PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — The Prince George’s County school district will begin reducing the number of school investigators in July. This comes after a recommendation by the county's Police Reform Task Force was accepted by the CEO of Prince George's County Public Schools.
“There is no change in the status of School Resource Officers (SROs), which are provided by the county and local municipalities at no cost to the school system," PGCPS said in a statement Monday. "CEO Dr. Monica Goldson announced a planned reduction in PGCPS security personnel earlier this year. PGCPS currently employs 211 security personnel, which includes 66 security personnel with arrest powers."
This all comes after much debate about who has arresting powers in Prince George's County Public Schools and providing adequate mental health resources to students.
"The CEO will work with the appropriate labor partners to discuss the renaming of school security personnel and will make the necessary changes by July 1, 2021," the statement said.
Martin Diggs, president of ACE-AFSCME Local 2250, said he’s not pleased with what he calls an abrupt change.
“Dr. Goldson told the lead investigator counselors they will be moved from 12-month to 10-month employees starting July 1, 2021," Diggs said. "This is a violation of our union contract. These employees would essentially lose two months of pay without adequate warning. Dr. Goldson also wants to demote these employees from Lead Investigator Counselors to Investigator Counselors. She also is saying they will not retain their current pay for one year, which is a violation of a clause in our Union contract."
Diggs also said he believes the school system is violating their “negotiated agreements on job ratios.”
“At the beginning of the school year, Dr. Goldson said there was a $170 million gap," Diggs said. "But that gap was eliminated with funds from the American Rescue Plan and other grants. Despite this, the school system is making choices that harm students by eliminating programs and announcing plans to lay off workers."
The biggest difference is that School Resource Officers (SROs) are employed by the Prince George’s County Police Department and School Security Personnel are not; but they do have some police-like training.
WUSA9 spoke with one investigator who wanted to remain anonymous.
“There was no warning, we were advised by our director that we had job security and that nobody will be losing any positions," our source said. "During the school year, we were 12-month employees. Also, summer positions that were available, we didn't apply for, because we were 12-month when employees, and so that is closed so we can't even apply for those.”
Both Diggs and the investigator said there was supposed to be a second meeting with the union to discuss the next steps in this process.
“Union leaders were promised a follow-up meeting with County Executive Angela Alsobrooks to discuss police reform and how that would impact public schools," Diggs said. "It was scheduled, but before we could event meet, HR notified employees of this reduction in force. Dr. Goldson is not even pretending to work with the Union at this point."
This year, Goldson released the results of a districtwide survey, which show of the 13,000 respondents (45% staff, 39% parents, 13% students, and 3% community members), 82% believe SROs are "important" or "very important" to maintaining a safe teaching and learning environment.
“A reduction in security personnel with arrest powers will be implemented as part of the fiscal year 2022 budget considerations and funds redirected to support mental health enhancements," PGCPS said Monday. "We continue to extend employment opportunities to affected security personnel based on seniority and qualifications.”
The Maryland Safe to Learn Act of 2018, requires public high schools to have either an SRO or adequate law enforcement at public high schools. In Prince George’s County Public Schools, they would still be keeping SROs by law.
According to a report from the CEO, the district currently has 33 SROs and 66 security personnel with arrest powers out of what the county council said is a total of 237 security staff members.
The county's Police Reform Task Force drafted a number of suggestions to reform the school system's approach to security:
- Invest in mental health programs and restorative approaches to student discipline to help dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline through...
- Realignment of PGCPS security protocol
- Restructuring SROs and security personnel
- Updating school safety training requirements
- Establishing school safety data metrics to eventually phase out security personnel
- Investing in prevention and intervention programming for students
In her report to the Education Board, the CEO said she accepted all of the above recommendations. The investigator said he’s now having to focus on how to provide for his family as they head into the summer months.
“We didn't have any time to prepare for this," the investigator said. "This was kind of a blindside."