Having voted to toss Arlington police out of school buildings last school year, Arlington Public Schools is about to unveil a new agreement with the police department that will guide the relationship going forward.
A draft of the proposed agreement is slated to be released Nov. 8, and after a 15-day public-comment period will go to School Board members for review in early December.
School Board members voted earlier to eliminate the school-resource-officer program, saying the benefits of removing officers outweighed the risks involved. Critics said the decision represented a case of progressive virtue-signaling that puts students in peril.
The School Board in neighboring Alexandria voted last school year to retain resource officers, only to be overruled by the City Council, which by a narrow majority voted to remove them. But after several high-profile incidents in that school system since the start of the 2021-22 school year, the resource officers were reinstated, at least temporarily.
The value of school-resource officers became an issue in the 2021 gubernatorial race, with Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin promising to cut off state funding to school districts that would not allow resource officers in schools.