Maryland Center for School Safety details tip line, trainings and grants as board presses for upstream prevention

The Maryland Center for School Safety told the State Board of Education on Dec. 5 that it has expanded since the 2018 Safe to Learn Act into a 15‑person agency with regional liaisons, training programs and several grant streams, and that it operates the statewide Safe Schools Maryland anonymous tip line.

Kate Bridal, executive director of the center, said the office doubled in size after new statutory responsibilities and now provides training and technical assistance across policy, finance and prevention work. Bridal noted the agency developed a school resource officer and security‑employee training program required by statute and trained nearly 1,000 personnel in 2019. She said the agency also hosts an annual school‑safety conference that grew from one to two days and drew more than 400 participants this summer.

On grants, Bridal told the board the center administers a $10 million public‑school security grant through the interagency commission and a $3 million school safety evaluation grant for facility assessments and remediation. She said a competitive hate‑crimes grant and the Safe Schools Fund also fund targeted improvements.

Bridal said the tip line — Safe Schools Maryland — has handled about 3,000 reports since it began and is staffed 24/7 by personnel co‑located in the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (the state fusion center). Tips are triaged and routed to the school or school system identified by the reporter; Bridal said the tip line is anonymous by design and tipsters generally do not receive follow‑up. "The tip takers when they receive those tips, the very first thing they do is triage the tip," she said. "If it's an emergency and potentially life threatened, they get on the phone with local law enforcement immediately."

Howard County presenters described local implementation: JT Ridgley, school psychologist and manager of crisis teams, summarized Howard County's multi‑tiered behavioral supports, a district crisis team, and longstanding suicide‑intervention training for staff. Ridgley said local teams conduct screening, escalate to full threat assessments when required and refer students for mental‑health evaluation as needed.

Board members and members of the public asked whether the Center focuses enough on upstream prevention and student supports rather than only on post‑incident responses. Bridal said the center provides prevention technical assistance to school systems and promotes reporting and education programs, but acknowledged data linking programs directly to reduced incidents is limited; she pointed to a forthcoming 2023 annual report with more detail.

Several board members raised questions about SRO counts and coverage. Bridal clarified the state's SRO reporting counts full‑time assigned school resource officers and does not capture every law‑enforcement officer who may provide "adequate coverage" on occasion; she said training is required for any SRO as defined in statute but not for other law‑enforcement personnel who only provide occasional coverage.

The board thanked the presenters and indicated interest in further conversations about prevention, metrics of effectiveness and tighter coordination between state and local partners.