New student sex offender policy introduced at Harford County school board meeting
May 17—The Harford County Board of Education has developed a new policy for students who are registered sex offenders, which was presented at Monday night's school board meeting.
The policy's creation follows a mandate passed last year by the state General Assembly requiring county school boards to establish and adopt protocol for the teaching of registered sex offenders in school systems.
The law was designed to protect the right of students who are registered sex offenders to an education while barring them from school campuses.
The new county policy requires the school system and administrators to arrange a meeting with student offenders and parents or guardians to advise them on how the student will be educated, in accordance with state law, until the student is no longer a registered sex offender.
Harford County Public Schools will have pathway programs like the home and hospital teaching program, individual virtual learning, a Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents, or a nonpublic special education program to afford these students the opportunity to meet all graduation requirements, including required assessments and student learning, within the same time frame as other students.
The existing pathway programs also exist to help students who have illnesses that prevent them from attending class, have special needs, or are home schooled.
"If a student is a registered sex offender, they would still continue to be a student of record, so they are not actually going to be withdrawn or expelled because they are entitled to receive an education," said Kimberly H. Neal, general counsel for Harford County Public Schools. "But they will not be allowed to enter a property in any public or non-public elementary or secondary school."
Neal said she didn't believe there were any student offenders in the system but promised to verify at her office and report back.
Additionally, the board approved a new teen parent policy designed to help pregnant or parenting students complete their high school education and get a diploma. The policy addresses absences from class, home instruction policies, unequal alternative learning environments, support for child care and transportation, among other issues.
The board was presented with updated COVID-19 numbers. Currently, the county is at 10.21% COVID-19 positivity and 21.53 cases per a hundred thousand as a seven-day average, according to county schools Risk Manager Katie Ridgeway.
There were four schools with outbreaks, Ridgeway said: Bel Air Middle School, Patterson Mill High School, Prospect Mill Elementary School and William S James Elementary School.
Under Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, however, Harford County remains at low risk for spread. The CDC metrics consider new COVID-19 cases across seven days per 100,000 residents, the percentage of staffed inpatient beds at hospitals 's used by COVID-19 patients, and total cases of infection in a seven-day period.
While other districts in the state are raising their levels of risk from low to moderate, Harford Superintendent Sean Bulson said the county isn't close to elevating its status.
Also, a county school system human resources representative presented to the board a list of names to consider for future assistant principal positions.
The five assistant principal candidates presented for consideration were:
Patricia Bales — Bel Air Middle School music teacher
Alex Collis — Fallston High School mathematics teacher
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Daniel Good — North Harford Middle School school counselor
Wayne Newman — Baltimore City Public Schools music teacher
Brian Tully — C. Milton Wright Social studies teacher.
All of these teachers were approved to be added to the pool of possible assistant principals for the upcoming school year.
The next board of education meeting is June 13.
