Citizen Portal
Sign In

Opponents warn HB12 would expand juvenile registry and permanently exclude some students from in-person school

House Judiciary Committee · January 30, 2026

Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts

Subscribe
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

HB12 would broaden the juvenile offender registry and give school superintendents limited access to registrant information; juvenile-defense, education, disability and child-rights witnesses said the bill risks permanent school exclusion, harms children with disabilities, and undercuts individualized judicial findings.

Delegate Griffith presented HB12, which would add certain sexual-offense offenses to the juvenile offender registry and permit a superintendent and one designee to receive registry information for school-safety decisionmaking. The sponsor said the change is intended to prevent placing convicted juveniles back into classrooms with victims.

Opponents urged an unfavorable report. Steven Bergman (Office of the Public Defender) said the bill expands a system that already precludes some juveniles from in-person school and would bar children "as young as 10" from attending in person even after a court has terminated jurisdiction. "This bill would expand school exclusion to include fourth-degree sexual offenses," Bergman said, arguing the consequences could be disproportionate to the conduct.

Aubrey Edwards Luce (Meyerhoff CFCC) and Alyssa Fayeo (education attorney, OPD) warned HB12 conflicts with juvenile law principles of rehabilitation and individualized judicial assessment and flagged constitutional and special-education concerns. Megan Berger (Disability Rights Maryland) said the measure would deny federally protected special-education rights by imposing blanket exclusions rather than individualized IEP-team decisions.

Committee members questioned data on virtual-education outcomes; witnesses cited Maryland examples where students placed in virtual settings struggle to log on and fall behind. Members suggested looking at narrower, targeted solutions and amendments rather than a broad registry expansion. No final action was taken.