From vaping, the cost of school supplies to cellphone policies, the WTOP team is studying up on hot-button topics in education across the D.C. region. Follow on air and online in our series “WTOP Goes Back to School” this August and September.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland moved away from school resource officers two years ago in favor of community engagement officers, or police officers with specific training who are assigned to a high school and patrol nearby, rather than inside the school.
The community engagement officers are meant to work with the school and respond to certain incidents inside the schools. They’re even allowed to have an office space inside their school, but they don’t roam the school throughout the day like a traditional SRO.
When Montgomery County schools entered into a memorandum of understanding establishing the community engagement officer program with a number of law enforcement agencies who operate in the county, Marcus Jones was chief of the Montgomery County Police Department.
Now, he’s on the other side of the agreement, as MCPS’ chief of security and compliance, and he told WTOP he’s looking to improve the program.
“I know for a fact that there’s been some confusion on some folks who are engaged in the process of really understanding what their roles are. So we want to make sure that is very clear,” Jones said.
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The memorandum of understanding between the school system and law enforcement agencies lays out certain “critical incidents” in which the community engagement officer needs to be involved, such as death, rape, gang-related incidents and drug distribution.
However, Jones said that’s not the only time these officers should be in schools. While they aren’t meant to patrol the halls, he said they shouldn’t be afraid to step foot in the building.
“I think there’s been some angst about them actually being in the schools,” Jones said. “We do want to make sure that they have the ability to liaison with the school administrators and the security teams to make sure that information is being shared, and they have that face-to-face interaction with staff as needed.”
Jones also said that in some cases, high schools have either not provided office space to their officer per the memorandum, or the officers haven’t been utilizing space made available to them.
Making matters more confusing for the school system, Montgomery County’s police department is one of five law enforcement agencies involved in the program. The sheriff’s department, as well as Rockville, Gaithersburg and Takoma Park police, are also part of the memorandum of understanding.
“That’s why it’s important that we’re collaborating and bringing everyone together to make sure that there’s clarity in the agreement,” Jones said.
While he doesn’t have any specific changes ready to make to the memorandum of understanding, Jones said that in his first two months with MCPS, he’s now experienced the program from both sides and is ready to get everyone on the same page.
“There was confusion, and there was sort of a lack of collaboration, you might say, between the two systems coming together to make sure that we were doing what was set out to do. So that’s where I’m going to really work hard at trying to clear the air there in order for everyone to clearly understand the intent and what is the MOU — what does it state, and what’s permitted and what’s not permitted — so that there’s clarity there as well,” he said.
WTOP’s Dick Uliano contributed to this report.
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