School initiative a sign of change under police chief

Police officers were added to schools across the nation and in Anne Arundel after the murders at Columbine High School. Public officials doubled down on their presence after the deadly rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

And the mass death at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School reinforced the idea that police at schools is a public safety measure.

We agree.

But, there’s truth in the old saw that if you have a hammer problems tend to become nails.

That’s what happened with the school resource officer program in Anne Arundel County Public Schools. Schools allowed officers to become their defacto disciplinarians, sending them to deal with fighting and behavior outbursts, petty theft, trespassing and marijuana possession that a generation ago would have resulted in detention, suspension or transfer to an alternative education program.

So praise is due to Anne Arundel Police Chief Amad Awal and her team, then, for launching a course correction.

In an experimental program expanding to all county schools, patrol and school resource officers will work to link students with mentors and counselors when they are involved in what might be criminal acts on school grounds.

Fresh START — the acronym stands for safety, trauma, accountability, restoration and transparency — will refer children ages 7 to 18 years to social workers, job mentors and mental health resources.

Age 7. Yes, police officers can be called on to deal with elementary school students.

This augments programs that already send students issued citations — the juvenile justice system equivalent of a criminal charge — to these programs. Fresh START, though, will work to divert students who need help with trauma, mental health issues or substance use before they get into the justice system.

Victims of the crime, in some cases that will be the school system itself, must agree to this diversion. If not, charges are still an option. Parents and families can also get involved.

Awad’s initiative is overdue.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools, frankly, was not paying attention to arrest numbers until a series of stories in The Capital that started in 2019.

Instead, the offenses were buried in annual discipline reports required by the state.

Not surprisingly, arrests follow the same patterns as other shortcomings in public schools — an inability to close the gap between discipline and achievement separating students of color from their white counterparts.

Private schools don’t have these problems because they set up a tuition barrier that keeps out students likely to fall on the wrong side of that gap.

This is not unique to Anne Arundel County, but it is a systemic problem the system just has been unable to resolve.

So, it is absolutely great that police officers will now work to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile citations, what critics call a “school-to-prison pipeline” created by the use of law enforcement in the place of school discipline.

The idea fits in with comments recently by Awad that a new bureau is needed in her department to address problems related to the issues underlying students’ misconduct — mental health, trauma, substance abuse — not typically considered police responsibility. Yet they become the problem of police when others fall short.

It is incredibly forward-looking and, at the same time, a lot to ask of the police department.

There should be plenty of doubts about the long-term effects on schools that rely on police as disciplinarians. This program illustrates, however, the unintended consequences on police.

The hammer, it would seem, can change into something less blunt because students are not just more nails.