It’s the first day of school for Maryland K-12 students. In Baltimore County, the new school year comes with excitement from teachers and school leaders — and also, concerns about safety and academic achievement.
The new school year kicked off at Woodlawn High School with cheerleaders and a marching band performing as students stepped off the bus and entered their classrooms. Teachers and school leaders welcomed the crowd alongside Superintendent Myriam Rogers (Yarbrough).
Rogers said she has two goals for this year: “Making sure that students are achieving academically and that all students and adults feel welcome and safe in all our buildings,” she said.
The district’s new evidence-based reading curriculum for elementary students, HMH Into Reading, is rolling out this fall, Rogers said. And school leaders are looking for ways to better support math teachers and students — specifically those in algebra. Only 7% of Baltimore County students passed the state algebra exam in the spring.
School board chair Jane Lichter said the board intends to have a “laser-like focus” on student achievement going into the new year. To do so, members will focus on giving support resources to teachers — especially for the new literacy curriculum.
“It’s a heavy lift for teachers when they start a new curriculum like that,” Lichter said.
On the safety front, all county high schools will pilot new Omnilert gun detection systems this year, Lichter said.
“We want our kids to learn at high levels but we need to feel safe and secure in our schools, as well as staff and as well as parents when they send their kids each morning,” she said.
The school board unanimously approved a $2.6 million contract with Omnilert Gun Detection on August 8. According to the recommendation form, schools will receive “software, monitoring, camera surveillance equipment, 24/7 support, and training.”
All county high schools and middle schools are expected to have the system by the end of February 2024, the recommendation said.
Woodlawn Principal Jamel Jernigan said Omnilert will help her monitor the nearly two thousand students, and two hundred staff.
“Any sort of software that will help enhance safety and security for keeping our large school campus safe, I’m all for,” Jernigan said.
Leah Duffy, Woodlawn’s student government president, said safety is a top priority for her, too.
“My school, I think it’s pretty safe as it is,” Duffy said. “But we also have student conflicts. So hopefully this year we can create a system where we can try to handle these conflicts so they don’t end up in fighting.”
Duffy said she thinks the gun detection system is a good idea. But she doesn’t know what it is, or how it operates.
Cameron Ross, Woodlawn’s student vice president, said he worries that errors in the system might make student relations to it “a bit shaky” in the beginning. But overall, it’s a “great safety measure,” he said.
Duffy and Ross are both seniors who will graduate with a high school diploma and an associates degree in general studies from the Community College of Baltimore County, thanks to the county’s early college program.
And, they’re excited to plan this year’s homecoming dance and inaugural field day for Woodlawn High.
Superintendent Rogers said she wants families to know that school leaders and teachers are ready.
“We are excited about everyone being here, and we are all committed to [student] success,” she said.
