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OC Today-Dispaatch MARCH 1, 2024
STUBBORNLY LOCAL, EQUALLY INDEPENDENT
Sign up now for new daily newsletter to debut soon. — Page 8
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State’s atty., sheriff say crime rising in schools Call for police role in school admin. ▪ Schools to respond at public and livestreamed press conference Friday. — PAGE 3
YOUR COMMUNITY Film festival returns: PHOTO COURTESY ALLEN SKLAR
SOAR SUBJECT While traversing Assateague last week, a local photographer caught this bald eagle in flight. The eagle was evidently nesting nearby and reminded the photographer with a few swoops and calls to steer clear of its territory.
Short-term solution ahead? City Council, planning commission discuss need to control short-term rentals contemplating what that could mean for Short-term rentals aren’t new in Ocean neighborhoods, parking availability and City, but the number of properties used for the business are increasing at a rate what new rules, if any, might be needed. that has local resort government officials — PAGE 61
Baltimore filmmaker John Waters, who went mainstream with his movie “Hairspray,” will headline, with the works of 46 Md. directors. – PAGE 26
HMRA expo on menu: It’s a trade-only affair, but the annual showcase for the restaurant/lodging industry is set to pack the convention center.— PAGE 63
Another state title: Stephen Decatur’s Unified Strength and Conditioning team wins Special Olympics invitational. — PAGE 34
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OC Today-Dispatch
MARCH 1, 2024
MARCH 1, 2024
PAGE 3
OC Today-Dispatch
Officials say public schools’ crime rates ‘unacceptable’ Data presented, fight videos shown at press conference this week By Charlene Sharpe Associate Editor (March 1, 2024) The school system is not doing enough to address school safety amid rising crime figures and growing incidents of violence, according to local law enforcement officials. Worcester County State’s Attorney Kris Heiser and Sheriff Matt Crisafulli hosted a joint press conference Tuesday afternoon to share school safety concerns with the public. Though school system officials said last fall they’d work with law enforcement to address safety concerns, Heiser and Crisafulli said their recommendations have not been implemented and Superintendent Lou Taylor refused to attend their latest task force meeting. “The crime rates in our schools are totally unacceptable and we cannot wait patiently for school officials to act at this point,” Crisafulli said. “They must treat this as a priority and not just proclaim this to be a priority.” Carrie Sterrs, the school system’s coordinator of public relations and special programs, said Tuesday the school system was processing the information and was expected to discuss it during a previously scheduled meeting Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoon, the school system announced a followup press conference for Friday. “The Worcester County Board of Education has met to review the information shared by the Worcester County Sheriff and State’s Attorney’s offices at their press conference on Tuesday,” Sterrs said. “We want to assure our staff, students, and families that we are preparing to formally and publicly address these matters by means of a press conference on Friday, March 1, at 11 a.m. We will publish the link to view the full livestream of the press conference when it is available. We thank our school system community for their patience as we work to present accurate and complete information on this matter.” Tuesday’s press conference, held at the government center in Snow Hill, began with a five-minute compilation of cell phone video showing fights throughout county schools. Students were shown fighting in bathrooms, hallways, gyms and cafeterias at local schools, sometimes one on one and sometimes in larger groups. Heiser noted that the video was a lot to process and said she and the sheriff had always tried to work with Worcester County Public Schools (WCPS) leadership to address school safety concerns. She said law enforce-
ment should be able to proactively prevent crime in schools, not just respond to it. Last fall, updated crime data showed that crime in WCPS facilities was increasing “at an alarming rate.” “The impact of this crime data became even more significant during the first few weeks of this school year as we watched teachers being assaulted, weapons seizures, violent fights occurring and then we also discovered that law enforcement wasn’t being notified about many of these incidents, meaning the situation was worse than we even knew,” Heiser said. As a result, law enforcement began meeting with a task force made up of representatives of the school system. Heiser and Crisafulli provided the group with a list of recommendations they felt would improve school safety. In the three months since then however Heiser said no action had been taken. “Given the level of dysfunction, delay and lack of transparency from school officials that have frustrated us at nearly every turn, and given the questions we continue to get each week from concerned parents and teachers asking what’s really going on in our schools or asking for help to address what they know is really going on in our schools, we no longer see a reason to delay giving a public update whether school leadership chose to participate or not,” she said. Heiser said the press conference was a call to WCPS leadership to address the crime issues in schools. In presenting data from WCPS, the FBI uniform crime report and local law enforcement agencies, Heiser said it was clear that crime in nearly every category the schools track was up between 2015 and 2022. “This data shows that the 2022 to 2023 school year was the most violent on record. Keep in mind these are numbers provided by the schools. This is what they admit for these categories, these numbers do not include weapons offenses, drug offenses, sex offenses, or disorderly conduct type offenses. As we know since law enforcement isn’t being notified about every incident these are likely just baseline numbers.” Since the Covid-19 pandemic closed schools during the 2019-2020 school year, Heiser said data showed a “devastating” impact. According to her presentation there has been a 67% increase in physical attacks on students and a 171% increase in fighting in schools. She reported a 225% jump in physical attacks on school staff. Heiser pointed out that during the last school year, 72% of fights and 55% of physical attacks against students happened at middle schools. See CRISAFULLI Page 4
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