Baltimore City schools CEO receives feedback from students over safety concerns
BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Sonja Santelises and community leaders listened to feedback from students on ways to make their schools safer during a meeting Wednesday.
"Just making sure we can understand how the students are feeling, how the community is feeling with how things are going in the schools," said Kea Crowder, the Vice President and Co-Founder of The Movement Team, a nonprofit that mentors and advocates for the youth and their families.
According to the latest data from the CBS News Baltimore Gun Violence Tracker, there have been 138 gun violence crimes near Baltimore City Public Schools, which is a significant decrease from last year.
However, on November 11, a 15-year-old Dunbar High student was shot multiple times near the school not long after dismissal. He is expected to recover.
"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 loss," a student said.
The leader of Baltimore's school district 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 next student safety conversation with the Baltimore City schools CEO is scheduled for December 11.
Upgrade on door locks
Santelises said this feedback and more from the meeting will be assessed with the budget season looming.
The district confirmed it plans to improve safety by implementing a close to $50 million upgrade on 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.
