The issue of police officers in schools is being raised again in Montgomery County, Maryland, with Council member Andrew Friedson calling for on-site police officers permanently at every high school.
Friedson outlined his argument for revamping the current Community Engagement Officer program in a letter Monday to County Executive Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Board of Education President Grace Rivera-Oven, Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor and Montgomery County Police Chief Marc Yamada.
In addition to returning to the Student Resource Officer model in favor of the current Community Engagement Officer program, Friedson called for additional officers assigned to provide coverage to middle and elementary schools.
Addressing the proposal Wednesday, Elrich said high schools do have officers assigned to them.
“They’re not there the entire day, but they were there for the times that everybody thought were the most important times, when you had a large number of kids,” Elrich said, referencing arrival and dismissal times.
Elrich also said the county’s current staffing at the police department, and the struggle to fill vacancies, would make the task challenging.
“Even if we got up to 50 recruits a year, it would take more than five years,” to get up to the necessary staffing levels, he said.
“I can’t make the decision, and neither can the council, because by state law, this is the decision of the superintendent of schools,” he added. “That is not a decision made by the county.”
Friedson said the current role of Community Engagement Officers is insufficient.
“We have a police officer that is broadly assigned to each high school cluster, which includes every elementary school, every middle school and the high school,” Friedson said.
That model, Friedson said, doesn’t allow for the kind of relationship-building that officers can have when they are dedicated to a single high school full-time.
Citing a recent shooting at Wootton High School, Friedson told WTOP it was the second incident that day at Wootton.
“Prior to that, the student brandished the weapon in a threatening way at another student,” Friedson said, adding that had there been a permanent police officer on-site, “Might that shooting have been prevented? We certainly would have been in a much better position to do so.”
In his letter, Friedson called for the school system and police department to “convene and develop a strategy” to make a permanent change to the current program.
WTOP reached out to Montgomery County Public Schools and the Montgomery County Police Department for comment.
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