WORCESTER COUNTY, MARYLAND – March 16, 2024
After the State’s Attorney and Sheriff presented a video on February 15, 2024 to address their continued concerns regarding the lack of cooperation on school safety, the Worcester County Board of Education issued a statement:
As stewards of the safety, well-being, and education of the thousands of students in Worcester County Public Schools (WCPS), the Board of Education and school system staff will no longer be engaging in public statement trading with law enforcement officials. We believe it is counterproductive, and our focus must remain on keeping our schools the safe and welcoming learning environments that our students and staff deserve.
Our school and Central Office leaders will continue to work collaboratively with our School Deputies to ensure the safety of our students and staff in alignment with our Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). We fully expect law enforcement to do the same, and our invitation remains open for the Sheriff’s Office to meet with school system leadership.
We also want to reiterate to our school system community what we have shared before: our school system has a robust team approach to safety and discipline, which includes a retired school deputy as well as our Chief Safety and Academic Officer.
WCPS also has consistent communication standards regarding school safety incidents. To be clear with our families, these standards include the following:
- Should your child be directly involved or impacted by an incident, you will receive a direct notification from school administration.
- If an incident has a wider impact, but has been resolved, class or schoolwide notifications will be sent that evening.
- Should a school’s safety status change (i.e. iloveuguys Standard Response Protocol), schools will communicate the change as quickly as circumstances allow and will follow-up once the school’s status has returned to normal operations.
Lastly, we thank our entire school system community for their continued patience and understanding. We encourage our families to continue to have conversations with their children as well as with our schools on how we can best support their physical and emotional safety and educational success.
