PRINCE FREDERICK — Reported serious safety incidents in Calvert County Public Schools have fallen 27% since the 2021-22 school year, and the share of students who say they feel safe at school has climbed from 69% to 84%, school system staff told the Board of Education on Nov. 5 in their first formal response to the county’s Student Safety and Well-Being Advisory Committee.
The presentation was the school system’s answer to a report that took the county commissioners’ appointed committee more than a year, 20 public meetings and two community surveys to produce. The committee’s final report, delivered to the commissioners in August 2025, made 14 recommendations across five areas: mental health, student behavior and school climate, staff preparedness, communication, and facilities and security.
Chief Operations Officer Susan Johnson, joined by Chief Academic Officer Jackie Jacobs and other administrators, said several of the recommendations line up with work already underway, and that recommendations requiring new staff or money “will need further consideration.” The committee’s report concludes its work, she said, “but our work does not end here.”
The numbers behind the claim
Staff laid out five areas of data. Among the figures cited:
- Students reporting they feel safe at school rose from 69% to 84% over eight years of surveys.
- Reported serious safety incidents dropped 27% between 2021-22 and 2025-26.
- Reported bullying incidents fell 43% over the past four years, with the highest volume at the middle school level.
- Student “belonging” indicators rose from 73% in 2018 to 80% in 2026.
- Calvert’s chronic absenteeism rate is the third-lowest in Maryland, about half a percentage point behind Harford and Howard counties.
The system now employs 15 full-time safety advocates, has school resource officer coverage in every building and is piloting added security at large high school events, staff said. It works with the Maryland Center for School Safety on assessments and drills and promotes the state’s Safe Schools Maryland tip line. De-escalation training is required for all new employees, with targeted training for support roles, and every school has a calming space.
On attendance, staff said middle and high school teams received training in October on using the Panorama data platform to identify students at risk. The state’s goal is a chronic absenteeism rate of 15%; a board member put Calvert’s figure at 15.9%. Asked which schools still need attention, staff said schools with more students on free and reduced-price meals tend to have higher absenteeism nationally, but that some Calvert schools are outperforming that pattern and the system wants to replicate what they are doing.
Fewer reports, or fewer bullies?
The 43% decline in bullying reports drew the sharpest question of the night. A board member called the drop “very drastic” and asked whether it raised concerns that incidents are going unreported rather than not happening.
Staff acknowledged the gap directly. “We’re not naive to the fact that people still don’t report,” the presenter said, but argued that four years of work on school climate and a four-module state training course that helps staff distinguish bullying from “a mean moment” have made reporting more accurate while reducing incidents. The written presentation itself conceded that “some bullying may go unreported” and said the system would keep emphasizing awareness and reporting.
Another board member credited the system’s cellphone restrictions and school resource officers for the improvement. A third said that of all the figures, the climb to nearly 85% of students feeling safe “makes me the most happy.”
Who sat at the table
The board also pressed on a sore point: the school system had no appointed seat on the committee that studied it. Under the commissioners’ resolution, the committee included a commissioner-appointed chair, two residents from each of the three commissioner districts, one appointee each from the teachers’ and support staff unions, two from the Sheriff’s Office, one from the Maryland State Police, two from the county health officer and one from the Maryland Center for School Safety. Membership was capped at no more than three current school system employees, appointees or contractors.
Superintendent Marcus Newsome participated as an ex officio member, staff said, and the system’s director of student services was invited once to present. But no one spoke for the school system in an official capacity at the committee’s meetings.
“When I heard the presentation several months ago, there were a lot of things that I thought, well, we already kind of do that,” one board member said, asking Newsome to seek a designated school system representative on any future body. “I would like to advocate to have some better representation in a more official capacity.”
The committee was created by the commissioners in 2024 after a string of publicized disturbances at county schools, and released survey results from families, staff and students in September 2025. County Commissioner Mark Cox moved to keep the committee in place after the final report so its leaders could present to the school board and other agencies rather than disband. Co-chairs Dana Jones and Leslie Irvin attended Thursday’s meeting, and several committee members sat in the audience.
The committee’s charter, posted on the county’s SSWAC page, makes clear it has no authority to take complaints or enforce anything. Its leverage is public pressure, and the Nov. 5 presentation is the first measure of how much the school system intends to adopt.
The safety data arrive in a strong stretch for the system’s reputation. Five Calvert schools earned five stars on the state report card released in October, with 81% of the county’s schools rated four or five stars against 43% statewide, and U.S. News rankings released Oct. 20 placed several county schools near the top of Maryland. Newsome, appointed to a four-year term that began July 1 after a year as interim, recited those rankings in his report before the safety presentation.
Staff said the next steps on attendance include a consistent system-wide approach using Attendance Works resources and tying attendance goals to each school’s improvement plan. No timeline was given for responding to the committee’s remaining recommendations, and no cost estimate was offered for the ones that would require new positions. The board took no vote; the item was informational.
