Maryland Center for School Safety briefs Calvert committee on training, tip line and legal requirements

Joseph Picotero, who asked the committee to call him "Dino," presented an overview of the Maryland Center for School Safetyand state school-safety requirements.

Picotero said the center was created by executive order and expanded by the Safe to Learn Act of 2018. He outlined obligations under state law, including designation of a school safety coordinator, behavioral threat assessment teams and requirements to submit emergency operations plans and reports about SRO (school resource officer) coverage. He described training the center provides for SROs and school-security employees, the model curriculum and in-service refreshers and said the center runs twice-yearly tabletop exercises and a statewide anonymous reporting system called Safe Schools Maryland. "We're teaching cops how not to be cops in a school," Picotero said, describing de-escalation, trauma-informed interventions and implicit-bias training in the curriculum.

Committee members asked about which CCPS staff participated in the centertraining and how often refresher training occurs. Picotero said superintendents receive a letter twice a year summarizing compliance and upcoming training; recertification and annual in-service training processes were also described. The presenter offered to provide generic messaging and regional technical assistance while local agencies apply their own context and MOUs.