After-action reviews of stabbings at Montgomery Blair and Clarksburg high schools during the recently-completed school year were not conducted within the required 45 days.
The Maryland Center for School Safety must be notified of any “critical, life-threatening incident” that takes place in a public school within 24 hours after the school learns of the incident. MCPS did notify the state in the proper time.
However, school officials then must hold an after-action meeting and review within 45 days. This did not happen concerning the two stabbings. The review was held in the required time concerning a shooting in the bathroom of Magruder High School that left one student seriously injured.
Edward Clarke, Montgomery County Public School Chief Safety Officer, who was the former director of the Maryland Center for School Safety, was unaware the timeline reporting requirements had changed in the Code of Maryland Regulations and believed MCPS had more time to hold meetings and submit reports, according to Christopher Cram, MCPS director of the Department of Communications.
The Safe to Learn Act has not been amended to reflect that the code has updated timelines, Cram wrote in an email to MyMCM.
“Mr. Clarke acted in good faith and when the new timelines were known he immediately began the after action work with police partners to hold the required review meetings and submit reports,” according to Cram.
According to documents provided by The Parents’ Coalition to MyMCM, in the Nov. 8, 2021 incident, a 16-year-old Montgomery Blair student was charged by police with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault and reckless endangerment after allegedly stabbing another student in a school parking lot. The victim, also a juvenile, was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The next day, a relative of the suspect was taken into police custody for bringing a knife to school.
An after action meeting concerning these incidents was held on May 16, about six months after the incident, which is more than the mandated 45 days. A report of that meeting was then sent to the Center for School Safety on May 20.
In the Clarksburg Nov. 1, 2021 incident, a female was reported stabbed on the campus at the end of a high school junior varsity football game. Multiple fights occurred in the parking lot behind the stadium after school hours that night. An after action meeting was held March 5, about four months later. A letter concerning that meeting was set well within the mandated time. it was dated May 20.
In the Jan. 21 Magruder shooting, the after action meeting was held March 31 and a report was sent to the state on April 7, which met the state deadline requirement.
