This story, originally published at 4:31 p.m. June 28, 2024, was updated at 12:25 a.m. June 29, 2024, to include a statement from the Decriminalize Montgomery County Campaign.
Retiring Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones’ appointment Tuesday as chief of the Department of Security and Compliance for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) came as a surprise to many, including County Council Public Safety Committee chair Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3).
“I had no idea this was happening,” Katz told MoCo360 in an interview Friday. “I had not heard about this.”
However, Katz said he is pleased with the decision.
“I think he will be extremely good at it,” Katz said. “It’s not like they’re bringing in somebody from outside. He knows Montgomery County and Montgomery County Public Schools. I think they’re very wise to have selected Chief Jones.”
Meanwhile, several local social justice groups announced Friday night that they oppose Jones’ appointment, saying his former role as police chief and his 38 years in law enforcement “makes him unsuitable for working with students.”
Young People for Progress joins Silver Spring Justice Coalition and Jews United for Justice in the Decriminalize Montgomery County Campaign in opposing the appointment, according to a release from the campaign. A coalition of community and civil rights advocacy organizations, the campaign “shares a commitment to advocating for justice, equity, and improved well-being for all residents of Montgomery County,” the release said.
Jones, 59, is set to retire from the police department Monday. He announced his retirement in January.
The school board voted unanimously to appoint Jones to his new position at the start of its Tuesday meeting at MCPS headquarters in Rockville without comment on the appointment. The appointment came just two hours after Jones received accolades from the council and other county leaders during a council meeting, including an official county proclamation commending his service.
It also came minutes before the school board voted to appoint Thomas Taylor as the new MCPS superintendent. Taylor, an MCPS graduate and the former superintendent of Stafford County Public Schools in Virginia, will start his new job Monday.
Taylor, who graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in 1996, and Jones join the school system as it deals with growing concerns in the MCPS community about safety and security in the district’s more than 200 schools. The school year that ended June 13 was marked by lockdowns related to threats, disciplinary issues involving students and incidents of weapons discovered in schools.
According to a job description on the MCPS website, Jones’ role will report to the superintendent and lead “the school district’s efforts to ensure student and staff safety by designing, implementing, and championing the strategic safety plan for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), central office, and depot sites.”
MCPS spokesperson Liliana Lopez told MoCo360 in an email that while the district has changed the title of Jones’ new job, formerly known as chief safety officer, “the core goal for the role hasn’t changed, it is to ensure the safety of MCPS students and staff.”
The role became available after the departure of the previous Chief Safety Officer Pamela Wheeler-Taylor. Lopez did not immediately respond to a question from MoCo360 on Friday about when Wheeler-Taylor left the school system.
According to the job description, Jones’ duties will include:
- Leading and coordinating the incident command structure and all emergency management programs associated with preparation for, response to, and recovery from natural, manmade disasters, or emergency situations;
- Overseeing multiple functional units, including school security, workplace safety, risk assessment, and emergency planning; and
- Serving as the primary liaison to local, state, and national public safety agencies.
In its release, the Decriminalize Montgomery County Campaign faulted Jones for his role in bringing county police officers back into MCPS schools through the Community Engagement Officer (CEO) program. The campaign said it worked in 2021 with county officials to end the district’s previous School Resource Officer (SRO) program, “following the nationwide call for racial justice in 2020.”
Under the SRO program, county police officers were stationed full time in high schools. The program was scrapped after criticism that it led to higher arrests among Black and Hispanic students and community calls for more emphasis on mental health resources than policing in schools. Proponents counter that the SRO program led to stronger relationships between police officers and the students.
About a year later, the CEO program was launched, assigning officers to school clusters and allowing an officer to have a space near the front office of a cluster’s high school.
“This decision is harmful because an officer’s unique role is to connect students to the criminal justice system,” the campaign said in its release.
County police spokesperson Shiera Goff told MoCo360 that the department did not plan to release a statement about Jones’ new role with MCPS and that Jones would not be available for interviews about his new job.
Councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7), who serves on the council’s Public Safety Committee with Katz, told MoCo360 in an interview Friday she is “thrilled” about the school system’s decision to hire Jones.
“It’s exciting knowing how collaborative he is and how well he works with others in being multidisciplinary in an approach to an issue,” Luedtke said. “I think this is a win-win for the community and for the school system.”
Luedtke said she hopes Jones’ established relationship with the council will help bridge gaps between the county government and MCPS, particularly after disagreements between the school system and the council concerning budget issues and transparency over the past couple of years.
“His passion and care for the community and his willingness to take on this new role speaks volumes about how seriously he views the challenges that the school system is facing in terms of school safety, and his desire to help improve that,” Luedtke said.
Katz shared a similar sentiment.
“He certainly knows the system and how it works,” Katz said. “He certainly would know how to do the necessary budget work in order to get the resources.”
Councilmember Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5), the third member of the Public Safety Committee, responded to the decision in a Friday text to MoCo360.
“As Chief Jones has said, effective intervention and diversion away from the criminal justice system are the best ways to keep our young people on track and our communities safe, and I look forward to continuing that work with him in his new role,” Mink wrote.
Interim MCPS Superintendent Monique Felder addressed the issue of school safety and discipline in an April community letter, writing about plans for new security and safety tools such as vape and weapons detection systems and mandatory student and staff IDs.
Felder reaffirmed the district’s commitment to safety and discipline in schools and aimed to address mounting worries regarding student behavior that have been “in the forefront of community discussions, among student and staff and, lately in the news.”
“Comprehensive methods … can foster higher levels of safety and minimize incidents that violate the Student Code of Conduct,” Felder wrote.
Once Jones leaves the police department, veteran officer Marc Yamada will take over as the county’s new police chief. The council voted unanimously to confirm his appointment last week. Yamada is currently an assistant police chief.