Maryland school board candidates push for officers, mental health services

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 removed the police officers that are on hand in the rest of Maryland’s public school districts to try to keep the peace.

Across the state on the Eastern Shore, school board candidate Karla Wieland-Cherry of Talbot County told the 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 to death in the 2018 mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis – said the threat of a school shooting is just one of the stressors looming over the county’s children.

“Bullying, mental health struggles, technology addiction, unreliable transportation, larger class sizes, fewer fine art enrichment opportunities, portable classrooms, overcrowding, poorly maintained buildings, food insecurity, poor indoor air quality, and bigotry are all eroding the well-being of our students and staff,” Chamblee said. “Students who aren’t well, can’t learn well.  To focus on academics, we must take on these safety challenges and provide students and staff with a stable learning environment.”

Concern about school safety in Maryland spans the state – which is why candidates in Maryland’s school district races are stressing the issue. Of the 74 candidates who replied to a Local News Network questionnaire, 48 said they were not entirely satisfied with school safety in their district. Many called for adding more law enforcement officers as well as mental health counselors to their local schools.

Diaz advocates returning school resource officers to Montgomery County schools – but statistics, and the comments of school board candidates statewide, make clear that school safety and student behavior aren’t easily controlled just by in-school cops.

School safety at a glance

The school safety problem is a national one. Violent incidents increased 49% in the nation’s schools in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Educator’s School Safety Network.

Maryland has not yet released its 2023-2024 statistics, but in the 2022-2023 school year, the number of anonymously reported bullying or cyberbullying incidents rose over the prior year from 91 to 107 , according to the Maryland Center for School Safety. The number of assaults and threats to cause harm increased from 83 to 98. And the number of general school safety complaints shot up from 62 to 104.

The school safety center tracks also critical life-threatening incidents, which are defined as incidents that cause death or serious injury, or acts of mass violence under the law. These incidents for the past three school years totaled 17, 18, and 18.

Among those incidents are the following:

• On Oct. 27, 2023, at a Baltimore City high school, a student worked in tandem with both of his parents to assault and shoot three other students.
• In April 2024, Montgomery County Police arrested a high school senior who had written a 129-page manifesto on his plans for a school shooting.
• In January 2024, a high school student was arrested after threatening mass violence and arson at the school, the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office said. The student had previously been caught with a gun at school, according to a county press release.

School board candidate Matthew Warren Lankford, whose son was in the school at the time of that last incident, said that the student is now back in school. “This student needs special attention and should never be allowed back in the school as a normal student again,” Lankford said.

School resource officers 

School resource officers, the official name for trained officers in schools under Maryland’s 2019 Safe to Learn Act, are posted in some schools in every Maryland jurisdiction except Montgomery County. And many school board candidates expressed support for hiring more school resource officers.

“I am satisfied with the safety for the big, catastrophic-type events,” said Jaime Brennan, a Frederick County school board candidate. “But I am not satisfied with the daily acts of violence…that occur. I think that expanding the school resource officer program so that we have a designated SRO in each middle and high school would help.”

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

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

But another candidate in Calvert County, Paul Harrison, said he is not content with the lack of armed officers in six schools and pledged to try to fill those gaps.

In contrast, Montgomery County ended its school resource officer program in 2021 amid concerns that students of color were being disproportionately disciplined. The district now has a community engagement officer program, in which officers patrol near schools and enter schools as needed.

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

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

More school districts opt 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 to have school resource officers.

“We need to continue to work with our law enforcement partners, enhance our summer safe schools retreat, and strengthen our proactive approach to preventing problems,” said Andes, who is running for reelection.

Conversely, Gerry LaFemina worries about the use of officers in schools in Allegany County, where he is running for the school board.

”I loathe the idea of making our schools seem like they're under attack because that provides an atmosphere ripe for distraction,” he said. “I also worry about the use of police in the schools, which can often lead to escalation of problems rather than mediated solutions.”

Other than LaFemina, none of the 74 candidates who replied to a Local News Network survey questioned or opposed assigning police officers to schools.

More counselors?

Many candidates made clear, though, that school resource officers can’t solve the school safety problem alone. Twenty-five candidates mentioned increased mental health or counseling intervention as an important step in their survey response.

"Schools should prioritize not only physical safety but also students' social and emotional well-being," said Tiffini Andorful, a Prince George's County school board candidate. "This could include increasing the number of support staff and providing access to resources and training to effectively handle conflicts. I also think there should be a greater emphasis on emergency preparedness and increased advocacy for gun control at higher levels."

Many also emphasized the importance of building a healthy school atmosphere beginning when students are young.

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

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

Meg Ricks, a candidate in Howard County, said increased counseling services would likely stem other problems, too.

“We must start while students are young to give them tools for dealing with conflict and seeking help when needed,” she said in her survey response. “I would like to see more counselors in our schools so that we can provide students with productive solutions to the challenges they are facing.”

At the same time, 13 candidates statewide said that the secret to solving the school safety puzzle lies not just in school resource officers and mental health services, but in old-fashioned school discipline.

“We need to re-address school discipline measures and take improved steps to reduce the threats and in some cases, violence,” Wieland-Cherry of Talbot County said. “Teaching and learning cannot take place in an environment (where) one feels unsafe.”