By Adam Pagnucco.
In the wake of this week’s shooting at Wootton High School, Council Member Dawn Luedtke is calling for the return of school resource officers to MCPS high schools. This has the potential to restart one of the county’s hottest debates of four years ago, especially if MCPS continues to have security issues.
MCPS once had school resource officers (SROs) stationed at high schools. In 2021, County Executive Marc Elrich announced that he was removing SROs from schools despite their unanimous support from MCPS principals. With crime rising afterwards, the county and MCPS developed a new community engagement officer (CEO) program to bring police back to schools a year later. Former Bethesda Beat reporter Caitlynn Peetz recounted that history and explained the differences between SROs and CEOs in this April 2022 article.
Peetz’s article contains this key point regarding CEOs: “The community engagement officer program replaced the SRO program, and was intended to fill a state requirement that schools have ‘adequate law enforcement coverage.’ The police officers were largely removed from day-to-day operations within schools, and were instead assigned to geographic areas around schools. They would respond, as needed, to incidents, but school administrators were not allowed to call them directly.”
That physical distance between the officers and the schools is now an issue. Does it prevent officers from responding to incidents in a timely manner?
This is what Luedtke had to say on X.
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Councilmember Dawn Luedtke
Statement on MCPS School Safety
February 10, 2026
“Yesterday’s shooting at Thomas S. Wootton High School has left all of us searching for answers. First and foremost, we are praying for the full recovery of the shooting victim and must work as a united Montgomery County to support the Wootton community during this challenging moment and in the challenging moments that will follow this traumatic event. Serious violence and threats of violence too often mean schools in Montgomery County are not safe for all students.
If we are serious about doing everything we can to better protect our students, it is time to restore a true School Resource Officer (SRO) program at MCPS high schools. As an advocate for best school safety practices since before I joined the County Council, I along with many community stakeholders have consistently supported full-time, on-site SROs because of the care, attention, and relationship-building experience they offer for our students, teachers, and administrators. Often, SROs served the role of conflict mediators before conflict erupted. While just one tool in a broad range of necessary safety, security, and behavioral health and well-being policies and procedures, SROs provide the “adequate law enforcement coverage” of our schools that makes our students safer and that satisfies State law.
Monday’s shooting is believed to be the second shooting at a school in the County’s history, and the second since the County moved to modify the SRO program and remove officers from full-time on-site roles at high schools. SROs can and should be part of the solution. I know we can work together with MCPS and community stakeholders to institute a program that respects the rights of all students, does not serve to overcriminalize or unfairly target students based on their race, ethnicity, or background, and that treats all with the respect and care they deserve. It is time for County policymakers to work together with MCPS to restore the SRO program and implement all school safety strategies we can to fulfill this core and basic responsibility we share.”
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Rockville City Council Member Adam Van Grack, who is deeply involved in issues connected to Wootton High School, backed her up in an X post of his own. He wrote, “After watching yesterday’s shooting at Wootton High School in real time, one thing is clear: when seconds matter, trained law-enforcement presence in schools matters, and MCPS should bring back School Resource Officers.”
To be fair to MCPS, they don’t control the police department and never made the decision to remove school resource officers. That decision was made by Elrich.
Luedtke’s post generated immediate pushback. Former Gaithersburg Mayor candidate Tiffany Kelly said this on Facebook:
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Let the anti-Blackness begin. I said it yesterday, the knee-jerk reaction would immediately default to this. Dawn Lanzalotti Luedtke why not establish a Task Force to discover why Black Males in Moco are UNALIVING themselves at rates higher than any other county in Maryland, why the School to Prison pipeline continues to flourish in MCPS, Black Men are OVER REPRESENTED in homeless shelters, Black Children are nearly 100% of the population in juvenile facilities, and the divide in CLASS. Like my sister Zakiya said, why is it politically correct to resist ICE when they terrorize the community but we can’t resist the police when they terrorize Black people.
Sick of this ish.
Y’all just woke me up.
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Let’s remember that the county’s police department has been suffering from staff shortages for years. Even if county leaders decide to reinsert officers into schools, does the police department have the capacity to do so?
Luedkte is a member of the council’s Public Safety Committee, and with the pending departure of its term-limited chair (Sidney Katz), she could conceivably be the next public safety chair. Furthermore, as a council member, she could introduce legislation mandating the return of officers if she wishes. That would provoke significant mobilization by progressive activists to stop it.
To be continued.