diff --git a/OpenOversight/app/models/database.py b/OpenOversight/app/models/database.py
index 2924ac664..989fbcbd0 100644
--- a/OpenOversight/app/models/database.py
+++ b/OpenOversight/app/models/database.py
@@ -11,7 +11,13 @@
 from flask_login import UserMixin
 from flask_sqlalchemy import SQLAlchemy
 from sqlalchemy import CheckConstraint, UniqueConstraint, func
-from sqlalchemy.orm import DeclarativeMeta, declarative_mixin, declared_attr, validates
+from sqlalchemy.orm import (
+    DeclarativeBase,
+    MappedAsDataclass,
+    declarative_mixin,
+    declared_attr,
+    validates,
+)
 from sqlalchemy.sql import func as sql_func
 from werkzeug.security import check_password_hash, generate_password_hash
 
@@ -34,7 +40,10 @@
 
 db = SQLAlchemy()
 jwt = JsonWebToken(SIGNATURE_ALGORITHM)
-BaseModel: DeclarativeMeta = db.Model
+
+
+class BaseModel(MappedAsDataclass, DeclarativeBase):
+    """subclasses will be converted to dataclasses"""
 
 
 officer_links = db.Table(