Fairfax NAACP Asks Governor To Stop Funding Police In Schools

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Fairfax County NAACP and State Del. Kaye Kory (D) sent a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam Tuesday asking him to reallocate state funding away from supporting police officers in schools and putting it toward more school counselors.

Kory, who represents the 38th District in Fairfax County, and Sean Perryman, president of Fairfax County NAACP, signed a letter along with over a dozen other organizations asking Northam to defund the School Resource Officer program in the upcoming special session. They urged the governor to reallocate the $9.4 million in the Fiscal Year 2021 and FY 2022 budgets ($4.7 million per year) for K-12 mental health counselors.

"We have a unique opportunity in this health and economic crisis to remove law enforcement in our schools and to add mental health support in our schools," Kory and Perryman said, in a release. "We must replace SRO's with school counselors now."

The request comes amid ongoing protests across the country calling for racial justice, the end of police violence, and a push to reallocate funding away from police departments and into other programs.

"Data from school systems and universities across the country show that student suspensions, disciplinary actions and arrests have decreased by as much as 77% in schools with substantially limited SRO programs, such as the Suspending Kids to School program in Waco, Texas," Kay and Perryman said, in their letter. "Or the The Denver Public Schools limited and reoriented their SRO program using restorative justice strategies. Since instituting this approach, discipline referrals of African-American students fell to a 10 year low, Latino student referrals dropped by nearly 75%, and referrals of white students also decreased. The suspension rate decreased by 33% and the drop-out rate fell dramatically."

Initially, SROs were put in many schools as a response to concerns over school shootings.

"Generally, the data across the nation has shown that they don't prevent school shootings," Perryman said, in an interview with Patch. "And I don't think that will be a surprising to anyone if we think about pre-pandemic, we were hearing about school shootings multiple times a week sometimes."

While the the presence of SROs may not have led to a decrease in school shootings, Perryman said, the data shows an increase in arrests for Black, Latinx, and students with disabilities when SROs are present.

"We see when we introduce those officers into the school system, issues that would normally be handled as a behavioral or administrative issue, they then become criminal matters," he said. "So we're trying to prevent that."

Fairfax NAACP has been having ongoing conversations with both the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the School Board about police reform. Part of those discussions has been about removing SROs from county schools.

Perryman attended a recent meeting in Gum Springs with Lee District Supervisor Rodney Lusk, chairman of the the Board of Supervisor's Public Safety Committee. At the meeting, Lusk said he was open to the idea of removing SROs from schools, although the School Board would have to make the decision first.

"While we're confident that we'll get this done locally, this is a state issue as well as a national issue," Perryman said. "We were also leading advocates against putting SROs in elementary schools."

Fairfax NAACP was involved in the effort that led Fairfax County Public Schools and the Fairfax County Police Department in 2018 to update the memorandum of understanding, making it more restrictive in how SROs could act in schools.

"We saw a 60 percent reduction in arrests the first year and then a 40 percent reduction in arrests the second year since that changed," he said.

Kory reached out to Fairfax NAACP when she heard they supported the idea of taking SROs out of schools. Together, they assembled a coalition of stakeholders from around Virginia to sign on to their letter.

"The issue can be done on the jurisdiction level," Perryman said. "Local jurisdictions can end their agreements with SROs, but the governor and the state delegation have the ability to take the money that was budgeted for SROs and move it toward counseling."

Switching the funding toward counseling is a timely concern, according to Perryman, as many jurisdictions are facing the reality of beginning the upcoming school year with either partial or full online instruction.

"Obviously, kids are going to need help," he said. "They're going to be in deep crisis in a lot of ways, both from the pandemic and social unrest, families facing unemployment. There's a great need for counselors, so we're trying to make sure that need is met. It will be less of a need for SROs."

Also see ...

Fairfax NAACP Calls Herndon Chief's Remarks 'Inflammatory'

Fairfax Supervisors Prioritize Funding For Police Worn Cameras