School Police in Baltimore: Everything You Need to Know

The inception of school police in Baltimore was in 1991, House Bill 732. It is a sworn police force, the only one of its kind in Maryland, and has full arrest powers within city limits. They are permitted to carry guns, but with restrictions. Those restriction are, according to state law, that “a Baltimore City school police officer whose permanent or temporary assignment is at a school or on school property may carry a firearm on the premises of the school to which the officer is assigned before or after regular school hours on school days and on days other than school days.”

tl;dr: That law (theoretically) restricts carrying of guns in buildings to after school, non-school days, and in emergency situations, but, as was revealed over the summer, someone high up in the force’s command (unknown who exactly this is) decided that after the September 11 attacks, the guns would stay on all the time, and so they remained for over a decade.

As he tells it, late last year, Dr. Gregory Thornton, CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools, was informed by someone that the school police were in violation of the law. Rather than simply comply and move on, in ambiguous language (“updating the Baltimore City School Police Force section of Education Article of the Maryland Annotated Code”), the school board recommended a law change removing all restrictions on guns in the school board legislative agenda in December 2014. HB101/SB17 was born.

There were near immediate problems from parents, including Melissa Schober and Aimee Harmon-Darrow, who complained of the lack of public notification or solicitation of input before the recommendation was made. Meanwhile, Sgt. Clyde Boatwright, school police union head, warned that the “blood of our babies will be on [the bill’s opponents’] hands” if the bill was not passed in a Facebook post. A meeting for the community was only held after parent/advocate/student uproar. Citing concerns over transparency, the city delegation tabled the bill.

After the bill’s defeat, Dr. Thornton, he would later explain, wanted a “community policing” model that was in compliance with the current law and worked better, although the exact problems from the school system’s perspective have never been specified in a coherent way. He consulted with Ed Clark from the Maryland Center for School Safety (created after Sandy Hook) to create the current deployment plan.

On March 31, the new redeployment strategy was unveiled. That was days before spring break and the day students returned from spring break, it went into effect. Other than the vague wording at the press conference and this PowerPoint, not much was released about the plan. In rough outlines, officers were pulled out from all but seven schools, thus enabling those not at the seven schools (Achievement Academy, Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical, Patterson, Digital Harbor, Forest Park, Baltimore Community, and Excel Academy) to carry guns. Later, I learned that the officers not assigned to schools were assigned to one of 6 sectors, each of which includes several schools. This was intended, per the PowerPoint, to both “ensure safety of students and staff at selected large high schools” and “focus on supporting efforts to build and sustain positive school culture and climate.” The plan was apparently developed partly using best practices from Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, Florida.

The last slide of the PowerPoint was a schedule, and it included a bullet point about community meeting, which were to happen in “April.” (It was the only item in the PowerPoint without a specific date, which turned out to be a warning sign.)

Those meetings didn’t happen in April. Or May. Or June. Finally, after repeated requests by parents, students, and legislators, including me, seven were scheduled smack in the middle of vacation/summer job/regular job season, July.

I was able to come to some of them and have notes from others. And I heard a variety of opinions. Guns, no guns, police in schools, not in schools. No one seemed satisfied with the redeployment. I wasn’t satisfied with the redeployment or the fact that many students and some parents I invited to the meetings were either out-of-town or working.

Random tidbit: one principal said one of the reasons we needed school police in schools was because of ISIS.

There were notes taken at every meeting by school officials. They were posted online on a website where people could comment. My understanding was that the website would also be a place to where materials and training information would be shared in an effort for greater transparency. It seemed as if things were finally moving in the right direction.

Yet, at an operations committee meeting on August 21st, school police and school supports officials recommended NO CHANGE to policy. They did, to their credit, note the beginning of training with the Inner Harbor Project and Casa de Maryland, and promise a memorandum of understanding (MOU) outlining clear responsibilities and role of school police was in the works (a best practice nationwide).

What went unmentioned was the FOP school police contract, which expired over the summer. Negotiations are ongoing at last check. The old contract can be found here.

A few days later at a youth retreat hosted by Baltimore City Schools, Dr. Thornton told me he was setting up community and student committees whose members would work to develop a “holistic approach to school discipline.” This again hinted at greater input and transparency, but I was cautious knowing the history of groups working with the school system on of discipline. The Coalition to Reform School Discipline (composed of groups like Advocates for Children and Youth, ACLU, Office of the Public Defender, NAACP) has been asking for arrest numbers from school police for months. They did not receive them and withdrew from discussions with the school police earlier this year (2015) and took concerns about data collection, policy guidance and training needs directly to the school board who have oversight duties under §4–318.

The first meeting of the student advisory board was in October. We had an open, unstructured discussion about experiences with school police, what we thought their role was, and what we thought it should be. I inquired if we could ask the school police chief questions at the next meeting.

The second meeting was November 11. Chief Goodwin was there to answer questions. I asked about arrest data (which they have just started collecting), deployment plan (got the above information about sectors), and MOU (which at that point was being vetted by the legal department). Asked about training, Chief Goodwin responded that officers have started training with Casa and Inner Harbor Project on cultural competency, as I noted above.

Currently, school police receive this intellectual disabilities training. It is clearly insufficient and inappropriate alone. Goodwin said that they train with external organizations as well on the subject and that one of their officers, Betty Covington, who has an autistic son, does trainings with officers.

I asked about arrests, which several officials said were down due to the new plan, and received several numbers from the past few years. If correct, they seem to show that arrests have steadily been trending down over the past few school years, not necessarily because of the new deployment.

Also at the meeting, Dr. Thornton said he was looking to the advisory groups for more recommendations on school police. He echoed that at the Education Subcommittee public hearing on November 21.

On February 16th, the Operations Committee is set to receive a presentation updating people on Baltimore school police and a Maryland Center for School Safety report conducted on the efficacy of the deployment. A PowerPoint posted as part of the meeting agenda finally releases some arrest numbers and spells out next steps, including establishing better communication between officers and school administrators, improving the deployment to “incorporate relationship building strategies and positive engagement for all grade levels,” and reviewing if a “hybrid [deployment] model” with both school police and “properly trained school system civilian security staff” is feasible.

The conclusions reached are notable because of the doubt cast for the first time on the redeployment plan (remember: the last Operations Committee meeting saw Chief Goodwin saying that no change was necessary to the plan moving forward.) The district now wants to “work with MCSS to review possible deployments.” We’ll see where that goes.

Arrest data (2012–1/11/2016)

Diversion data (2012–1/11/2016)

Here’s where we stand now: The legislative platform for the 2016 session has been approved and does not contain a recommendation for the gun bill’s reintroduction. At the legislative platform public hearing on December 2, legislative liaison Dawana Sterrette explained (see PowerPoint, page 10) that that determination would be made in a “school safety plan” that “would not merely address officers ability to carry firearms, but also policies for school police interaction with students and staff as well as other safety issues that school communities must consider.” It’s unclear when this plan will be released.

The latest recommendations, for the February Operations Committee, are all marked as either “in progress”, “ongoing”, or “under review.” I have sent inquiries to the school system and will update when I hear back.

The MOU, as of February 15, 2016, is still being processed and will be subject to board approval at an to-be-announced date.

Also, the website referenced earlier? It’s been taken down and replaced with a website about the strategic plan.

Find my Google Drive folder with information here.

If you want to get involved, hit me up on Twitter @DavidPontious.