ROBERT L. EHRLICH, JR., Governor

H.B. 740

Dear Mr. Speaker:

In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the Maryland Constitution, today I have
vetoed House Bill 740 - Safe Schools Reporting Act of 2004.

House Bill 740 requires the State Board of Education to require the county boards of
education to report incidents of harassment and intimidation. "Harassment and
intimidation" is defined as conduct on school property, including verbal conduct that:

"(1) creates ... a hostile educational environment by substantially interfering
with a student's benefits, opportunities, or performance, or with a student's physical
or psychological well-being and is:

(i) motivated by an actual or perceived personal characteristic such as
race, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion
or disability; or

(ii) threatening or seriously intimidating ...".

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) is tasked by the legislation
with creating a standard "victim of harassment or intimidation form", with certain
enumerated required information. Each county board must submit summaries of the
report forms to MSDE on or before January 31 of each year. Then, MSDE must
submit a report to the legislative committees summarizing the information from the
report forms filed with the county boards the previous year. This report is to include
a description of the harassing or intimidating act, the age of the victim and alleged
perpetrator, the allegation of the alleged perpetrator's motive, a description of the
investigation and any corrective action by school authorities, and the number of false
allegations reported. The bill is to take effect on July 1, 2004, and would remain
effective for four years.

Maintaining safe schools throughout Maryland is one of the highest priorities of my
Administration. In fact, MSDE has taken significant steps in recent years to reach
that goal. In 1999, MSDE promulgated a regulation in the interest of ensuring and
promoting an environment safe for learning. The regulation, COMAR 13A.01.04.03,
clearly establishes the State policy that "All students in Maryland's Public Schools ...
[have] the right to educational environments that are: A. Safe; B. Appropriate for
academic achievement; and C. Free from any form of harassment."

MSDE has taken significant actions to enforce this regulation. MSDE formed a
workgroup to examine strategies to assist the county boards in implementing this
regulation. The group is still meeting to discuss reporting and accountability models
and prevention programs. Moreover, MSDE currently requires that all incidents of
harassment resulting in suspension be reported to MSDE. This data is compiled in
MSDE's annual "Suspensions, Expulsions, and Health Related Exclusions Report".
Additionally, each county board has an annual safe schools action plan that has been
collected by MSDE since 2001. As part of the review of these plans, MSDE provides
technical assistance to the county boards related to national and local programs on
harassment prevention and response. The workgroup is evaluating this process and
may make recommendations to improve it. Simply stated, this bill duplicates existing
efforts.

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