent or principal.

The bill also contains sections dealing with prevention of and response to gang activities in schools and expands reporting requirements in existing law regarding students who commit criminal offenses. The bill will also require school officials to consider keeping students accused of certain crimes, including having weapons on school property and assault, from attending the same school or riding on the same bus as their alleged victims. The bill also would prohibit a student convicted of rape from attending the same school as the victim.

Harford school board members said they support the intent of HB1160, but its potential cost gave them pause during their brief session Monday night, when pending state legislation was the main part of the agenda. Both school system lobbyist Cathy Carmello and Harford Sheriff Jesse Bane talked with them about the Safe Schools Act’s enhanced security requirements.

Even though the bill as introduced would allow an administrator, teacher or possibly even a volunteer to be designated as a school security officer, Bane said he would prefer that any additional such personnel be sworn law enforcement officers who have been specially trained to work in schools and to deal with weapons, as is the case with existing school resource officers in Harford County.

There is one school resource officer posted at each Harford high school; however, they are also responsible for responding to incidents at their corresponding middle school.

The sheriff’s office’s budget pays for the resource officers at seven high schools, spokesperson Monica Worrell said. The municipal police forces in Aberdeen, Bel Air and Havre de Grace pay the officers assigned to their respective high schools. The sheriff’s deputies work as a unit and are supervised by a sergeant, Worrell said, and the school system furnishes an office and computer at each high school.

“I support everything this bill is proposing,” Bane told the school board, noting the bill “addresses the problem of gangs in schools.” But Bane also warned of “the fiscal impact if the school security officer is a police officer — it’s going to require some serious, heavy planning.”

“Obviously there’s no funding coming,” Board President Mark Wolkow added.

Depending how many people are needed and whether they are new hires or already on the payroll, Bane said, the annual cost of more resource officers could run between $800,000 and $1.2 million.

Board member Robin Rich said the cost of the additional level of security would be difficult to absorb, either for the school system or the county, but Carmello told her and the other board members they don’t have much choice. “We can’t stop this bill,” Carmello said.

Wolkow said he would “much rather see a deputy in there” and that it might be better to have a phased in approach to adding the officers. This was one of several potential amendments the board members suggested that Carmello bring up in her meetings with legislators. A hearing on HB1160 was held last Wednesday in the House Ways and Means Committee, where Carmello said testimony was overwhelmingly in favor of it.

Although Rich wanted to avoid voting Monday, Wolkow said: “It’s important our representative [Carmello] has a seat at the table.”

In addition to requiring security officers and the separation of alleged lawbreakers and their victims, HB1160 requires the Maryland Board of Education to develop “a model policy to address gangs and gang-like activity in schools” by January 2011. The policy would be developed in consultation with juvenile justice officials, local school officials and state police.

The bill also requires each local school system to develop its own gang policy, to include “an educational gang awareness program for students, staff, volunteers and parents” and “a teacher and administrator development program that trains teachers and administrators to implement the policy.” Also required would be “regular school security meetings for each middle and high school to ensure coordination of gang prevention, intervention and suppression efforts.”

user comments (0)