Well that went poorly because my Internet connection is crappy. But here's my testimony for the #Baltimore budget night: the preliminary FY21 budget cuts $755,418 from three health department lines: $437,991 for clinical services; $46,210 for MH/SUD, $271,217 for school health /1

While @mayorbcyoung is cutting health services, he is increasing the BPD's budget: $594,077 for admin/IT; $570,582 for SWAT; $204,396 for the mounted unit; $116,593 for marine unit; $424,175 for special ops aviation. /2

Why am I highlighting these few lines? Well, via MPIA I learned that during the 16-17, 17-18, and 18-19 school years the BPD and @BaltCitySchools police transported 1,310 children for emergency petition, meaning they were a danger to self or others. /3

Here's the breakdown:
BPD 16-17: 96
BPD 17-18: 66
BPD: 18-29 118

Sch police 16-17: 332
Sch police 17-18: 396
Sch police 18-19: 302

Sch police transported 243 kids this year through March 16, 2020. /4

Here's the spreadsheet of kids transported because of emergency petition from the BPD, by school. /5

I don't have the by-school breakdown from @BaltCitySchools. These numbers are critically important. They represent kids in a serious mental health crisis who potentially spend days or even weeks boarded -- basically waiting for a psych bed - in emergency departments. /6

Children who arrive to hospital without a parent may arouse child welfare involvement and/or juvenile justice involvement. They may be removed from their home for acute and then residential treatment. /7

In thinking of plain old return on investment: these children are children we pay for in other ways: alternative school, health costs borne by the state because post adjudication children do not get Medicaid, etc. /8

Moral implications: as far as I know, MSDE does not track children who are removed from school via emergency petition. Such children may not appear in school arrest data, suspension/expulsion data, or IEP headcounts. Removing children from a classroom via EP jukes the stats. /9

If you're concerned about public safety and are generally in favor of strong policing this should still give you pause. That's 1,310 times a police officer (sch police or BPD) was called away from their duties to transport a child to a hospital. /10

Put another way, that's 2-3 transports every single school day for the last three academic years (16-17, 17-18, 18-19). And appears widespread: 115 schools across the city - in all council districts - appear on the BPD's list. /11

That's 2-3 times a day and officer isn't patrolling, isn't investigating but is being called to perform a duy -- crisis intervention -- for which they have minimal training and oversight. That's 2-3 times a day a child is being removed from the sch building. /12

Rather than fund services upfront, @mayorbcyoung's preliminary budget spends $1,909,823 more in general funds on just 5 police functions while cutting $755,418 from clinical and mental health services, including school health. /13

Sadly, I don't know how many individual children have been removed from city school classrooms. I have transport counts only. It could be individual children, or the same child again and again because s/he lacks appropriate services of the very kind @mayorbcyoung is cutting. /14

Now that the city has passed @Zeke_Cohen's trauma legislation, maybe someone will make a note to ask why police officers are transporting children in crisis from city schools classrooms hundreds of times a year and whether those children are well-served. /15

The Sun has written about foster children stuck in EDs: https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-ga-foster-children-hospitals-20200203-i3r5anhvxfgzna44nxhavu6dhe-story.html I wonder how many are city school students we wish to keep off the suspension and expulsion books. /16

With all of us shut in, I sincerely hope we consider what kind of city and school system we want and make budgets to reflect it. Certainly the kids transported from school to emergency department deserve it. /End

Addendum: happy to share MPIA documents. An article in the Capital Gazette got me started; it covered the increase in calls to PD from schs. I wondered about Baltimore, and how we've been able to drive down sch arrest, expulsion, suspension so dramatically. Now I think I know.

Addendum 2:

Addendum 3: article from Cap Gazette https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/cgnews-emergency-petitions-20190421-htmlstory.html. Their district is what, 80,000 kids or so? And they had low to mid hundreds of EPs per year