Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is looking to evaluate how serious incidents are reported after only 130 fights were reported in the 2023-2024 school year–a decrease from the year before but a number that doesn’t encompass all fights, according to MCPS staff.
“The number of incidents, when you look at that number, and you think about the number of school days and what we’ve experienced–the validity of that is extremely questionable,” Peter Moran, MCPS chief of schools, told the school board Aug. 20.
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 school board documents.
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, according to school board documents. 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.
There were 21 bomb threats during the 2023-2024 school year.
Data show a significant decrease in the number of reported fighting incidents from 2022-2023 to 2024-2025, according to a presentation from Moran; Marcus Jones, the former county police chief who now heads the MCPS Department of Security and Compliance; and Dana Edwards, chief of district operations.
There were only 130 fights reported in the last school year and a slight decrease in reported drug incidents. However, there was an increase in incidents involving knives or other weapons, false alarms/bomb threats and trespassing.
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. These designation can include anything from a small animal entering a school to a temporary power outage, according to school board documents.
According to school board documents, 47% of the serious incidents occurred in high schools, 32% in middle schools and 20% in elementary schools and 1% in special schools. Although the district has been collecting data on serious incidents, Moran and several school board members said the way incidents are reported needed to be examined. School board member Brenda Wolff (Dist. 5) said 130 fights seemed like a very low number based on what she’s seen on social media. Moran agreed.
Moran said the number only included reported incidents. Moran said the guidelines for reporting fights include if they resulted in hospitalization or significant bodily injury that required emergency personnel to respond, but they don’t account for fights that don’t result in serious injury.
“That’s a problem in and of itself,” Moran said.
Edwards said there were limitations on how the data is collected, which the district needs to address this year.
“That will be part of the build-out for the coming year to go back to: Are the things we’re implementing to address this actually working? And we should be able to connect it back to the data,” Edwards said.
Wolff, along with board member Grace Rivera-Oven, said administrators shouldn’t be afraid of punishments and know that they’ll get support for reporting an accurate number of serious incidents.
“We just need to be truthful with our data,” Rivera-Oven said. “How do we move forward with trust to make sure that our administrators, that our teachers, that they feel comfortable reporting what’s going on in their buildings?”
Jones said schools need to acknowledge problems that occur to solve the problem. He noted one of the first things he’ll be looking at is how serious incidents are reported, and other staff members have been willing to devise new reporting strategies.
Moran said MCPS staff worked with all principals to review the incident reporting process and “reset expectations” for the reporting system before the start of the school year.
He also noted that sometimes things are reported—or not reported—based on the quality of support received. Moran said the district’s central services need to do the work to support schools when incidents are reported.
“You’ll see [serious incident] numbers increase also as the service we’re providing is delivered in a stronger, more effective way,” Moran said.