Preventing Violence in Baltimore County Public Schools

Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) is the twenty-fifth largest school system in the United States and the third largest school system in Maryland, with 175 schools and centers serving 117,038 students. BCPS is a remarkably diverse district in terms of race, ethnicity, nationality, and income. Like many large school districts, BCPS has experienced an increasing number of threats. In response, the proposed project will undertake a variety of activities with the following goal, objective, and deliverables.  The goal is to create a safe and secure school environment where students and staff thrive within vibrant learning  communities.  The objective is to provide staff members and school partners with the professional learning required to detect threats and prevent them.  The deliverables are to ensure that threat assessment teams and other staff have clearly developed tools to identify threats to self and others, as well as effective interventions for such threats.  In order to accomplish the goal, objective, and deliverables, the proposed project will provide comprehensive professional learning for all BCPS school counselors, psychologists, social workers, nurses, pupil personnel workers, resource officers, principals, and assistant principals. In addition, the training will also be completed by community mental health partners, threat assessment oversight committee members, police leadership partners, and mobile crisis teams.  Each person will undergo 10 hours of training that will focus on the following themes and topics:  ï‚· Identifying and preventing threats of harm to self and others;  Assess and manage cases for students at risk of harm to self or others;  Improve outcomes for students of concern;  Collect and manage anonymous tips from school communities;  Proactively scan digital language to keep schools safe.  During years 2 and 3 of the grant, all new staff members and partners in the categories noted above will also undergo the complete training program.  The budget provides detailed information about number of personnel who will complete the training, as well as all of the costs associated with the training.