ROCKVILLE, Md. — Montgomery County leaders continue to plan for what life will be like without school resource officers in the community’s learning institutions.
In March, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich further detailed his budget proposal to remove school resource officers [SROs] from Montgomery County Public School facilities.
Elrich said he wants to find new ways to address problems students may have inside school buildings.
“They will have beats that include wider areas, that will encompass the different school districts, and they will not be stationed in the schools,” he said.
The change will go into effect by the start of the new school year.
Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando previously voiced support for removing SROs from schools.
On Monday, both he and Montgomery County Councilmember Craig Rice, unveiled plans to create a task force to gather ideas as to what schools without SROs should look like. Jawando called the task force a part of Montgomery County's "post SRO conversation."
“There's no longer a question of whether we should have police patrolling our schools, we should not,” Jawando said. “But we do need to invest in discipline in the mental and social emotional needs of our students now more than ever. So, this task force will address that.”
Jawando said the task force will also be used to address equity concerns in Montgomery County’s schools. He said over the last four years, black students have comprised more than half the arrest in MCPS facilities despite only making up 20 percent of the student population.
“There are things that we can do that are proven through research and data, like restorative justice, like mental health supports, counselors, social workers, crisis intervention counselors, violence interrupters, a whole range of services that are being employed across the country and the world, that reduce the need for disparate discipline and arrests and support all students,” he said.
Rice and Jawando admit they have been on opposite sides of the SRO issue. In the past, Rice has expressed support for having SROs in school buildings.
But Rice said after listening to passionate testimony from students. He said it was time to explore ways to address their needs in different ways.
“The support of the students on this issue was a key factor in my decision,” he said. “I spent lots of time talking with students on Zoom calls, and even our current student member of the board, as well as a former student member of the board and one of our council members, for a day, talking through this issue and what makes sense in terms of how best to move forward.”
The task force will include students, teachers, principals, mental health professionals, parents, and education advocates.
“What we need to do is we need to talk to folks about what it is that we think is the ideal structure for our schools and that’s what we’re looking at,” Rice said.
The task force is expected to provide recommendations for changes by June 30. The council members said they would like to see some of the recommendations go into effect by the start of the new school year.