New Baltimore City schools program focuses on cutting violence, mediating disputes
BALTIMORE -- A pilot program at four Baltimore City high schools targets students who are most at risk for violence with mediation and counseling and aims to reduce conflicts before they escalate.
The initiative is called SBVIP, or School-Based Violence Intervention Program, and it works with the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement using the same holistic approach to violence reduction that Mayor Brandon Scott has credited with a sharp reduction in shootings and homicides in Baltimore City this year.
What is the SBVIP?
SVIP partners each school with a community organization that will provide the tools to resolve conflicts. Each school will have multiple student ambassadors who receive a stipend for their work.
Students are targeted for intervention based on their disciplinary record and potential for conflicts, whether they have suffered recent trauma, or even looking at violent incidents outside of the classroom in the community.
The program has already kicked off at Mergenthaler Vocational Technical High School (Mervo), Carver Vocational Technical High School, Digital Harbor High School and Edmondson-Westside High School.
It is funded by $1.1 million in public and private money with sponsors that include Wells Fargo. Digital Harbor's program uses some casino revenue.
Early results "promising"
Baltimore City officials said, so far, there have been 46 mediation sessions and 25 interventions in conflicts before they escalated at Carver and at Digital Harbor High.
Councilman James Torrence, a 2005 Carver High graduate, has seen the difference.
"I saw the suspension data from Carver," Carver said. "I saw the violence that happened last year. I saw the culture in this building that now has shifted because we have a new leader, that has shifted because we have partners on the ground."
At Digital Harbor, the first school to start the pilot, suspensions dropped from 99 to 67 while attendance rose from 74 percent to 80 percent, according to Zac Blanchard, a coach there and a newly elected member of the city council. He called the early results "promising."
"What do we have to do to keep kids from acting crazy? What do we have to do to get kids feeling good and safe and cared about in their schools? It's happening now," Blanchard said.
2023 violence
Last year was a violent one at Carver Vo-Tech, with guns found on campus.
Several students were shot in an incident where one 15-year-old student's parents drove their child to the school armed.
Police said the teen's parents joined in on the assault, where he pistol whipped an unidentified victim. The teen then fled from the assault and ran into another 15-year-old. The two teens got into an argument before pulling out handguns, and shooting at each other, according to police.
They were sentenced last month.
When WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren visited Carver one year ago, a student described the aftermath of a cutting.
"I just saw the blood on the ground. I'm like, 'Oh my God," La'Ciah, an 11th-grade student, told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren at the time.
Councilman Torrence said Tuesday, "A child needs a hug and someone to ask them in a conversation about did you eat last night or if you have a conflict how to make sure you can sit in that room and talk to that person with that conflict."
At Edmondson Westside High, students dealt with the murder of 16-year-old student Deanta Dorsey last year at the nearby Edmondson Village shopping center.
Dorsey was one of five Edmondson Westside High School students shot in the middle of the day in the January 2023 incident.
This week, prosecutors announced they would retry a man charged in that shooting.
"The effect of what we heard from the community was, we want change and we want action," incoming Baltimore City Councilmember Paris Gray said.
Increase in some juvenile crime
It comes as Baltimore is seeing some categories of juvenile crime rise including carjackings.
Last week, an 81-year-old woman was carjacked at a gas station on York Road by four 15-year-olds who were then released to their parents.
In another recent case, two teens were arrested for a carjacking that occurred in Baltimore's Patterson Place neighborhood on Friday, December 13th, according to police.
"There are gaps clearly in the system we have, and I know several of my colleagues experience profound frustrations when young people have committed violent crime sometimes on camera and then are quickly released," Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen said Tuesday. "I think that juvenile services needs to do a better job of doing the full assessment of what is going on with a young person because it is not normal to commit a violent crime, and we cannot normalize that behavior."
Cohen noted he is a former teacher in city schools.
"I'm a dad who's sending his kids to Baltimore City public schools, so for me, it is deadly serious and it is very personal. We have got to teach our young people the skills of conflict resolutions," Cohen said.
Mayor Scott on juvenile violence
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott sat down with WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren ahead of his inauguration and discussed juvenile violence.
"Any young person who sees this message or the family of a young person who they feel may be involved in other things, reach out to us now. Don't wait until the police come to your door or the Department of Juvenile Services comes to your door. Reach out to us now so that we can help, the mayor said. "…When we consistently see the same people—whether they're old or young—over and over again—that's a huge frustration point for us, especially when they are young people because we know that we probably can get to them and change their life. Our police officers should not be arresting the same young people on the same day or range of days for the same types of crimes over and over again."
Mayor Scott could not attend the news conference for the School-Based Violence Intervention Program due to illness Tuesday but told WJZ in a statement, "Our School-based Violence Intervention Program will help support the safety of our young people inside of school in ways that foster their social development and teach peaceful conflict resolution skills. This is about bringing the entire village together to wrap our arms around Baltimore's youth and ensure that Baltimore's young people have the tools they need to achieve their full potential."
Possible expansion
No firm decisions have been made to expand the program, but MONSE director Stefanie Mavronis said they hope to keep the pilot running for two years with an independent review after the first year.
"This collaborative partnership is about fostering positive norms within our school communities and supporting the continued growth and success of our students," Mavronis said in a statement.
Shooting near Dunbar High
On November 16, a 14-year-old boy turned himself in and was charged as an adult for a shooting near Dunbar High School that left a student injured, according to Baltimore police.
Police said the 15-year-old was shot in the neck, abdomen and leg about 30 minutes after school let out.
Nonprofit with crisis intervention
In response to the shooting, One In Five Foundation For Kids - a nonprofit created after a 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas – announced recruiting efforts for its STOPNOW citizen patrol teams.
The program aims to increase student safety and provide crisis intervention support for students.
Officials with the foundation said Dunbar High School will be one of the first schools on the patrol roster. Patrol members will be specially trained in situational awareness, conflict resolution and self-defense, according to officials.
School safety feedback
In November, Baltimore City Public School CEO Sonja Santelises and community leaders listened to feedback from students on ways to make their schools safer during a meeting in November.
According to the latest data from the CBS News Baltimore Gun Violence Tracker, there have been 183 gun violence crimes near Baltimore City Public Schools, with 13 deaths, which is a significant decrease from last year.
"I feel that it's important to put in place grief therapists in schools, as well as some psychiatrists and counselors that also can support mental health because I feel like a growing problem is definitely a loss," a student said.
Santelises said the conversations with the students were constructive, with several important safety issues up for discussion.
"And I think that's what we heard, whether we were discussing the drugs, whether we were having a discussion about relationships with police officers, whether we were having discussions even about consequences, underneath so much of that, was this unmet need, and so I think that's what's going to sit with me the heaviest," Santelises said.
The district confirmed it plans to improve safety by using $50 million to upgrade door locks.
"From a lot of the most recent school safety research the kinds of doors that we need for maximum safety are doors that actually teachers can lock from the inside," Santelises said.