School resource officers; school board to coordinate with local law-enforcement agency to provide. (SB940)
Introduced By
Sen. Richard Stuart (R-Westmoreland) with support from co-patron 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, middle, and high 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: Failed to Pass in Committee
History
| Date | Action |
|---|---|
| 01/07/2013 | Prefiled and ordered printed; offered 01/09/13 13103170D |
| 01/07/2013 | Referred to Committee on Education and Health |
| 01/09/2013 | Assigned Education sub: Public Education |
| 01/15/2013 | Impact statement from DPB (SB940) |
| 01/17/2013 | Reported from Education and Health (15-Y 0-N) (see vote tally) |
| 01/17/2013 | Rereferred to Finance |
| 01/29/2013 | Committee substitute printed to Web only 13104646D-S1 |
| 01/29/2013 | Incorporates SB1240 |
| 01/29/2013 | Passed by indefinitely in Finance (12-Y 3-N) (see vote tally) |
Comments
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 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.