City Schools officials today announced a new police deployment strategy whereby most school police officers will be on patrol, not assigned to a specific school as they are now.

Under the new plan, officers will be assigned to only seven schools, not 75.

The rest will be going in and out of schools all over the city, many on foot and on bicycles, all day long.

Classifying these school police as “on patrol” means they will be allowed to carry their guns, school officials said, at a news conference today at school headquarters.

A major reason for the new deployment strategy is to bring police “in compliance with the law” regarding carrying firearms in school buildings, said School Police Chief Marshall Goodwin and City Schools Deputy Chief Academic Officer Ted Thompson.

Goodwin said the change will also help address city schools’ longstanding truancy issues – including students leaving school during the school day without permission – and support the city’s daytime curfew.

“More than 4,800 high school students are truant at any given time,” said Thompson, who added that the school police would work with daytime engagement centers to get at the reasons behind student truancy.

The new strategy also appears to address a problem that became apparent after school police started getting public scrutiny in recent weeks.

Were Carrying Guns Anyway 

A controversial bill in Annapolis that would have allowed school police to carry their weapons in school buildings was recently scuttled by the Baltimore City delegation, amid criticism from parents and civil liberties advocates.

Schools police pushing the measure had said they needed to be armed to protect students and themselves.

But in the course of discussing the bill, it came out that many school police officers were already carry their weapons in schools – technically violating the law – and a remedy was needed.

Schools CEO Gregory Thornton was not present for today’s announcement.

Schools with Assigned Police 

Under the new plan, seven large city high schools will have assigned school police officers. These are Achievement Academy, Merganthaler Vocational-Technical School, Patterson, Digital Harbor High School, Forest Park, Baltimore Community and Excel Academy.

The number of officers who will be assigned to each high school has not been determined, said Goodwin.

Currently, 75 city middle and high schools have assigned school police officers.

Parents were not informed of the new deployment strategy, which takes effect April 13.