A Message from the Superintendent

November 8, 2024

Dear Anne Arundel County Public Schools Community:

As many of you are aware from news reports, there has been a spate of incidents across the nation in recent days in which young people have received racist, vulgar, and despicable text messages. Some of the messages reference slavery and assign recipients to a “slave group.” Others claim to have come from a “deportation group.”

One such news report about the incidents can be found here.

Sadly, young people here in Anne Arundel County, many of them our students, have been recipients of this hate. Without knowing or making any assumptions about the senders’ true intent, this much remains clear: The timing of the messages, in the wake of a close presidential election that has stirred anxiety across the nation for months, only adds to the trepidation and fear experienced by young people whose phones are suddenly and unwantedly littered with these messages.

I denounce everything about these messages and call on leaders of our county to do the same loudly and unequivocally. If our young people do not see us presenting a united front on this issue, they will draw from it a message that we cannot agree even on matters of basic human decency.

Local law enforcement agencies and the FBI are aware of these messages. We have been in touch with our county Police Department and the Maryland Center for School Safety, and will continue to collaborate with those and other agencies.

I urge anyone who receives a message to save it to their device and contact law enforcement immediately. However, and I cannot stress this enough, the messages should not be posted or shared to anyone but law enforcement without those direct instructions from law enforcement. Doing so only emboldens the cowards who are undertaking these acts.

As it relates to our school system, I met with all of our principals and senior leadership today and conveyed to them in no uncertain terms that we will not tolerate such behavior in our schools. In any case where we can apply consequences in accordance with our Code of Student Conduct, we will do so. There is no latitude. 

Principals have been asked to reinforce the updated cell phone guidelines with teachers and to convey the message that the guidelines should be enforced as designed. We are only allowing ourselves to be part of the problem by skirting the intent of these guidelines.

Our students live in a social media generation, but those who have received these messages are understandably afraid. After all, the messages have arrived from an unknown sender using a masked phone number and contain the name of the recipient.

Many of our students – whether they have received the message or not – have or will have a need to talk about their feelings in order to help themselves or a friend. I have asked principals to ensure that school counselors and other Student Services staff are updated on the issue and prepared to talk to students. Students should only need to ask any adult in their building to be directed to support resources.

Our school system has an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for all employees and I encourage any of our adults to utilize that resource should they need it. The EAP can be reached at 800-327-2251 and more information can be found at www.aacps.org/eap.

Finally, we need the help of our families to stop this scourge. Parents, guardians and others who are responsible for children should be monitoring their devices regularly. Please take the time to understand what is on their phone, who they are contacting, and when. This is far more than a school issue. We ask families to partner with us in taking a definitive stance against all forms of hatred and harassment and to speak to students in a way that conveys that you do not condone or accept this behavior.

Every single one of our children deserves the opportunity to grow up in a society where they feel they can belong, grow, and succeed. That’s the vision of our school system, but it should be something we all embrace.

Yours in Education,

Mark T. Bedell, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools