Take action to get police out of schools and invest in student supports!

January 11, 2021

With a new year comes a new legislative session! The 2021 General Assembly session will convene January 13th, so let’s start strong by letting our lawmakers know that we need them to act this year to get police out of our schools, and invest in student supports that actually keep schools safe.

Get involved

Here’s what you can do today:

Step 1: Go to mdelect.net to look up your state delegates and state senators.

Step 2: Email each one of your state representatives using the sample message below – don’t forget to insert your lawmakers’ names and your address, and customize with your own personal story about school police if you have one!

Step 3: Pass this call to action on to at least three friends and neighbors.

By acting today, we can shape the legislative debate in January. Add your voice to the movement to reimagine school safety!

Sample message

Dear [Senator/Delegate _____]:

As your constituent, I am writing to ask you to take action during the 2021 General Assembly session to get police out of Maryland schools. School police – also known as School Resource Officers (SROs) – function as a major driver of the school-to-prison pipeline, arresting youth for making childhood and adolescent mistakes in the setting where they are supposed to learn. In Maryland:

• Most school-based arrests are for low-level offenses that are better handled outside the juvenile and criminal systems by school staff and parents–e.g. fights without weapons or disruption.
• Black students are 56% of those arrested in school, even though they are only a third of the student population. According to national research, this is because Black students are more likely to attend schools with police, and because Black children are more likely to be seen as responsible when they engage in the same behaviors as white children.
• Students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) are 23% of those arrested in school, even though they are only 12% of the student population. Arrests of students with IEPs often target disability-related non-violent behaviors.
• School police have not been shown to make schools safer. Studies demonstrate that school police have not been effective in deterring school shootings or any other kind of school violence.

Despite the clear failures of this model, Maryland state law incentivizes districts to utilize school police and invests $10 million per year in state revenues in a SRO fund. At the same time, interventions shown to actually make schools safer – like student mental health services – are severely under-resourced.

This session, please support forthcoming legislation sponsored by Delegates Acevero and Wilkins to get police out of our schools and reinvest in student mental health services, wraparound supports, and restorative approaches. Especially after the racial justice protests of this summer, we cannot afford to wait: it’s time to reimagine school safety.

Sincerely,
[Name]
[Address]