Stop Mandatory Safety Checks in Baltimore
Baltimore City Board of Education
The implementation of mandatory safety checks was rushed and taken without adequate community consultation or effective policy review, and as such needs to be withdrawn by the City until the below steps are taken.
Petition by
To:
Baltimore City Board of Education
From:
[Your Name]
Earlier this month, following an altercation at Digital Harbor High School, Baltimore City instituted a policy of mandatory safety checks in City Public Schools, including a requirement of all students to pass through metal detectors or surrender themselves to an individual security check on a daily basis.
Since then, there has been no publication of information on the Digital Harbor altercation — therefore depriving the community of knowing the basis of this policy implementation, publication of guidelines for school administrators — leading to unequal enforcement of these rules and a disproportionate impact on certain students, and no consultation with teachers, students, parents, community stakeholders, or even administrators, leaving the City in the dark as to the Board's goals with this policy shift or reasoning for it.
Therefore, we ask that the Board —
1. End Policy BBA, so that Board Commissioners can publicly dissent to policy implementation they do not agree with and shed light onto the internal policy review process;
2. Hold a community forum with stakeholders inc. the Student Congress (ASCBC), SGAs, student groups, teachers' groups such as the teachers' union (BTU), PCAB, etc. in order to gauge public support for security checks before moving forward;
3. Issue a procedural framework for the implementation of security checks to prevent disproportionate profiling of students and the burden of implementation falling on teachers and staff to inform Comprehensive Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CCEIS) planning;
4. Issue a report on the Digital Harbor altercation for public use; and
5. Record data on the students checked, potentially utilizing district issued student identification, in order to ensure equal enforcement of the rules.
This scanning equipment is expensive and this process is burdensome on both teachers and students. Therefore it is incumbent upon city officials to do their due diligence and ensure a robust, inclusive, and measured policy implementation that does not adversely affect students or frivolously spend taxpayer money.