To most, an 11-year-old schoolgirl might seem like an unlikely offender.

But nearly six years ago, one sixth-grade girl was arrested and jailed for refusing to sit in her assigned seat in a public school classroom in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

The student suffered from anxiety for years and had a documented plan, based on the federal Section 504 disability anti-discrimination act, indicating a tendency to shut down when called out in front of others, Logan Ewing, an attorney with Disability Rights Maryland, shared in her testimony at a recent Ways and Means Committee hearing in the Maryland House of Delegates

But despite the girl’s documented disability, a teacher contacted the assistant principal when the girl did not respond to the teacher’s request that she move to her assigned seat. The assistant principal called 9-1-1.

By the time the officers arrived, the student was compliant and walking to the front office as directed, Ewing said, adding, “The police asked her why she wasn’t listening, and she shrugged, saying, ‘I don’t know.’ At this point, three male police officers handcuffed her, arrested her and took her to the police station. … She sat in a holding cell for nearly three hours while she’s waiting for her mother to come get her.”

The incident was needless, preventable, and traumatizing for the student and her entire family, Ewing said. The Maryland Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) ultimately resolved the case without any further action, but there will be a lasting effect.

“Our client will live with this trauma for the rest of her life because the school wrongly decided that involving police was the best option and the police were able to use the charge of disturbing school activities to criminalize an 11-year-old child’s disability-related behavior,” Ewing testified.

The student’s mother declined to be interviewed because a related case had been settled and she had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

The student, who is now older and whose identity is protected, is one of many students across the state charged with disturbing school activities or personnel—year after year.
In fiscal 2023, DJS received 858 referrals of students charged with disturbing school activities or personnel, according to its latest Data Resource Guide. Anne Arundel County and Wicomico County public school districts led the state that fiscal year with school-based arrests for the disturbing school activities or employees, with 225 and 195 charges respectively.

But the data tells a deeper story—particularly when examining arrest breakdowns by disability and race.

“Black children are five and a half times more likely to be referred to the Department of Juvenile Services than white children for disturbing schools, and children with disabilities are 3.3 times more likely than children without disabilities to be referred for disturbing schools,” said Levi Bradford, an education attorney with the Public Justice Center, who also testified at the same hearing in support of a bill to remove the charge. “The disparities on race and disability status are alarming for the disturbing schools charge.”

Bradford continued, “The disturbing schools charge pushes Black children and children with disabilities further and further along the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Bradford confirmed in an interview that 629 of the 858 referrals for the charge were for Black youth.

Total arrests down, but disparities loom large

Not limited to the disturbing schools charge, school-based arrests in general across Maryland’s 24 public school districts in school year 2022-2023 totaled 1,568 for elementary, middle and high schools, according to recently released Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) arrest data. That number represents a 28% decrease from school year 2021-2022, when arrests totaled 2,187.

“Overall, Maryland’s local educational agencies are moving toward the goal of a statewide disciplinary approach which is “rehabilitative, restorative, and educational,” in a statement said John White, MSDE’s Interim Senior Executive Director, Office of Communications and Community Engagement. 

Despite the reduction in overall number of arrests from the prior year, further analysis of MSDE’s data also shows that Black students and students either on an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or Section 504 Plan are referred to DJS for school-based offenses more than any other student groups. 

“There is disproportionality related to students with disabilities and Black students. You can also look at Black students with disabilities and see disproportionality,” said Alyssa Fieo, an assistant public defender for the state of Maryland. 

Fieo, who is also an education attorney, provides support to other public defenders throughout the state when they have education-related issues and concerns or when there is an overlap of a school discipline issue with a charge.

Of the reported 1,568 arrests in 2022-2023, Black students accounted for 57% of all arrests but represented 33% of the student population. Students with disabilities accounted for 48% of arrests yet they only represent 13% of student enrollment statewide. 

Out of every thousand students enrolled in Maryland’s public schools, two students are likely to be arrested, based on the 2022-2023 data. For Black students, the arrest rate is higher. Three Black students are likely to be arrested out of every thousand Black students enrolled in the state’s public schools. The arrest rate for students with disabilities is even higher. Out of every thousand students with disabilities enrolled in Maryland’s public schools, seven students with disabilities are likely to be arrested. 

The arrest rate is higher than the state’s in some school districts, and so is the disproportionality. Wicomico County Public Schools led the state in arrest numbers this past school year, moving up from the second spot from 2021-2022. 

The data, published in Maryland Public Schools Arrest Data School Year 2022-2023, includes the arrests of students in all public school districts or local education agencies for the school year. The report includes arrests resulting from referrals from school personnel and School Resource Officers (SROs) to local law enforcement or DJS for disciplinary offenses committed on or off school grounds. 

A physical arrest takes place when a student is physically placed under arrest by a law enforcement official. A paper arrest occurs when there is an officer-initiated referral or request for charges by school officials to DJS. These arrest offenses range from serious violent offenses to the more benign like disruption, disrespect and the use of electronics. 

Antiquated statute perpetuates arrest disparities 

School-based arrests in some school districts can be attributed to a section of the Maryland Education code that allows students to be charged with a misdemeanor for disturbing school activities or personnel. 

In Maryland Code, Education § 26-101 it is prohibited for anyone to willfully disturb or prevent the orderly operation of an elementary, secondary or higher education institution or threaten or harm students or staff. Quite often, schools/officers use this charge to address adolescent behavior that does not rise to the level of criminal conduct. 

Bradford, who is an attorney on the Education Stability Project for the Public Justice Center, said this “kitchen sink charge” is not useful. 

“It’s almost exclusively charged alongside other more serious offenses,” Bradford said. “Last year, not a single referral where disturbing schools was the only charge was actually formally filed in the court. The charge that most frequently accompanies disturbing schools is by a wide margin misdemeanor of assault – fights in schools.”

Bradford said fighting is already a chargeable offense. He advocates for removing the ability to charge a student with disturbing school at their own school. 

It is the goal of the Education Stability Project to advance racial equity by reducing overuse of suspensions, expulsions and school-based arrests that disproportionately target Black students and other students of color. 

In fiscal 2022, Bradford said, the disturbing school or personnel charge was the fifth most common juvenile offense referred to DJS, and the fourth most racially disparate offense. “Of those most common offenses, it is the No. 1 most racially disparate offense.” 

Leading the effort to remove the statute from the education code through House Bill 615 is Maryland Del. Shelia Ruth, a Democrat who represents parts of Baltimore County, where students were charged 74 times with the Disturbing School Activities offense. 

Ruth said at the bill’s hearing that for fiscal 2023, 73% of the students arrested under this law were Black. 

“That’s 2.24 times the 32.7% of students who are in Maryland schools who identify as Black,” Ruth said in her testimony, referring to disproportionality. 

“Because of implicit bias, people often perceive the behavior of Black children as more threatening compared to the same behavior conducted by white children, children of the same age,” Ruth said. 

She referred to state data that shows 32.9% or one-third of children charged with this offense are students with disabilities. 

“Many are charged for things that are covered under their IEP – things that should be handled within the IEP process, and yet they’re arrested for that,” Ruth said. 

Ruth’s bill passed in the House of Delegates but its Senate companion SB512 died in committee. 

School arrests among Black students disproportionately high 

MSDE’s data reveals a significant disproportionality when it comes to the arrest of Black students in Maryland public schools as a whole. 

Of the 1,568 school-based arrests statewide, 887 arrests were of Black students, more than any other racial group in the school year 2022-2023. 

White students represented 33% of enrollment in all 24 school districts, yet represented just 25% of school arrests (385). Latino or Hispanic students represented 22 percent of the school population and only 9% of school arrests (146). 

This has been a pattern in Maryland. In the year before, Black students represented roughly 61% of school arrests, at 1,335 arrests, even though they comprised only 33.2% of the school system’s total enrollment. Conversely, white students represented 33.9% of the total enrollment

but comprised only 21% of school arrests that year with 472 arrests. Latino students represented 20.7% of enrollment and roughly 8 percent of school-based arrests that same school year at 189 arrests. 

For 2022-2023, statistically, Wicomico, St. Mary’s and Washington county school districts have among the highest rates of arrests of Black students. 

Moreover, among all the school districts in Maryland, Wicomico has the highest number of arrests at schools and the highest level of disproportionality. There, for every 1,000 Black students enrolled in Wicomico County Public Schools, 28 were arrested. Black students only represent 37% (5,537) of Wicomico’s school population of nearly 15,000 students, but they accounted for 75% of school-based arrests. White students accounted for 18% of arrests, even though they represented 37% of the population. Latino students were 14% of the population and 5% of arrests. 

St. Mary’s County Public Schools (SMCPS) logged 175 arrests in 2022-2023, where 27 Black students were arrested for every 1,000 Black students enrolled in the school district. And, while Black students represented only 19% of the school system’s population, they accounted for 53% of school-based arrests. School-based arrest data is not widely reported on. 

“We are very concerned about the arrests data that continues to show the disproportionality among Black students and students with disabilities in St. Mary’s County Public Schools. Though the numbers are decreasing, our schools are facing societal and behavioral challenges that bring about unacceptable numbers of arrests in our schools. And for many this is the start of “The Pipeline to Prison,” said Janice Walthour, a former high school principal and current chair of St. Mary’s NAACP Education Committee. 

Walthour said in an interview the committee sought information on school climate and culture, as well as the results of a recent student survey. She said she intends to discuss the arrest disparity for both groups at the committee’s next quarterly meeting with SMCPS Superintendent J. Scott Smith. Attempts to reach Smith for comment were unsuccessful by press deadline. 

Washington County Public Schools posted similar arrest numbers to the year before, but its arrest rate for Black students dropped. In the previous school year, 20 out of every 1,000 Black students were arrested. This year, only 15 out of 1,000 Black students were arrested. 

However, disproportionality still exists in Washington County. Black students represented nearly half of all school-based arrests even though they were only 16% of the school system’s population.

Just north of Baltimore, there is a mixed bag of highs and lows for arrest data in Harford County Public Schools (HCPS). Arrests decreased from 185 in 2021-2022 to 115 in 2022-2023. But Black students accounted for 64% (74 arrests) of arrests last school year, up 3% from 2021-2022. 

HCPS’s Manager of Communications Jillian Lader acknowledged in a statement that the number of students “charged” fluctuates from year to year and are impacted by many factors. 

“When calculating data for 39,000 students, minimal changes as were seen this year, are kept in perspective- even when the overall data reflects positively on the school system,” Lader said. “That said, anytime we see a disproportionate report of data based on race at the school level, it is concerning to us as a community. These concerns continue to be seen throughout the country and must be addressed as a society to ensure all students, regardless of race, are set up for success at school.”

Now with the sixth-highest school-based arrests in the state, Harford ranked fifth in 2021-2022. That year, Black students accounted for 114 of all arrests, which concerns the local NAACP chapter

“This is something new that we’re turning our attention to,” said Harford County NAACP President Vicki Jones. “We’re actually going to launch an NAACP Parent Council and the parent council will be responsible for looking at things like these and identifying things that we need to work with the school system to try to alleviate or correct.” 

Jones sits on a police accountability board, as well as the sheriff’s community advisory board, and works full-time with the county’s school administration office.

“The way that law enforcement interacts with people of color, particularly Black people, in Harford County has been on our radar,” Jones said, noting there have been a disproportionate number of arrests in the community of Edgewood and the local NAACP has received complaints about local law enforcement frequenting the area and stopping people. 

She suspects arrest numbers for Black students are higher at schools along the Route 40 corridor, where more Black residents live, or where there are high minority student populations. 

Recent data confirms her suspicion, with 86 of the 114 arrests happening at Joppatowne High School (42), Aberdeen High School (21) Edgewood High School (17) and Edgewood Middle (6) in 2022-2023. 

“We know things are happening to our Black kids that are not happening to white kids,” Jones said, referring to complaints from the community. “There’s so much that we need to pay attention to, especially in Harford County. It is a place that, 10 years after the [Brown v.] Board of Education [decision] said you need to desegregate things, it stayed segregated. And so, it is a slow-moving county and we’re trying to stay up on as much as we can to push them forward.” 

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) once held the top spot for arrests in the state, with 444 school-based arrests in 2021-2022. MSDE’s 2022-2023 data shows school-based arrests for ACPS dropped to 150, a dramatic 66% decrease. Along with it dropped the arrest rate of Black students, from 17 to five out of every thousand Black students. The reduction in arrests coincide with new AACPS Superintendent Mark Bedell’s arrival in 2022. 

“For our part, we have spent – and will continue to spend – time around professional development as it regards classroom management. Dr. Bedell’s focus since he arrived has been on creating climates where every student can belong, grow, and succeed. He has talked often about the need to help students feel a sense of belonging “no matter how they show up,” AACPS Chief Communications Officer Bob Mosier said in a statement, on what measures the school system implemented to achieve such dramatic reductions 

Even though the number of arrests decreased, a disproportionate number of Black students are still arrested. While Black students make up 22% of Anne Arundel’s enrollment, they account for 57% of school-based arrests.

Mosier said the decision to charge or arrest a student lies with the police, but acknowledged that AACPS has a role to play as well. 

“We are continuing work around equitable practices in all our endeavors and spending,” said Mosier, pointing to spending additional time on classroom management so that issues that do not need police involvement can be handled in other ways. 

“Equity work extends to every portion of our school system and is in no way limited to instructional personnel. It is critical for all employees to have broader lenses so that they can appropriately contribute to and help resolve small conflicts before they become larger ones.” 

Like Anne Arundel, Worcester County Public Schools had a high arrest rate for Black students in 2021-2022. And, like Anne Arundel, it experienced a dramatic decrease, 60%, in arrest rates for Black students in 2022-2023. The year prior, for every 1,000 Black students, 20 were arrested. The recently released MSDE data reveals now only eight Black students were arrested per every 1,000 Black students enrolled. 

But Worcester’s school population is a fraction of Anne Arundel’s, and Black students represent only 18% of the school population yet more than half of all the total 54 arrests. 

Pattern of disparate arrests revealed for students with disabilities 

There is evidence that discipline disparities are even more apparent for Maryland students with disabilities. 

In 2022-2023, 106,216 students identified as having a disability, either receiving special education services through an IEP or on a 504 plan requiring accommodations for academic success. 

While students with disabilities only represented nearly 13% of the state’s total school population, collectively they accounted for 32%, or 495, of the 1,568 school-based arrests statewide. So, for every 1,000 students identified as having a disability, four students were arrested in 2022-2023. 

The overall numbers are significantly down, but once again, a pattern of disproportionality continues from the year before, when for every 1,000 students identified as having a disability, nine students were arrested in 2021-2022. Students enrolled in special education accounted for 28%, or 617, of the 2,187 school-based arrests, while those on 504 plans accounted for nearly 16%, or 349 arrests. This problem is on the state’s radar, as well as disability advocates. 

In the February 2023 report Deep Dive: Students with Disabilities, Part 2, then Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Mohammed Choudhury acknowledged there is “significant disproportionality” of arrests of students with disabilities.

Disability Rights Maryland and its coalition partners are reviewing the newly released data and will use the data to identify those districts where advocacy and reform is most needed. One school district of concern is Wicomico County. 

Wicomico County arrest rates of students with disabilities is disproportionately high. Out of every thousand students with disabilities enrolled in Wicomico County Public Schools (WCPS), roughly 36 of those students were likely to be arrested, based on the 2022-223 data. That is nine times higher than the state’s arrest rate for students with disabilities. 

In a revised version of the recent MSDE arrest data report, due to journalist-identified data anomalies, Wicomico reported 57 of its 204 arrests were of students with disabilities. This category of students represented 10 percent of school enrollment but 28 percent of all arrests. 

Within all of Maryland’s 24 public school systems, four out of every 1,000 students with disabilities were arrested according to SY 2022-2023 data. In Wicomico County Public Schools, 36 out of every 1,000 students with disabilities were arrested.]

Disability Rights Maryland has been monitoring Wicomico for disparate treatment of disabled students. The nonprofit advocacy group focuses on improving the lives of Marylanders with disabilities and opposes the use of SROs in schools. 

Often, the organization advocates for students with IEPs and 504s who have been arrested at school, engages in local policy work and partners with coalitions to address related school discipline matters. 

“There’s districts on the Eastern Shore whose numbers and disproportionality are very high and so we are concerned,” said Megan Berger, the group’s legal director. “Students end up being handcuffed and transported by SROs to the hospital,” Berger said, referring to emergency petitions. 

The Hechinger Report recently detailed the misuse of emergency petitions in Wicomico County to remove students from school and take them to hospitals for psychiatric evaluations over the last eight years, to the tune of 750 instances. The removals disproportionately affect Black and disabled students. 

“We’ve been very concerned about the disparate impact on Black students and students with disabilities,” said Berger. “The data bears out–Black students with disabilities are subject to sort of the highest rates of disproportionality.” 

The Wicomico school district has long been under fire and under investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) before for its disparate treatment of students of color and disabled students. In 2017, DOJ and the school district entered into a settlement agreement to report discipline and behavior numbers and to foster a discrimination free environment for minority students. 

Numerous attempts to reach Wicomico County Public Schools’ Public Information Officer Tracy M. Sahler to have her elaborate on the reason for the high arrest numbers among Black students and students with disabilities, and what progress the school system has made since the DOJ settlement were unsuccessful. However, Sahler offered in statement that there were only 11 physical arrests during the 2022-2023 school year. 

“Each of these was an instance in which a student was removed from the school setting in a manner deemed necessary by law enforcement,” Sahler said, noting the additional 193 instances were “paper arrests” in which an officer of the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office or other law enforcement agency petitions for charges to DJS. 

Sahler added that “the number of arrests in any Maryland school system, including Wicomico, is directly related to alleged violations of the law. Each instance is handled individually and appropriately, with consideration for the safety of all persons in the school building including the student involved. Decisions regarding arrests are made by law enforcement officers, who have the greatest understanding of and responsibility for upholding the law.”

Somerset and Dorchester school districts are also of concern to Disability Rights Maryland. School-based arrest data for students on an IEP or 504 Plan in Somerset and Dorchester counties in recent years have typically been fewer than 10. However, in school year 2015-2016, Dorchester had an arrest rate of 16 per 1,000 students, which is the highest of all 24 school districts that school year. 

Megan Jones, assistant managing attorney for Disability Rights Maryland, said they are not surprised to see the higher disproportionality on the Eastern Shore and attributes it to the use of SROs where other resources or interventions are scarce or where staff is not aware of other resources and options. 

“What we see on the Eastern Shore is that there is not the same amount of access to interventions and supports. Districts are smaller. There are less resources. The non-public placements and specialized programs are farther away,” Jones said, adding that schools and families who attend them can “feel like they’re on an island.” The emergency petitions are schools’ way of “reaching for whatever supports they can find when they can’t find interventions and the appropriate supports.” 

Many of the non-public schools, disability resources and in-patient programs are concentrated on the Western Shore. 

West of the Bay Bridge, for every 1,000 students with disabilities enrolled in the Anne Arundel school system, five were arrested in 2022-2023. In that year, there were 44 arrests of students with IEPs and 15 arrests of students with 504 plans, accounting for 38% of 165 arrests, but only 12% of the population. 

To Anne Arundel’s credit, the number of arrests and arrest rates dropped dramatically. In 2021-2022, there were 106 arrests of students with disabilities, and for every 1,000 students with disabilities enrolled in the school system, 20 were arrested that year. 

Disability Rights Maryland represents individual students in Anne Arundel County but is attempting to do more systemwide advocacy to address the problem. 

Berger acknowledges that trying to drill down on the “whys” of certain school districts where arrest numbers of disabled students are high, whether on the Western or Eastern shores, is a difficult task. 

“Is it sort of the school system taking a more punitive approach? Is it a lack of training? … Special education planning and appropriate supports for students who, you know, may be manifesting behaviors that are harder to manage,” Berger said. “I don’t think we have enough insight to say at this point but we’re certainly trying to use the data to address the systems where the rates are the highest and to bring [the problem] to the leadership’s attention and to request change.” 

Disabilities Rights Maryland and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender are part of a coalition named the Maryland Suspension Representation Project (MRSP), along with the Public Justice Center, the University of Baltimore School of Law Family Law Clinic and the University of Maryland School of Law Youth, Education and Justice Clinic. 

MSRP says it is committed to protecting the due process rights of Maryland students who face school push out, and it reached out to Anne Arundel school Superintendent Mark Bedell and AACPS leadership to discuss the disparity last fall. The groups met in late March. 

MSRP member Lucy Portera confirmed the meeting and said MSRP was glad to meet with AACPS leadership to discuss school-based arrests and school discipline, particularly given the disproportionate impact on Black students and students with disabilities. Portera represents youth in Anne Arundel County as a public defender.

In a statement, MSRP said, “Students need to be in school to access education services. When their school experience is interrupted by an arrest or suspension, it is difficult for those students to get back on track academically and to feel welcome in the school setting.” 

MSRP described AACPS leaders as open and transparent regarding the issues and the work that needs to be done. 

MSRP added, “We intend to continue meeting to move towards our shared goals of creating and maintaining positive school environments that meet the needs of all students. Reducing arrests and suspensions will make schools safer in the long term and improve both attendance and academic performance.” 

According to Mosier, the groups held a very collaborative and constructive meeting during which members shared concerns with school staff and had a collaborative dialogue about the issues and their genesis. He anticipates it is the first in a series of meetings where they will “dig deeper into issues and solutions.”

This report was made possible through a Pew Youth Justice Fellowship and the National Association of Black Journalists.