Police at every high school? Gun incidents reignite debate

A Montgomery County Council member is calling for police officers to return to high school campuses — permanently.

District 1 council member Andrew Friedson this week sent a letter “formally requesting that Montgomery County Police and Montgomery County Public Schools convene and develop a strategy to permanently assign sworn law enforcement officers on-site in every MCPS High School.”

He also asked for officials to dedicate an additional officer to each school cluster — designated groups of close-by campuses — “to enhance public safety at middle and elementary schools.”

District leaders stopped assigning officers, known as school resource officers, to specific campuses in 2021. The decision came amid a national reckoning over how Black people are treated by law enforcement and local concerns that school-based officers disproportionately arrested children of color.

MCPS replaced school-based officers with “community engagement officers” – police who patrol the neighborhoods surrounding campuses and check in on schools each day.

Recent incidents at MCPS schools have reignited the debate over the role of police on campuses.

Recent shootings at MCPS schools

On Wednesday, a fight broke out in the Blake High School parking lot, according to the county police department. A juvenile was shot and injured.

The assigned community engagement officer was already at the school.

“Preliminary information indicates that Montgomery County Public Schools security along with the CEO responded to a fight in the school parking lot,” police said.

This year, a Wootton High School student fired a gun at a classmate, injuring the 16-year-old boy.

At the time of the shooting, the officer assigned to the Wootton area was at nearby Lakewood Elementary and not at the high school campus.

Asked about Friedson’s letter, County Executive Marc Elrich emphasized the county is short many officers. He added that community engagement officers are frequently on high school campuses.

“I don’t know if there’s an easy solution, certainly not as easy as he thinks there is, to dealing with this problem,” Elrich said.

What parents think

School district leaders are evaluating ways to make schools safer, including piloting a weapons detection system. They recently surveyed families on what kind of safety measures they’re looking for, including more officer involvement.

About one-third of the roughly 2,150 families who responded to the survey said they supported putting an officer in school all day every day. About 10% of respondents wanted to see fewer police in school.

“As you revisit this issue, it is important to reinforce and ensure that police officers are intended to serve public safety needs and to proactively build relationships with students and therefore should not be involved in school discipline,” wrote Friedson, who is also running for county executive.

One of his opponents in the race for county executive, council member Will Jawando, pushed to end the school resource officer program in 2020.

Jawando’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.