School security costly in D.C.

The D.C. Public Schools system pays more per student to staff city schools with private security guards than other large urban school districts spend to operate their police forces.

Public schools in the District spend $15.2 million per year on private security guards, or three times as much as the Baltimore school system, which spends about $4.7 million per year — or $48 per student — to post professional police officers in its 180 schools. Yet, the District has 32,000 fewer students than Baltimore, which has 97,000.

“We’re mainly in the middle schools and in the high schools,” Maj. Paul Benson, of the Baltimore school system’s police department, said of the system’s security practices.

In comparison with Baltimore, the District spends more per student — $234 — which also tops the $137 per student for Philadelphia and $98 per student for Dallas. The Philadelphia school district spends $27 million annually to protect 197,000 students, while Dallas, with 163,000 students, spends $16 million. Neither school district contracts out security services.

“To use private security to provide day-to-day security functions is highly unusual,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the Ohio-based consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services. He said public school districts rarely rely solely on a private contractor for security.

He said most large urban school districts nationwide either employ their own security staff or fund a police department that operates within the school system.

“Most will have their own in-house security. When you have properly trained officers, they are a very valuable asset,” he said.

The per year security tab for the District’s 65,000 public school students is nearly three times as much as the $5.5 million that the Houston school district spends for its police force. That city has 211,000 students, said spokesman Norman Uhl.

The St. Louis school district, which the D.C. Board of Education visited last month to gain insight into management practices, spends $1.2 million per year, or $30 per student, to provide security for its 40,000 students, officials said.

Boston public schools, with 62,000 students, spend about $2.9 million annually to employ a security force that is under the school district’s jurisdiction.

“I can’t think of another district in the country that handles security the way the District of Columbia does,” Mr. Trump said.

“There are a number of security staffing concerns associated with a private contractor, including high turnover, low pay, low morale and limited training,” he said.

The D.C. school system is considering overhauling its security practices amid calls from Mayor Anthony A. Williams to give the Metropolitan Police Department oversight of school security.

Williams spokesman Tony Bullock last week called the school system’s security arrangement “somewhere between a joke and a charade.”

The school system contracted security services to District-based Watkins Security in the summer. The three-year, $45.6 million deal is under scrutiny by the D.C. Office of the Inspector General, and school officials say they may discontinue the contract.

Not all school districts comparable with the District are spending less for security services. The Cleveland school district spends $21 million, though it does not contract out services.

The future of the District’s school security services remains uncertain amid questions about the legality of the contract with Watkins Security and complaints about the company’s performance.

Security concerns surfaced after the Feb. 2 shooting death of James Richardson, 17, a student at Ballou High School in Southeast. Thomas Boykin, 18, who reportedly used a gun smuggled past school security guards, is being held without bail on charges related to the death.

Since the shooting, complaints about security in city schools have escalated. The principals at Wilson High School and Cardozo High School, both in Northwest, have told the D.C. Council that poorly performing security guards are not fired but recycled through reassignments to other schools.

Wendy Glenn-Flood, a PTA member at Eastern High School in Northeast, also testified last month that she recognized one guard as a former D.C. Jail inmate because she does outreach work at the facility. The school has been the site of a recent string of small fires.

Council member Adrian Fenty, Ward 4 Democrat, also has criticized the school system for failing to submit the security contract to the council for approval as required by city law.

The law mandates that the council must review all contracts worth at least $1 million. The school system has paid Watkins Security $12.4 million since the summer through seven short-term “letter contracts” without getting council approval.

D.C. school officials say they will decide by next month whether to retain Watkins Security, hire another contractor or turn over security to the Metropolitan Police Department.