Gov. Wes Moore has proposed freezing funding for community schools, which provide wraparound services to students in high-poverty areas. Restoring that funding is among the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland’s top priorities during this year’s legislative session.

“What we did as a legislature is that we actually provided staffing and invested critical dollars in those schools to ensure that those wraparound services — including mental health, including physical health that our students need, including extra learning time, and whatever that community assesses as a need — is provided in that school,” said Black caucus chair Jheanelle Wilkins, a Montgomery County Democrat. “If we're talking about halting, pausing, cutting funding, we're talking about cutting those supports to those students and to those schools that are the most in need.”

Other top priorities span criminal justice, housing, education and health issues.

One bill would prohibit landlords from inquiring about a potential tenant’s criminal history in rental applications. Another would end non-safety-related police traffic stops.

Other caucus-backed initiatives include hiring more Black teachers in public schools and providing equitable funding to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the state’s only land grant historically Black college or university.

Sen. Charles Sydnor, a Baltimore County Democrat, is sponsoring a bill that would allow fair housing testers to record their interactions with landlords for use in enforcement.

“A number of years ago, when I was a law student, I was a fair housing tester,” Sydnor described at a press conference Thursday. “You go into homes, you write down apartments that you're attempting to rent, try to write down exactly what happened, how you were treated.”

Sydnor said the bill passed the Senate last year but died in the House Judiciary Committee.