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MD school board requires criminal record sharing in wake of Howard student’s murder charge
Following a letter from state legislators requesting better information sharing between schools, Maryland education officials on Tuesday required that local superintendents immediately share information about students charged with serious crimes.
Local superintendents have been permitted, but not required, to share with other school systems information about reportable offenses — including serious crimes such as murder, arson, armed carjacking and sexual assault — for a transferring student.
The Maryland State Board of Education voted unanimously for superintendents to immediately inform school principals and school security officers about any students who’ve been arrested for a reportable offense or an offense related to membership in a criminal organization.
If a transfer student has been previously convicted, found delinquent or is facing a charge that’s still pending, their former superintendent or principal must share that information as a confidential file with the administrators in their current school system.
The new requirements, which align with what the legislators called for, will also apply to students who’ve transferred within the past year.
“We must be as clear and transparent as possible between and across school systems when it comes to sharing information about transfer students who may pose a threat to school communities,” State Superintendent Carey Wright said during the State Board of Education’s meeting Tuesday.
Three state legislators sent a letter to Wright days after police charged a Howard High School student with first-degree murder.
The 17-year-old suspect has been charged as an adult for allegedly killing 26-year-old Kendrick McLellan, whom police found shot to death in a car in Columbia on Oct. 12, after officers found a loaded gun in his backpack when they arrested him at school on Oct. 15.
Howard County‘s top schools official has since said he was unaware that the teenage suspect had also been charged with attempted murder while he was previously a student in Anne Arundel County. The suspect was under state Department of Juvenile Services monitoring when he transferred to Howard High School, though the school system reportedly didn’t know the seriousness of the offense.
The legislators — Sens. Clarence Lam and Katie Fry Hester and Del. Courtney Watson, all Howard County Democrats — wrote that they have “deep concerns about system-level failures,” including “unacceptable gaps in communication” between school systems.
They mentioned that Howard County Superintendent William Barnes said the school system wasn’t aware that the suspect had been charged with attempted murder before transferring.
Maryland law requires that police officers contact a student’s principal and local superintendent when they’re arrested for one of several crimes, including attempted murder.
The school system is then required to determine whether it’s necessary to develop a safety plan, which the lawmakers pointed out could include placing the student in “an alternative education setting.”
The 17-year-old suspect was reportedly a student in Anne Arundel County at the time of his first charge, so state law required reporting to that system.
Wright said her expectation is that the new requirements will help close the communication gap between school systems.
The requirements won’t apply to students transferring to a Maryland public school from outside the state, from an independent education program or from a private school, though Wright said the state must also come up with solutions for those circumstances.
The State Board of Education approved the requirements as emergency measures so they would take effect immediately, though they’ll require legislative approval to become permanent guidelines.
