Earlier this week, the Alexandria City Council overrode the objections of the School Board and voted to reallocate funding away from the school resource officer (SRO) program — eliminating the program.
SROs are police officers stationed inside T.C. Williams High School, Francis Hammond Middle School and George Washington Middle School and specialize in handling kids with emotional and education issues, search and seizure on school grounds, and school shooting situations. The program started in 1997.
The School Board voted last year to keep the SRO program, but the City’s defunding vote throws the School Board’s memorandum out the window.
Instead, the $800,000 in funding that had gone to SROs will go toward mental health resources for school aged children and Alexandria Police Department officers who had functioned as SROs will be reassigned. The city still, as City Council member Canek Aguirre noted, spends around $1 million annually on private security for the schools.
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