like the Prince George's County school board passing that school
systems$2 billion budget. This was the deadline to
do so today, and it comes after that controversy
on the board that kept normal meetings from happening.
The board. Right now, with this hours debating
removing school resource officers, let's get out the Lindsay
watch. He has been on top of this story
since it broke. She's here in Laurel with the
latest Hey, Angie Parks. Lindsey. Hey there
, Jim. There have been efforts for a while
now by some board members to remove school resource officers
from Prince George's county public schools, to reduce the
number of school security guards and to eliminate arrest powers
of security guards. So this meeting is still ongoing
. It has been going for several hours. Now
you can see the discussion is still underway. The
CEO of schools, Dr Monica Goldson, she does
not support removing school resource officers Instead, What she
wants to do is invest more in mental health services
for students. So I want to let you take
a listen now to some of what we've heard about
this issue tonight at the meeting, has anyone reached
out to the students and that they actually they feel
comfortable outside of this pandemic returns the thought of a
reduced number or no security staff at all to ensure
they have a safe environment to learn. We just
simply cannot train sa rose to be both Robocop and
officer friendly. I think I received the most student
engagement, Um, on this issue compared to anything
else the board has considered, you know, I
wholeheartedly and genuinely say that you won't find a clear
cut consensus from students on where they stand on this
matter. So again, we're still awaiting a final
vote on this. Um, it doesn't look at
this point, though, that this effort to remove
sorrows will be successful, at least not today.
Later on tonight, the board is expected to pass
a measure that would provide learning hubs for the district's
most vulnerable students. So this would provide in person
small group virtual learning with an adult there to supervise
and assist students. We've been talking about this controversy
on the board. The February 11th board meeting ended
up being canceled after the new board chair, Dr
Juanita Miller, made some serious allegations about her fellow
board members proposed just shutting down the board, worth
noting that she actually was not president. She is
not present for this meeting tonight. I reached out
to her to ask about why, but I have
not gotten a response back to you.