School resource officers; local law-enforcement agencies to provide. (SB1240)

Introduced By

Sen. Creigh Deeds (D-Charlottesville)

Progress

Introduced
Passed Committee
Passed House
Passed Senate
Signed by Governor
Became Law

Description

School resource officers; local law-enforcement agencies to provide. Requires every school board throughout the Commonwealth to coordinate with the local law-enforcement agency to provide at least one school resource officer for every public elementary school within the district. The bill provides that funding for these school resource officers shall be provided through the general appropriation act and not by any locality or school board. Read the Bill »

Status

01/29/2013: Merged into SB940

History

DateAction
01/09/2013Presented and ordered printed
01/09/2013Presented and ordered printed 13103156D
01/09/2013Referred to Committee on Education and Health
01/17/2013Assigned Education sub: Public Education
01/24/2013Rereferred from Education and Health (15-Y 0-N) (see vote tally)
01/24/2013Rereferred to Finance
01/29/2013Incorporated by Finance (SB940-Stuart) (15-Y 0-N) (see vote tally)

Comments

ACLU-VA Students' Rights, tracking this bill in Photosynthesis, notes:

The ACLU of Virginia is monitoring this bill, which requires each local school board to establish a collaborative agreement with local law-enforcement agencies to employ one full-time uniformed school resource officer in every public elementary school in the local school division. The over-policing of schools is a serious problem in America. Many school police deal with relatively minor misbehaviors, like drawing on desks, outbursts in the classroom, or minor fights. These are school discipline matters, not police matters. Scaling up police presence in schools can have unintended consequences and can damage learning environments. We should not respond to the critical but complicated question of how to protect students by rushing to put police in schools without understanding the serious negative consequences they can have. Further, the impact of over-policing is especially harsh on youth of color. The damage caused by over-policing is too great to justify the allocation of new resources or the redirection of existing resources to station more police in schools. If police are stationed in schools, they must be responsible only for serious criminal law matters, not for matters that may be minor violations best handled by schools as discipline issues. School-based police must be adequately trained to work with youth, and there must be transparency in and accountability for their activities. Law enforcement intervention (including arrest, citation, summons, etc.) ought to be a last resort.