ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Alexandria City Public School Board voted Thursday evening to formally request an additional year of funding for School Resource Officers (SROs) from Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson and the Alexandria City Council.
The board is requesting funding to continue the SRO program through the 2022-2023 school year. SROs are currently funded through the city through June 30, 2022.
Since the start of the 2021-2022 school year, Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) has gone through a series of changes. School started in the fall without SROs and three months later that decision was reversed following requests from school leaders.
ACPS is currently in the process of establishing a School Law Enforcement Partnership (SLEP). Which will serve as an advisory group comprised of city and ACPS staff, students, parents, and other community members tasked with making a recommendation on the future of the SRO program and the school-law enforcement partnership.
"This will give the SLEP advisory group enough time to form, meet and make recommendations on the school-law enforcement partnership, to receive community and stakeholder input on the program, as well as allow our two elected bodies to make sound decisions on the future of the SRO program," the SRO funding request letter signed by Meagan L. Alderton, Chair of the Alexandria City School Board reads.
A recommendation from the SLEP advisory group is set to be made to the school board by December.
While some parents and students have concerns about having police officers inside schools, some parents are relieved to know SROs will be in place for another year.
“There was a student arrested with a loaded 9 mm, 20 feet from my daughter's classroom. So to say I'm a concerned parent would be putting it mildly, Jennifer Rohrbach an ACPS parent said.“ I'm hopeful that SROs will become a permanent fixture and I believe that if you look at the safety report that the school came out with recently that's the reason that they're being reinstated.”
According to a school safety data report released in early March, there were 18 arrests, 41 fights, and 13 weapons confiscated, including a gun and five knives over the first two quarters of the 2021-2022 school year.
"I don’t think we can necessarily make that correlation in terms of whether or not there was calls for service because of not having SROs, and I want to be very careful not to make that correlation," Dr. Alicia Hart, the Acting Chief of Facilities and Operations said.