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Sheriff's office details SRO duties, training and statistics
Summary
Sergeant Woodford described SRO coverage, training, threat assessment practices and student-arrest numbers (154 reported in 2023—2024, including 62 civil citations for marijuana); he emphasized limits on SRO authority and goals to expand coverage and training.
Sergeant Woodford of the Calvert County Sheriff's Office gave a detailed account of the county's school-resource-officer (SRO) program, its duties, and limits. He said the sheriff's office has an MOU with the Board of Education since 2004 and that current coverage includes SROs at each high school and middle school and five dedicated elementary SROs; two elementary positions are filled by contract deputies. Woodford described SRO responsibilities as first-response for active threats, bus and off-campus-event coverage, mentoring and classroom presentations.
Woodford reviewed training and legal constraints: SROs complete a 40-hour basic school-resource training, attend regular mental-health and de-escalation coursework, and must follow Maryland criminal and traffic law as well as COMAR and FERPA limits on what can be done on school grounds. "We do not do any types of scared straits," Woodford said, stressing the program avoids punitive public spectacles. He reported 154 student arrests in the 2023—2024 school year (62 counted as civil citations for marijuana), noted that vapes, assaults and disruptions were the most common incidents, and said only four incidents resulted in handcuffing a student. Woodford said the unit hopes to expand coverage and amend the MOU to permit limited access to school surveillance video for investigative and training purposes.
