On Tuesday, school and county leaders announced a $14.8 million investment and $3.1 million will go to start-up costs for more than a dozen new School Resource Officers.
County leaders got on camera on Tuesday to say this investment is because of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Anne Arundel County Public Schools, and several other school districts across the country, have been dealing with safety questions and constant school threats (both fake and serious) ever since.
"The last couple weeks have been a tough time for us,” said AACPS Superintendent George Arlotto.
"We don't have the luxury of treating a school threat as not legitimate, because it's the one we don't treat as legitimate that's going to jump up and bite us,” said Anne Arundel County Police Chief, Timothy J. Altomare.
AACPS consists of 81,000 students. They have 12 high schools, and on Tuesday, announced they'll be adding 20 new School Resource Officers, essentially doubling their number of SROs.
Just to show you how that compares, the announcement means Anne Arundel County would have more SROs that Montgomery County, which is said to be Maryland's largest school system.
Montgomery County Public Schools has 27 SROs, according to a Police Spokesperson. That’s for their 26 high schools and nearly 162,000 students.
We took a look at another large school district, Fairfax County Public Schools.
Their school spokesperson told WUSA9, "FCPS middle schools and high school have SROs on site during the school day."
That's at least 51 SROs for 28 high schools and 23 middles schools identified on FCPS’ website. Overall, FCPS has more 188,000 students.
AACPS also announced plans to add more law enforcement inside schools by welcoming the county's street officers.
"As our officers are in the area and during their down time, if they need a place to step-in and work on a report or get off their feet for a minute, we're going to welcome (them) into the building,” said Superintendent Arlotto.
Several Maryland and Virginia School Spokespeople told WUSA9 they’re still in talks with their prospective governors and county leaders about school security.
Here’s two more for you:
Prince George’s County’s Public School Spokesperson said they should have one resource officer in every high school and some in their middle schools. PGCPS’ website says the school district has 30 high schools (not including any Public Charter High Schools) and more than 130,000 students.
In D.C., a Metropolitan Police Department's Spokesperson told WUSA9, DCPS has 89 School Resource Officers for public schools and charter schools across the city, plus an additional 20 staff members specially trained in security. That brings the total number of security personnel to 109 for 115 schools and approximately 48,000 students, according to the DCPS website.
