-The following article has been submitted by Sixth District Delegate Bob Long about his legislation for keeping schools safe in Maryland-
Over the past few years there have been multiple incidents of juvenile students who have been convicted with assault charges. These students have had prior conviction records and were able to attend our schools.
There was an incident with a 15 year old juvenile student who had prior sexual assault charges and was allowed to attend Patterson High School. This student was not registered as a sex offender and the school system did not have access to the records. Also, there was a similar incident that happened a couple years prior at Parkville High School.
There needs to be action in our school systems to prevent these incidents from happening again.
To help address this problem, I am proposing bill HB018, “Education Reporting Arrests of Students”. In this piece of legislation there will be a required protocol in which the State’s Attorney’s Office must notify the Maryland Center for School Safety, along with both the Superintendent’s Office, the School Administration and State Board of Education of incidents in the future.
We need the additional intervention of the Maryland Center for School Safety and the State Board of Education to have accountability on the state level.
These incidents cannot keep happening again and it is our duty to our students to make sure they are in the safest learning place they can be in.
