001Very exciting. Thank you, Madame President. Uh it was made abundantly clear to me at the onset of my tenure a year ago with MCPS both in community meetings and also by the board the importance of safety and security in our schools. And uh I'm delighted to uh bring forward our team uh for the third installment on our safety and security update. Uh the collaborative efforts of our teams to coordinate safety plans and strategies that impact individual facilities within their communities are crucial to the positive outcomes and providing a sense of security for our schools. Through the use of data, today's discussion will reflect what we've learned this year and the direction in which we are moving to strengthen our safety across MCPS. There is some encouraging data that I am excited that we get to
002share today. By dedicating our attention to these critical areas, we can reaffirm our unwavering commitment to fostering a safe environment for all students and adults who enter our campuses. And with that, I turn things over to Mr. Marcus Jones and Dr. Peter Moran, who will share details about uh how our district is moving forward with safety and security. Thank you and good afternoon to the to the board and to Dr. Taylor. Uh it's a pleasure for us to be with you today to uh discuss our safety and security update for this past school year. And um we have uh interesting information to share. Um, first and foremost, I just want to uh remind the board of this uh visionary statement that uh was prepared um and really that we have uh focused again on the
003the second paragraph I think which is vitally important um on a comprehensive and balanced approach that emphasizes the prevention, the intervention and consistency across our entire district. and that has been really the focus of many of the operations in which we have held uh steadfast with throughout this particular school year. Um again uh this is the third and the final safety security update to the board and also coming up on the completion of my first year um in this uh role. Uh you will hear in this pre presentation what has occurred this year. Uh we've delivered on promised initiatives including uh um working with uh schools on the student ID program, catching up on broken technology about the 966 student infractions that impact school safety, giving the board a closer look into the incidents that
004happened across the district and at the school level this year. fighting knives and other weapons and drugs and control dangerous substances were our highest across the district. A clear picture is also uh going to be uh explained of the 124 student arrest for incidents that occurred on campus. And we want to make sure that we clarify the difference between full custody um of these particular offenses as well as the referrals that are provided to the department of juvenile services in order to uh to rectify these particular incidents. We also in this presentation we want to discuss how we plan to create a safe safer learning environment in FY26 through consistency, high expectations, and more coordinated efforts including the student student code of conduct, technology, and a national emergency response protocol. As I conclude the end
005of my first year, it was important for me to learn MCPS, what's working, and what needed to be done to really support Dr. Taylor's focus on creating a safe learning environment. I knew entering this role, collaboration with all offices, especially Dr. Moran's and Dr. fields teams and across agencies, Montgomery County Police and our other law enforcement and public safety partners, Street Outreach Network, Maryland Center for Safe Schools was going to be a critical was going to be critical to lay a foundation for the safety and security work in this district. You will hear that as a theme in my update, but also throughout this discussion. And this has made a difference in our work. This year, in collaboration with Dr. Moran's team, we completed school safety walks at all of our high schools. And we
006are currently visiting our middle schools to gain a baseline of safety practices and a true understanding of district-wide needs. Later in this presentation, I will share more information about the learnings from this process and what we will do to address the challenges. We also implemented some consistent practices across the district to increase predictability and make safe safer learning environments. This includes again all high schools have fully implemented the student and staff IDs which include wearing and checking for them. Now, there are processes in place at our schools. What I would like to see is to still see a con more consistent model for for the district from the best practices um for student IDs. Next will be our Halo smart sensors have been installed and are active in all high school restrooms creating a deterrent
007to vaping in these locations and also signaling if there is a large commotion. Though in the first few months of imple implementation, student awareness has been increased and an enhanced focus has been placed on restrooms by all staff. in discussion with our high school principles and security assistants. The biggest challenge so far is the larger number of false notifications. We are working with our vendor to determine how to balance device effectiveness and more accurate notifications to decrease this response for the coming school year. We have cleared an estimated 85% of a significant backlog of security related technology requests for new or broken items from multiple years that we worked in conjunction with technology and school administrators to ensure that these items were complete or close to completion. We strengthened emergency response protocols based on what
008we learned throughout the year. On April 3rd, all administrators participated in mandatory training to support the consistency of protocols and provide enhancements to processes. Two key upgrades focused on communication, providing principles the autonomy to activate a shelter in place or lockdown. Standardized use of the Remind app to communicate with students, parents, and faculty. and communications will support I'm sorry comms will support communication efforts to allow the school staff time to focus on the safety of the site and managing the incident. I'm sorry I've missed a couple of uh slides there. I want to go back. Um let's go back. Here we go. Okay. Sorry about that. Um, a large focus of my first year again was gained to gain was to gain an accurate baseline of the district's safety practices and needs to develop a
009direction forward and make our schools safe. To do this, in collaboration with Dr. Dr. Moran, we completed these secondary school safety walks. This was important to see again what is happening in our schools and to learn from principles and security staff the best practices and challenges. We visited the schools. We talked and walked with the principles and their security staff. What we learned from the high schools is that overall there is a very strong collaboration between administrators and security staff and security teams are active and not just reactive. Though each school is unique, our approach again should be consistent across our schools. The board has asked for more accurate and transparent data about student arrests. In collaboration with Montgomery County Police, we did this. This year, the data is more accurate. The data is more
010accurate identification of our students race and gender. And I want to thank the Montgomery County Police Department for this information and providing a deeper analysis. The data on the slide shows 120 uh I'm sorry 124 total arrests for offenses that occurred on school property. we have included the full custody arrest and the DJS referrals whereas in the past uh the the report to the board only included the full custody arrest on campus. Uh so the difference is as you can note is that again that the full custody arrest notes that it's a student that's physically taken into police custody and this is done um also within the realms of the memorandum of understanding that we have with the police department. The DJS referrals, that is again the Department of Juvenile Services. These are reports where
011police does not have the power to make an arrest but has enough probable cause to charge a student with an offense that occurred on campus. Those cases are then sent to through the police department to the department of juvenile services which at that point makes a decision on whether cases should be sent to a diversion program or those cases are sent to the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office for prosecution. That data is not kept within MCPS security. Um though police also provided this double check uh provided this data. We double checked as their reporting standard about race and ethnic ethnicity. Sorry I got tongue tied a little bit. Does not align with how um MCPS identifies it in synergy. So for example, Montgomery County Police does not treat uh Hispanic/Latino as a race and u
012ethnicity. they uh is this through their reporting figures. It is they do it through the FBI standards. Um so again, it is usually um it is a it's white and it's black. Um and if it is of Latino descent, those those are then uh deciphered out from that perspective. Okay. Um again, this shows the physical arrest numbers. Um you can see in 2022 to 23 that the numbers were 57. Um going into 23 to 24 uh the numbers decreased to 14. These are again in custody arrest. Um and then this particular school year as of the May 21st date of 2025 we have seven uh physical arrests for this current school year. Okay. Um looking ahead uh we want to talk about again uh next year we will fully adopt a stand uh the standard
013response protocol from the I love you guys foundation. Um this is a nationally recognized model designed to enhance school safety and crisis response. This model also includes parent child reunification. This model is is easier to understand and provides clear consistent language for students, staff, first responders, and parents during emergencies. All school-based administrators will be trained at the August ANS. All school staff will be trained during pre-ervice week and families will receive information at the start of the year. All schools will receive correspondent signage to display throughout their building and literature to explain to families that will be in multiple languages. And from my safety walks, discussion with principles and overall assessment of MCPS school safety needs. There are two major initiatives for next year that will standardize school safety. One will be mandatory training for
014our security staff. It is really important to me that our security assistants don't just have technical training such as CPR and deescalation practices, but that they are able to apply it and effectively navigate the nuances that occur in the schools. Our securities must have a professional development track that will increase consistency and practices across all schools. give them a level of confidence to be proactive and make decisions on the spot and in the best interest of safety for the learning environment. Next year there will be two forms of mandatory training for security assistance. I believe these training structures will make a difference. First, we are implementing a two-day onboarding program for any new security assistant. our security assistant changing to a different school. Day one will include review of emergency preparedness, the cell phone policy,
015legal guidelines, and collaboration with the CEOs. Day two will be on the job training at a school with other security assistants, cluster coordinators, and a panel discussion with their peers. The second form of mandatory training will be quarterly hands-on learning opportunities by cluster. The security assistants from a cluster will come together once a quarter to walk through a school, do peer reflection and learn coverage and practice. They will also share information about the what is occurring in their particular clusters at other schools that also may impact their school and the school population. Again, this will be led by our cluster security coordinators who also who are members of the cross functional teams and will know specifically the needs of each school team and the trends in the cluster. The second is a strategic and predictable
016approach to technology infrastructure. While we were able to clear the backlog of requests and needs and were able to outfit all elementary schools with cameras within the last 3 years along with looking into other counter measures counter measures to support our schools uh building infrastructure through a multi-year modernization plan aligned with industry standards. This approach will allow will also allow MCPS to have a long range fiscal outlook on the cost and the upkeep and determine if funds are associated with the operating capital improvement or grant funds. At this time, uh I will pass it to Dr. Moran who will talk more specifically about student infractions that impact student safety. All right. Thank you, Chief Jones. All right. So, we showed the board a uh similar chart in January when we did our uh midyear uh
017check-in with you uh regarding serious incidents. So, this chart uh shows the top student infractions that disrupt the school operations. I want to just make sure that you recognize it does not include all infractions like cutting class disruption, inappropriate use of personal devices, or incidents that um require medical attention. um or medical emergencies that do not directly impact school safety. Uh I want to provide some context also regarding serious incidents or infractions that impact the school safety and specifically just pull the language right from our policy. Right. A serious incident is any event on school property or during a school-related activity that poses a significant concern to safety, health, security, or discipline and may involve an emergency response, police involvement, or impact normal school operations. So, right here on this slide, we are looking at
018specific serious incidents that account for the top five infractions impacting school safety. These in incidents are possession of a knife, bomb threats, fighting or attack on others, drugs or controlled substances, and trespassing. For these specific infractions, there were 1,069 during the 2023 uh 2023 2024 school year, decreasing to 966 infractions this school year. With over 160,000 students attending Montgomery County Public Schools, I think it's important to consider the low number of these infractions. We have students for the most part that are doing a fantastic job making great choices every day at school. Trends within the data are similar to last year. It's important to highlight that these specific infractions here have been an overall decrease of nearly 100 from last year to this year. notably a reduction in the number of serious fights and attacks
019while we saw a slight increase in false alarm or bomb threats. I want to be clear again that this data does not include all fights that occur in our school system. Serious fights according to our policy are categorized as those that result in physical injury, require police intervention, or are significant disruption to school operations. In accordance with the memorandum of understanding that we have with the Montgomery County Police Department, if a physical attack on another student or adult that requires a medical attention outside of the school health room, schools are required to engage with our police partners. This engagement and level of injury are the key factors in defining a serious fight. Can you help me out, Marcus? Go to the next slide. Thanks. A little far reach for me. All right. All right. Right.
020So, this next slide provides a breakdown of the type of student infractions by school level, elementary, middle, and high. Right here, we're looking at elementary schools. Uh the most uh that that significantly impact daily operations and overall school climate. The infractions presented in this pie chart um don't just reflect student misbehavior, they represent real disruptions to teaching and learning and often require adult intervention, behavioral support, or even external resources. The most prevalent infraction here is physical aggression. This is not unexpected de developmentally, but when left unressed, it escalates into patterns. And as I shared, we are focused on prevention and high expectations for our students. As we discussed in um in a previous uh presentation and discussion, other concerns like disruption impact the learning uh environment for all students, often prompting the need for team-
021based interventions or support from behavioral specialists. Next slide. So here we're looking at middle school. All right. So we see some concerning data here with our middle schools. Um middle schools the data shows rising trends in disrespect, fighting and knives and weapons. We see an increase in fighting and weapons related incidents, particularly knives or other objects. This level often presents higher behavioral volatility, meaning our middle schools need robust restorative structures, consistent routines, and proactive student support teams. I will say, you know, um to connect with uh what Dr. Taylor said about our our school leadership uh academy, our summer leadership academy, this was a significant piece of uh discussion today about restorative approaches um specifically at the the middle school level. Uh middle school is a critical time for us to identify development um developmentally
022and um you know of course boundary testing from our students. So consistent structures are especially important here. If we go to the next slide Marcus. Thank you. All right. So now we get to high schools. In high schools the most serious infractions uh emerge threats weapons possession drugreated behavior and physical altercation. These are the types of incidents that most often meet the threshold of a serious incident as defined by our uh policy in Montgomery County Public Schools and with our memorandum of understanding with Montgomery County Police Department. They often involve interventions and support and disrupt normal school operations. All this data as well as the data Chief Jones shared help drive decisions around where to place additional security, deploy cross functional teams, and provide mental health and behavioral support uh needed for our schools. we
023go to the next slide. So, a major next step is the revised student code of conduct. As we've discussed previously, launching in the 2025 2026 school year, the revisions um are the to clarify behavioral categories and definitions, prioritize preventative and restorative practices, and provide a revised response matrix and standardized investigative process across all 211 schools. I'm happy to report that all of our administrators, principles, assistant principles, assistant school administrators, central office staff, all received this training uh over the past 2 days and it was actually very wellreceived. A lot of great questions, went through scenarios with all of our principles um to really process through and talk about best practices and a lot of these incidents. Um, these re re uh revisions reaffirm our commitment to safe, equitable learning environments, clear behavioral expectations, and strong
024partnerships between schools, students, and families. We will focus on restorative approaches. Like I shared last month, this is not just a practice. It is a mindset. Our our updates move it from a strategy to a central component of our disciplinary approach. In the operating budget, you'll see the new office of student conduct and appeals. The addition will support our system accountability by ensuring school-based actions are reviewed with fidelity to policy and legal guidelines. When applied with fidelity, restorative approaches rebuild trust, promote accountability, and repair harm in a way that punitive measures often cannot. We are investing in ongoing professional development to ensure staff are equipped to lead restorative conversations to help students take meaningful ownership of their actions. Again, not calling in a squad of people to help, but as Dr. Taylor has talked about
025teaching people to fish, teaching restorative approaches so that they become a natural part of every school's culture. All school-based staff will receive training on the updated student code of conduct, including restorative practices practices and tiered behavior responses as part of the required annual compliance modules. Uh just as I said, they we did receive um training today from all of our principles. Schools will embed discussions of the new behavior expectations during student orientations the first week of school. We are making it a mandated expectation across all of our schools that this information is covered with every single student the first week of school. Not the second week of school, the first week of school. Um really trying to make it a digestible information as well. not going through that um elaborate document but pulling out the
026uh the main ideas, main changes to ensure that everyone walks away with exactly the same information. Um again, home room lessons advisory is also an opportunity to do this to ensure students understand their rights, their responsibilities, and potential consequences. Families will receive information through multiple platforms, including printed guides, schools newsletters, websites, and community info sessions to reinforce a shared understanding and partnership in student success. As we look forward to FY26, we're expanding our commitment to school safety through full implementation of the standard response protocol at every school, which we introduced to our principles today. So, we're we're using our runway very intelligently to um begin those conversations before we even flip over so that they have that information to begin to talk with their um instructional leadership teams and staff about revised student code of
027conduct with new training for all staff. Additional training for security assistants and administrators on restorative approaches and incident deescalation and enhanced monitoring through our new student conduct and appeals office. Um lastly, just want to say our our cross functional teams will support implementation, gather school-based feedback, and help problem solve in real time uh real time. We have made um important progress, but true safety means every single student feels seen, supported, and ready to learn. Our shared responsibility is to continue aligning our practices, policies, and people toward that goal. Next slide. All right.