Three days before a Watkins Mill High School student was detained Friday for alleged possession of a firearm on the Gaithersburg campus, Montgomery County leaders had met to discuss the issues of youth and school safety with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) officials and county police.
The Tuesday meeting in Rockville addressing the long-debated role of police officers in public schools came after the release of preliminary results from an MCPS survey that showed about a third of families, administrators and staff who responded said they want to see more police presence in schools.
It also followed several recent security incidents in schools, including the arrest of a Gaithersburg High School student in March for alleged possession of a loaded handgun on school property and a February shooting at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville that left one student injured and another facing an attempted murder charge.
However, police officials acknowledged during Tuesday’s meeting with the County Council that the department does not have enough officers to place one in each of the county’s 211 schools on a daily basis. The county police department, like other departments in Maryland, has been facing understaffing issues for several years.