Here are some data from Howard County Police Department. I think I share this before. Here is a recap.
From HoCo Police Department: Arrest/referrals are used as a last resort in the schools and only when other administrative disciplinary actions are exhausted or deemed inappropriate.
Here are six pages describing why an arrest or referral took place between Sept 2019-March 2020. There are no school names or student names in the data to protect privacy.
The first page looks like:
Since the are state legislatures who are proposing to remove SRO from schools, the school board is observing what they are doing in the state legislature.
The superintendent made a recommendation to the school board and the board took his recommendation: totally remove SRO program or reform SRO program. SRO program is funded by the Howard County Police Department, not by the school budget. The cost is more than 2 million dollars.
The board voted to direct the superintendent to work on his two recommendations.
There has been many discussions and community outreach on this program. Here is the link on that: https://chaowu.org/2020/09/23/hcpss-school-resource-officers-sro-discussion/
It documented past arrest summary.
Here is the latest update on School Resource Officers in Schools Focus
Groups for this week’s BOE meeting.
Two suggestions:
https://www.hcpss.org/safety/faq/
Howard County Government and the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) are sponsoring a series of virtual feedback sessions, designed to hear from as many stakeholders as possible on the School Resource Officer (SRO) program in HCPSS. The first of these sessions is a virtual focus group for the students and families of middle and high schools with SROs, because we feel it is important to hear from the young people who interact with SROs on a daily basis while at school.
The virtual focus group will be held on October 5, 2020 from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. Interested participants should fill out this application no later than Thursday, October 1, 2020. Please make sure to answer all required fields. After the deadline, a randomly selected group of applicants will be chosen to participate in the focus group, divided equally among those who support SROs, are opposed to SROs, and have no position on SROs. The number of participants will be a representative sample of the number of applicants who submit. Information on the number of completed applications and the percentage selected to participate will be made public; however, the names of the participants will not be identified to protect privacy and the validity of the data collected.
To participate, students need parent or legal guardian approval and one parent or guardian willing to attend the virtual focus group with the student. If you are interested in participating in the focus group, please apply at the link below:
SROs in Schools Student and Families Virtual Focus Group (October 5, 2020, 6:30-8 p.m.)
Selected participants will receive an email containing log in information for the focus group. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Kevin Gilbert at kevin_gilbert@hcpss.org or Stephanie Wall at swall@howardcountymd.gov.
Please note, those not chosen to participate in this focus group will have an opportunity to give their feedback on SROs as part of a virtual town hall scheduled on November 12, 2020.
Here is the report from Dr. Martirano and his proposed timeline for community engagement and possible BOE decision on the police in HCPSS.
