With a new chief of security for schools and the beginning of classes a week away, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor is slated to introduce several new safety and security changes for the district at Tuesday’s county school board meeting, according to board documents.
The scheduled update included in Tuesday’s meeting agenda follows Taylor’s comments at an Aug. 7 press briefing where he said the district had work to do when addressing safety. In a memo to the school board, Taylor outlines several steps, including creating a districtwide safety and security plan, clarifying the role of police officers in schools, expanding a “student identification program” to all high schools, limiting cell phone use, and installing vape detectors in all high school bathrooms.
The district also has a new Department of Security and Compliance chief as former Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones was appointed to the position June 25 following his retirement from the police department on July 1 after 38 years. Jones’s appointment received both criticism and praise from community members.
Safety became a predominant issue in the MCPS community after several incidents last year, including bomb threats, on-campus gun possession and discovery of hate-based graffiti.
In his memo, Taylor said serious incident data from the 2023-2024 school year “illustrated the need to address the rising safety concerns within our schools.”
Serious incidents are defined as those that involve some harm, risk or threat of harm to staff or students; seriously disrupt school operations; or concern staff or students and could escalate to a community concern or police/legal matter, according to the memo.
During the 2023-2024 school year, 4,424 serious incidents were reported. Of those, 16%, or 726, were classified as “critical,” meaning they had the potential to impact student safety and security, Taylor’s memo said. The 726 incidents were classified into categories including those involving knives or other weapons, false alarms or bomb threats, fighting, drug-related issues and trespassing.
According to the memo, there were 21 bomb threats during the previous school year.
The rest of the 3,698 reported serious incidents were “non-critical,” posed no threat to student safety and didn’t require activation of school-based emergency protocols.
The first effort to address a safe school environment, Taylor said in the memo, was creating a “multi-layered districtwide safety and security plan.”
One aspect of that plan, according to the memo, is clarifying and ensuring the “fidelity of implementation” for the Community Engagement Officer (CEO) Program. The CEO program was introduced in the 2022-2023 school year after MCPS removed county police officers known as school resource officers from schools the previous year.
Under the existing CEO program, county police officers patrol schools within a cluster and don’t remain inside buildings.
“Specifically, the focus will be on establishing clear communication of roles for school staff and CEOs, reviewing shortfalls in the current Memorandum of Understanding [between police and MCPS] regarding clarity and reviewing program effectiveness for the school year,” Taylor said in the document.
Taylor said he wasn’t looking to expand the CEO program and Jones has said previously that he planned to clarify the role of police officers in schools.
Regarding the reported bomb threats, Taylor noted the threats created “a sense of fear” and were disruptive to the school day. He said the goal moving forward is to minimize the disruption and fear with strategies addressing the authenticity of the threat alongside collaboration with principals and law enforcement to make informed decisions.
Taylor also said that a “student identification program” will be expanded to all high schools by November 2024.
The document didn’t elaborate on what the “student identification program” entailed but said that five high schools piloted the program last year, including Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg. According to a social media post from Beth Thomas, Quince Orchard’s principal, all students and staff must wear IDs at all times this coming school year.
In April, former interim Superintendent Monique Felder sent a community letter stating that the district was considering adding safety tools such as vape and weapons detection systems, alongside mandating student and staff IDs.
Over the past year, security cameras were installed in every elementary school, funded through the district’s operating budget and a multi-year grant, according to the memo. Additionally, MCPS will install vape detectors in all high school bathrooms with $2 million the school district received through a settlement with the electronic cigarette company JUUL to “fight the youth vaping epidemic.”
Taylor said seven additional security assistant positions were created for the 2024-2025 school year, and they were assigned to middle and high schools. However, the district is still looking to fill six security assistant positions.
Taylor’s memo also said middle and high schools could choose to participate in an “Away All-Day Cell Phone Policy” this year, which will restrict students from accessing their cell phones during the school day, and social media sites won’t be accessible on school Wi-Fi.