Calvert County student safety committee reports survey results, plans student focus groups and final report

Reverend Dana Jones, chairperson of the Student Safety and Wellness Advisory Committee, delivered a fourth-quarter progress update to committee members and the public, summarizing a community survey, presentations from local early-childhood partners and plans for student focus groups ahead of a final report.

Jones said the committee "drafted a community survey and received 900 plus responses" from parents, students and school staff and has been facilitating a small student focus group to capture student perspectives from the county high schools. She described the committee's goal as producing "a series of strategies that also have some measures of accountability" that the Board of County Commissioners can review in January.

The committee reported several recurring themes from the survey, according to Jones: she said more than 70% of respondents indicated that academic experience was being impacted by a factor the transcript records as "FABE" (term not defined in the meeting record), and nearly 62% of respondents reported bullying at their associated schools, most commonly verbal and cyberbullying. Jones also said respondents favored more consistent family engagement such as weekly email or text updates, scheduled positive teacher interactions and evening or weekend events for working parents.

The committee said it has held 10 presentations from community agencies to understand collaborative supports across the county, and that early-childhood services are concentrated in the southern end of Calvert County. Jones said the subcommittees have been developing preliminary recommendations that include a resource index, universal de-escalation training and revisions to code-of-conduct language.

A small subcommittee—Leslie, Sunitra and Denise, as listed by Jones—was assigned to design and facilitate conversations with two student leaders from each high school; the committee plans to hold those student sessions in November and expects a report at the November meeting. Jones said the committee is working from a template to fine-tune a draft report in November, seek public input on the final draft in December and present recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners in January.

A member of the public, Eric Sullivan, thanked the committee for its work and said the sessions had been "really informative," adding that bringing resources together so community members know what services exist was an important outcome.

After no additional public commenters registered, an unidentified committee member moved to adjourn the meeting; Eric Sullivan seconded. Chair Jones declared the meeting adjourned and announced the committee's next meeting will be Nov. 19 at 2 p.m. at the Harriet Brown Community Center. The committee invited written comment to sswac@CalvertCountyMD.gov.