Parents, teachers and students gathered with Harford County Sheriff’s deputies and Harford education leaders to discuss school safety Tuesday night during the school system’s first Community Safety Meeting.

The meeting allowed 100 community members to participate in small group discussions that were led by four questions about Harford County Public Schools (HCPS):

What measures or actions do you feel have been effective in ensuring safety at HCPS?
What are some specific areas where you believe HCPS could improve its safety and security efforts?
How can HCPS work with the community and local agencies to secure additional funding for safety and security improvements?
What additional safety measures would make you feel more confident about the security of students and staff in our schools?

Participants were prompted to write down ideas surrounding each question and then engage in group discussions for 14 minutes to go over, and build off each other’s ideas.

“We set the meeting up so we can get actionable information to use as we roll out enhanced safety measures,” said the school system’s Chief of Administration Eric Davis. “We found in the past that by having small groups, we get better results.”

Harford school facilitators were tasked with taking notes on the conversations, which will be shared with the sheriff’s office so the school system can evaluate and implement the ideas brought forward by community members.

Superintendent of Harford County Public Schools, Sean Bulson, said the meeting is important for the school system as they work to establish trust — something he believes will come only after community members see how the school system implements their input.

“Trust doesn’t come automatically so just doing one event doesn’t build trust,” Bulson said. “Letting them see we are committed and our intelligent change based on the ideas we received, like I said, the trust comes more from the follow up of this meeting which we are going to be deliberate about.”

James McVicker, a junior at Harford Technical High School and the president of the Harford County Regional Association of Student Councils, said he felt the meeting was a good opportunity to inform community members, school staff and police of what it is like to be a student witnessing safety concerns on a day-to-day basis.

“I was able to provide a lot of valuable insight to the staff and community members because they all see a shielded view of what occurs in school while I sit there and live it everyday,” McVicker said. “We see the people getting let into the buildings and the different security concerns the staff might not see, so I was able to provide that insight tonight.”

McVicker said he brought up one of his main safety concerns about students letting visitors into school buildings when they knock on the door or are standing at a locked door.

He said community members, school officials and sheriff deputies were open to his feedback and that he felt heard during the meeting — something he noted Harford schools has been good with when it comes to student concerns.

Kenny Finlay, who has a daughter in 8th grade at Patterson Mill Middle School, said he enjoyed the diversity of the groups and the perspectives.

“We had a really diverse group that allowed us to really come up with good ideas,” Finlay said. “There was a very strong sense in getting the community involved in the county executive and board’s priorities.”

Following the meeting, Harford school officials will go over the input they received from the small groups and move toward implementing enhanced safety measures.

Harford school officials have been exploring options like weapon detection systems, AI surveillance software and other advanced security measures to implement following the fatal shooting at Joppatowne High School that took the life of 15-year-old Warren Grant in September.

ABulson said the schools face not only the challenge of understanding which systems would best serve HCPS, but also deciding the best way to implement policy and procedure for staff members for if the systems detect threats.

“It has to be deliberate because you’re always balancing not impacting someone’s experience or relationship with the school while at the same time, making it safe,” Bulson said. “For some, the weapons detection system may make them feel safe. For others, it may make them feel something different.”

The President of the Harford County Board of Education, Aaron Poynton, said the board is close to finalizing procurement for new security measures and that the information gained from the meeting will further assist school officials in their final decision.

“We are getting close to finalizing whether or not we do any physical or digital security so we are interested in getting a diverse amount of feedback so we can make an informed decision on school safety,” Poynton said.

Tuesday was the first of many Community Safety Meetings planned by the school system in collaboration with the sheriff’s office. Parents, students and staff will be alerted on all new security enhancements and developments within the school system, according to Bulson, as well as the dates of future meetings.

Have a news tip? Contact Matt Hubbard at mhubbard@baltsun.com, 443-651-0101 or @mthubb on X.