001Oh no, I'm very sorry. Thank you for being here. And I'm so glad that at least we were zooming in so you could zoom out a little while, hopefully, while you're waiting for us to get to this point in our evening. And so without delay, I will turn it over to Dr. Hutchings. We're talking about our ACPS, Alexandria Police Department, Memo of Understanding. Thank you, Madam Chair. And yes, we are talking about our Memorandum of Understanding with the Alexandria Police Department. And first, I just want to welcome Chief Dr. Michael Brown. And I want to just thank you for the partnership and the opportunity to be able to work and collaborate with you over the past three years or two years, going into year three for me. at this point. And this is a very
002important topic. You know, this is something that as the board, as you all know, we've already received some emails and things in regards to our MOU. This is a part of our process and making sure that within two years. that we are revisiting our MOU, making any necessary revisions, or determining if we are going to keep the Memorandum of Understanding. So today we're going to be able to talk through some of the changes that we're recommending to the board, as well as to provide not only the board, but also our community with some insight to really what our school resource officers, what they do within our schools, and how they are beneficial. or have been beneficial to us over the past several years. So I'm going to turn things over to Dr. Hart, who will
003introduce, I believe, our team to get started with this. So Dr. Hart. Good evening again, everyone. And so not to belabor the point, I'm going to turn it right over to Mr. John Contreras. He is the Director of Safety and Security Services. Thank you, Dr. Hart. Can everybody hear me okay? Yes. Okay, good. Good. Thank you very much. So, Chief Brown, thank you for sticking around. No introduction needed, obviously. I wanted to introduce the rest of the distinguished guests, though. We do have Captain Soriano on. We do have two SROs that are going to say a few words, hopefully later today. Officer Ladios is with us and Officer Aguera is also with us. So thank you all. Thank you all for being with us. I'm going to go through the slides briefly, but I'm going
004to be as detailed as possible. So thank you. Thank you for, thank you, Chair Anderson. Thank you, school board and Dr. Hutchings. Go ahead and go to slide two, if you would, for me. So actually, you can go skip to slide three now. Okay, thank you. As far as the timeline, the committee, along with the Alexandria Police Department, we conducted a paragraph-by-paragraph review of the memo, of the current memo. We ensured that state compliance... and address what we considered major flaws with the original memo, the 2018 version. We have had the community input period open since September 17th. We had our public hearing on October 1st, and we updated the memo based on comments, suggestions, emails, letters, and other items of recommendations. Next slide, please. Slide four. We will be highlighting some of the major
005changes in the MOU shortly, but the ultimate goal is to, that we kept in mind is providing a safe and secure environment for learning. I'll talk about this survey next. We did supply a survey for the community to respond to. We had 81 respondents. Of those 81 respondents, 69% select, select, I'm sorry, 31%. I'm going to drop down to the last line. 31% selected no revisions needed. 69% selected revisions needed. And of those, 40, 40 out of the 81 respondents mentioned some sort of removing SRO or police from schools. Next slide, please. We made several edits to the MOU. I will discuss or highlight some of them this evening. You're going to have a lot of questions. My hope is that I can close a few of the gaps so that the pieces start to
006make sense. The first section we're going to go over is the evaluation performance section, section three of the new memorandum. The evaluation or determination of success of our school law enforcement partnership is a huge topic right now, and I think it's received the most scrutiny and questions. I will start with this section and Section 3B in particular. One of the ways we're going to ensure proper reporting and the collection of data is the Administrator Law Enforcement Report Form, and that's found on Appendix. two of the edited version of the memorandum. And just to be clear, several handouts attached to the school board memo. We had the Virginia law enforcement memorandum of understanding citing the legal legislation. We had the Virginia Center for School Safety Definition. We had the 2020 community survey feedback. We had the
007current MOU, which is the 2018 version. We provided the edited new draft, and we included several climate surveys. I will discuss a little bit later. By collecting these forms, this will allow ACPS, I'm talking again about the Administrator Law Enforcement Report form. It will allow us to better analyze police actions that occur at our schools. This form is required anytime there is a police action at one of our schools. When a form is turned in, Safety and Security Services is prompted to review the event and conduct research into the event. This research will help guide our quarterly reviews, which are now going to be mandatory, and it will also guide our annual reporting to the school board. We are mandating that we have a quarterly review in August, November, February, and May of the school
008year. And of course, our annual reporting after school board review will be posted on our website. This form will also help with our BDOE reporting requirements as stated by school board policy CLA. It will cover some details. I will cover a little bit of the details of CLA on the next slide. You can go ahead and go to the next slide, please. The next section that I wanted to discuss is section four, roles and responsibilities. This is the SRO training that is discussed by the DCJS is now going to be explicitly stated that it is mandatory before that it must be completed prior to work and in a school assignment. This is a state or Commonwealth requirement and it is provided by DCJS. Safety and security will ensure compliance of this new requirement or updated
009requirement. We've also revised the memo to better align with school board policy. I'll explain a little bit about that with a couple of examples. The MOU is a guide and a school board policy is much more detailed and describes the required actions of departments. For example, I'm going to jump to policy CLA requires that acts of violence and substance abuse be reported to the principal. Section B of that CLA states that the superintendent and principal receive reports from law enforcement authorities under the prevention and intervention section of that school board policy. School board develops in cooperation with local law enforcement agencies. juvenile and domestic relations, court judges and personnel, parents, guardians, and the community at large programs to prevent violence and crime on school property and at school-sponsored events. And again, the purpose was, and
010always will be, to provide a safe environment conducive to learning. So we made sure that we specified and highlighted the sections of... school board policy that relate to the section of the MOU. Next slide, please. This one, section five, the operational procedures, I'll just go ahead and read it because it was very important to the committee. Prior to any questioning of a student, the SRO or police officer must verify that the student has had contact with their parent, guardian, or legal custodian. The previous version talked about contact with the parent, but made no indication as to what the requirement was. Now we are requiring that the school verify that the student has had contact with their parent. We hope to relieve the parent notification concern with this change and use of the Administrator Law Enforcement
011Report Form will help us do that. There is a section We're really not going to bring up the form on this slideshow, but there is a section that asks that question, whether the parent has been contacted. Next slide, please. So we wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what the SRO day is like. That's why we asked the SROs to be here, Officer Argueira and Officer Latios. So I'm going to go ahead and start alphabetically. Mr. Argueira, would you like to make a comment this evening? Yeah, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Yeah, so I pretty much wrote a little something here. I'd just like to start off by introducing myself. My name is Officer Gary Argueta. I'm the SRO at T.C. Williams High School, and I've been the SRO
012there for three years and an Alexandria police officer for five and a half years. First and foremost, I want to thank you guys for having me and letting me speak to you all today. tonight. Pretty much my day at TC Williams goes as follows. My mornings start off by arriving at the high school before the students begin to arrive. I usually always go to the cafeteria where I stand with an administrator and I greet students in the morning. Most of the time the students smile, they wave to me, they come up to me, they shake my hand, ask how I'm doing. Some of them are students involved in the soccer program that myself and Officer Lavrios have created, or students I've helped in the past. Once students go to their class to begin their school
013day, I go to my office and check my work emails. From there, I'm waiting for school lunch to start. During this period, I walk around the school, sometimes visit with... school social workers to see if they need anything. Sometimes I help the social workers by speaking to students who they've referred to me. These students are referred to me because they ask about the process on becoming a police officer or are interested in joining the soccer program or interested in the military. Before being a police officer, I was in the Air Force. Myself and Officer Larios, we help the International Academy when they have their new student orientation. It gives us an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the students and also their parents. Once it's lunchtime, you know, I go out to the cafeteria and usually
014stand with an administrator. I don't usually stay for the entire lunch, but I try to be out in the cafeteria for all four periods. During this lunchtime, students come up to me. They talk to me about their grades. They talk to me about soccer. They ask me advice, you know, how to get their license, what happens if this or that happens, if they don't have a license, and just simple life advice. I also take this lunchtime to locate the players that are on my team and just see how they're doing mentally, physically, see if they need any help with their schoolwork or anything that I can offer to them. I also go around the lunch period and see if there's possibly any new students who would like to join my soccer program. Once lunch is
015over, I go into my office and I get ready for dismissal. For dismissal, I stand outside with an administrator while the kids get on the bus and head home. My day does not end there. Twice a week, I have practice with the kids on the soccer team that myself and Officer Larios coach. This team was created by me and Officer Larios to address the needs that we saw that the kids in the International Academy needed. This program was created to give these kids a sense of belonging. and to encourage them to do well in school. The love of soccer, it brought us together. We started this program in the winter of 2017 with 20 kids, and to this day we have about 60 to 70 kids in our program. The name of our program is
016called Common Goals. Not only do the kids look forward to playing, but their parents enjoy coming to the game and watching them play. Our program is fully funded by the Alexandria Police Foundation, and with the help of the Alexandria Soccer Association, we were able to take 20-plus kids to a D.C. United game at no cost to them. Although most teams have tryouts and they cut players, we don't do that. We work with them, we motivate them, and we try to teach them skills that they will be able to use on the field as well as off the field. Last year, we were given $10,000 by the Congressional Sports for Charity Foundation through our soccer program. We were able to get a scholarship for one of our players who graduated last year in 2019, and he
017was a TCUF student. I would like to bring up the fact that I created another event called Kids vs. Cops, the Kids vs. Cops futsal tournament. This was an idea that came to me on the summer of my first year being an SRO. During the summer, I was working patrol and would talk to students who kept asking me to play soccer with them. This gave me the idea to create an event since I knew there were other officers in the department who loved to play soccer. I then teamed up with the Alexandria Soccer Association and we hosted the first ever Kids vs. Cops tournament in the futsal courts located behind the Moms in Chirilago. The event had many kids from TC who created their own teams and only one team created by the police department.
018And this event brought the community together as onlookers. They brought out their lawn chairs and were just taking pictures. Some of them weren't even related to the kids. It was just, it was a great community gathering. That happened in 2019. in 20, correction, that happened in 2018. In 2019, the tournament, it grew. It was even bigger. This soccer program has brought us a lot of positive attention and also led us to be in many articles, which include the Washington Post, the Gazette, Alexandria Times. We've been on Telemundo for a hero special they did. And this past summer, we were on Good Morning DC for a hometown hero special they did. in the city of Alexandria. This is just, there's many more other examples that I could think of, but these were what I could put
019together as a whole. And I mean, that sums up my day. If you guys have any questions, feel free. Thank you, Officer Aguero. I really appreciate that. Officer Latios, go ahead, sir. Hi, everyone. Good evening. School board and everyone listening. I wrote some stuff down, so I'll try to read as fast as I can because I know everyone's probably tired. I'll start with a little bit about me. My name is Johnny Larios. I'm 30 years old. Both my parents are from Mexico, but I was born in D.C. and raised in Fairfax County, where I attended now John Lewis High School. I graduated from ODU with a Bachelor's of Science in Criminal Justice and a minor in Political Science. Before I was an officer, though, I worked for the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, where I oversaw a
020program which provided scholarships across the country to Latino students who were exceptionally gifted in the STEM fields. It was a very rewarding time for me. That's when I knew not only did I have a passion for working with the youth, but that I was good at it. I've been a police officer five years with APD and have a privilege to be an SRO for three years at TC. And I can honestly say these past three years, I've not only been my best, my favorite, not just in my career, but in my life. And I contribute that to none other than the amazing connections I've made with the students and the staff at TC. So a little bit about my experience at TC. When I first started out, I could tell students didn't really know how
021to feel about me, which is understandable. But after time, they saw what kind of officer I am. And that's, I'm not the type of officer whose goal is to get people in trouble. There's not a day, not just in the school, but in my career that I thought, hey, how do I arrest? My daily thought at DC is how do I continue to keep this school safe? Nothing more. I find it hard to believe that a student has ever really had a bad experience with me. I believe it's possible some students have to like me based off of other reasons, but it's definitely not from any direct interaction with me. See, my goal is to protect the mental. Rather than searching for people to get in trouble, I spend my time walking the halls, speaking
022to kids who I've developed strong bonds with. They're telling me about their family problems, their school problems, their love problems. They're telling me about people they've lost, or they just need guidance in life. I also have kids who feel comfortable to cry with me. I could go into detail with their stories, but that's their story, not mine to tell. But when I tell you I have to constantly kick students out of my office, I'm not kidding. It's a good problem that I struggle with every day at DC. I can't even eat my lunch in peace without students constantly trying to come talk to me, which I'm okay with. I can't even walk down the hall either without students just bombarding us and trying to shake our hands to just catch up with us. That's my
023role as SRO, and that's what I do, and I love it. A few things regarding my role, though. I want to begin with student altercations. I very rarely, rarely have to get involved in altercation physical. It's because when I arrive, they either see me or I forget, and they stop. They do this one because, yeah, we're police, but also because these kids know me personally. They respect me. I can't tell you how many times students have told me they've stopped just based off seeing me. And this isn't out of fear, this is out of respect and friendship they're telling me. In regard to charging students with crimes, when a legitimate crime does occur in the school, I'm the last person who really wants to know. I know that often this does nothing to benefit the
024student. Instead, I try to speak to them, kind of get their mindset as to why they do these things, and see if I can help to root out the problem. I also make it a point to advise them what the consequences of their actions can be had they have been charged. I also want to clear up that I have zero role in any admin discipline that doesn't involve anything criminal or safety issue. Lastly, I wanted to speak on in regard to a major incident occurring. God forbid that occurs, but the two scenarios with or without us are very different. I can be anywhere in the school in under a minute. Having already advised all the officers in the city the exact location, how to get there, if anyone's been to D.C., you know it's a
025giant maze, and what the person looks like just based off my accessibility to cameras. The other scenario, and we have great officers on the street, but they don't know this place like I do. They have no idea what first floor C corridor means on a 911. And I don't want to put a timeline on street officers, but nobody on the street is faster than me in the school. And I don't think I need to explain why seconds matter in those situations. In closing, I just want to say that I love this school and everything about it. Whether you decide to keep me and us there or not, I'll forever be a Titan. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Officer Lyons. I really appreciate that. Chair Anderson, I want to relinquish some of my time
026also. We asked the secondary principals to be available and I will go through each one of them. I think they're all still here to see if they wanted to say anything. I'll start with Ms. Peters. Did you want to say anything this evening, Ms. Peters? Well, actually, I believe the three of us would like to speak, but Mr. Ballas will speak first. Thank you, Brett. Good morning. Good evening, everybody. I'm going to get right to it. I'm on my third outfit change of this meeting, so I'm all ready to go. So for those viewing and I'll do a proper introduction. Good evening. My name is Peter Ballas, principal of T.C. Williams High School. I'm glad to be here with my middle school principal colleagues tonight, Pierrette Peters and Jesse Mazur, to provide you with a
027principal's perspective on school resource officers. Our comments tonight reflect views and comments of the whole secondary principal group as we ask for their input as well. I'd like to first acknowledge the commentary that has been offered to you so far on this topic, especially from our students. With that said, I'd also like to say that when you have as many students as we do in our buildings, it's inevitable that there's going to be all differing experiences and opinions and that every student's experience is unique. As a principal, I look at our SROs and our partnership with the Alexandria Police Department as vital resources that have many benefits for our school, our staff, and our students. First and foremost is school safety. One of the unfortunate realities in our country is around school violence, and having
028the SROs on site for any possible event by an external or internal threat is paramount to our safety. their proximity and ability to respond to or even prevent any event could result in saved lives. In addition, while we may not all like to hear it, I'd like to make sure that we all remember that crimes do happen in school, in all schools. Sometimes these student mistakes and judgment do require law enforcement, and we're lucky to have officers who are trained and, as you can see, frankly good at working with teens. It's not something everyone is good at or it's not something everyone wants to do. But while some may think that the SROs are just the arresting agents and that's what they spend the bulk of their day doing, I'd like to also remind you
029that the SROs spend a majority of their time working with victims of crime who are also our students. Our SROs are in no way walking the hallways trying to sniff out possible crimes that they can arrest kids for. In fact, the SROs... Get involved only when building leadership contacts them if they're needed. I collaborate with the SROs and ensure that we look at all possible remedies other than arrests or charges, just like Officer Lario said. And please know that the charges are not always sought by the school or automatically applied. Arrests and charges also happen when one student or family would like to pursue pressing charges against another student, such as in assaults or thefts. And even in these types of situations, we're able to work with the trained SROs rather than invite any officer
030who may be close by on patrol to respond. I'd like to also clarify some information that Officer Lario started to clarify. Our school processes around discipline and for conducting investigations into any incidents or claims that we only involve SROs if there is suspicion of a crime. The SROs are never involved in school disciplinary issues, in suspensions, or any of the decision-making process around student consequences. They have no say in suspensions, and they do not advise school administration on any of those decisions. And to claim that suspension data is directly related to and negatively impacted by the SROs is simply false. School discipline is not their job and they don't get involved in those decision-making processes. And finally, I hope you could see from Officer Larios and Argueta in their comments that they have a positive
031impact on students and school culture. Students often are seeking out the SROs so much so that we had to put a sign on their door to their office that students can only enter with an administrator's pass. In ACPS, we want all students to have that connection with a special adult. For many of TC, these safe adults are Officer Larios, Officer Argueta, and the other SROs. They've gone above and beyond in their roles connecting with students and providing positive experiences for them. Now I'd like to turn it over to Jesse Mazur. Thank you, Pete, and good evening, everyone. My name is Jesse Mazur. I'm the principal of... George Washington Middle School and I'm glad to have the opportunity to speak to the great work of the APD assigned SROs. In my humble opinion, the role of
032the SROs in our school exemplifies community policing at its finest. The establishment, the development of positive relationships among GW students and staff, it speaks to the power of relational connectedness. and getting to know one another, strong communication, and trust, which defines the social good that SROs seek out in service of their badge and uniform while in our schools. And they're members of our community, and the students and the staff see them as such. We cannot ignore the rightful indignation surrounding bad actors with a badge. The turmoil around abuse of racist policing is taking its rightful place as communities engage in rich and meaningful conversations around policing. In fact, we now recognize a history of abuse brought to light by cell phone cameras, dash cams, and other means of witnessing abuse in power. And we all
033recognize that this abuse of power must come to an immediate end. With the role of the SROs performing good acts in our schools, while it's not going to change the narrative, I think it is important to note that the presence and the role of the SRO in our schools is taking a positive step in changing the way police officers are viewed, seen, and perceived by our young people on a regular basis. So a great deal has been made about the school-to-prison pipeline and having worked in schools for nearly 20 years. I'm fairly certain that this... troubling phenomenon does not begin with the first point of contact occurring within our schools or within SRO. Sadly, the school-to-prison pipeline reflects a very complex sociological web that in many respects is a function of our failings as a
034society to address poverty, unmet needs, unmet health needs, lack of access to basic resources, including food, shelter, health. The school resource officer is not a catalyst to this insidious social occurrence, nor are they responsible for the disproportionality of suspensions of students of color. In fact, to this point, as Pete made, SROs play no role, absolutely no role in how discipline is administered at GW. Our SROs on our campuses help and support students and families. In fact, criminal acts that occur in the community. are often left in the community and brought into the schoolhouse because students trust our SROs. And they see our SROs as trusted people. This happens frequently. And it's a testament to the relationships that exist between our SROs and our school communities. Allow me to make just one last point. Some of
035you may know I'm from the city of Milwaukee. And unfortunately, Milwaukee is a city that is a Rust Belt city. is plagued by poverty and a very dim economic future for many of his residents. And I ran one of the tougher high schools in the city, if not the state, if not the country. And we didn't have an SRO assigned to the building. However, this in no way impacted the volume of calls to the police. And it in no way impacted, unfortunately, the high number of arrests that, again, were a function of larger social ills. When something occurs in a building that requires the presence or action of an officer, an officer will report to the scene. In my opinion, when that officer is not a stranger, but rather a known individual, the situation very
036often has a different outcome. Not all the time, but very often a much different outcome. So thank you and Ms. Peters. Thank you, Jesse. And so I do have to, again, reiterate the statements of my colleagues that school resource officers are not engaged in disciplinary procedures. The guidelines regarding administrative disciplinary procedures are thoroughly outlined in the ACPS Student Code of Conduct. And while the majority of disciplinary infractions are handled by school administrators, it is important to reiterate that sometimes crime does occur in schools. And so I do have to stress that this statement does not imply that our schools are not safe. Our schools are very safe. Our schools are safe because of the numerous collaborative efforts that occur, not only within ACPS, but because of the collaboration and partnership with Alexandria, with the Alexandria
037Police Department. And so as a school district, we have done a lot of great work moving from a punitive approach to a more restorative approach. And so in addition, our district has made an ongoing effort to social and emotional learning, not only before Virtual Plus, but during Virtual Plus, through advisory lessons, school counseling groups, restorative practices, community services, SEAL time, I mean, community circles, SEAL time, and involvement in classroom lessons. And so as an administrator, I've had an opportunity to work with many amazing SROs, not only at TCMGW, but also my very own Officer Leak at Hammond, and have been able to witness the work of SROs that is truly community policing. I've witnessed them build strong relationships, become mentors, and then also become trusted figures in our school environment. And it's important to note
038that their trusted representation and their positive representation of the SRO in our school buildings and in our school communities is integral in creating a safe and secure school community within our schools. Now, the last point that I would like to make is that in addition to creating a safe and secure school environment. Our SROs are integrally involved in the co-development of our school safety and management plan, our crisis management plans that help us develop the overall assessment and maintaining our safe and secure environment in collaboration with our school resource officers. And so it's greater than just discipline. It's greater than just, you know, creating a school, a safe. school environment. It is definitely about community policing. It's definitely about building strong relationships with our students and our families and our school community. Thank you, Ms.
039Peters. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I think that's everyone that we wanted, that we had to hear from before we moved on to the Q&A. But Susan, can you put slide nine up for me really quick if you're there? Yeah, I just wanted to go over slide nine real quick. The next slide. Yeah, there you go. So before we get into the Q&A, I just wanted to provide some context because I know there's been some, and the principals already clarified a lot of it as far as what discipline looks like in the schools. I just wanted to say that the MOU is not a contract. You've heard that term before. Some people assume that if the MOU goes away, that SROs go away or that sort of thing. It doesn't really work that
040way. It's a guide. The MOU is serving as a guide for law enforcement and the school relationship. And someone had already mentioned, even without an MOU, police will still be called to respond to ACPS. So just keep that in mind because crimes will still occur in and around schools. Investigations can also clear a student of wrongdoing. I think Officer Ladeo said it best. And what I interpreted, what he was saying was discretion. He likes to use discretion. Officers use discretion all the time. They don't have to go and arrest somebody every time there's a legal offense. occurring. They use their discretion. They work with administrators. They make sure that there is discretion there. So it's not always to target a crime. Also, schools are vulnerable targets. I don't have to really go into detail about
041that. It's not as vulnerable maybe as a mall or a church because those are wide open facilities. That's the context of that statement there. And then also recent favorable climate surveys. The reason I put that in there was because the difference between the 2018 high school survey and the 2020 high school survey, the favorability for the question, the SRO makes me feel safer. It was 56% in 2018 and it went up to 68% in 2020. That's my interpretation as a favorable climate survey. So with that said, it's Chair Anderson and Dr. Hutchings, the floor is open for questions. Great. Thank you. That was very enlightening. Thank you, everybody, for sticking with us until this time at night to discuss this. I have Ms. Gentry up first. Yes, thank you very much for sticking around and
042for everything that you all have been doing over the years. I've been following some of the work you've all been doing. I've also... been to evening presentations sometimes where SROs have given presentations to families. And I've seen how they've been able to reassure sometimes families that were, you know, feeling anxiety about things. You know, it's been interesting. We've, even before this year, we've heard, you know, certain members of the community raising concerns about this. And certainly this is something that, you know, is a nationwide issue. And that is, I think, important for every community to really look into. And so, you know, we've, many of my fellow school board members and I have had an opportunity to, you know, speak to members of the community about this. And one of the things that I was
043really trying to do as I was, you know, considering, you know, this was try to find out if, you know, I was trying to seek out if people really did have examples of something where an SRO really, there was an inappropriate instance or there was an instance of a really heavy hand. And I tried in different ways to kind of poke around at that. And I really wasn't able to come up with a particular example. The only thing that I did hear a few you know, students or former students shared with me was that they could think of instances in which in a classroom setting, there was maybe a moment where there was, you know, a verbal altercation or, you know, of some kind with it between a teacher and a student. And the teacher
044sought out the SRO. And in the opinion of some of the other students, it felt like overkill. It felt like, you know, and we've, interestingly, we've had discussions over the years when we've looked at data about school discipline. And there's that very, very hazy category that goes in with the discipline, which is disrespectful behavior, right? And that seems to be the area where we're... we and other divisions struggle sometimes, right? When there's a clear infraction, there's a clear infraction. And usually there's not much debate about that. So what that kind of led me to think is that maybe this is less about the actual wording of the MOU and really being. Just abundantly clear about the implementation. And in this sense, it's less about the SRO because it's not the SRO is, you know, in
045the instance that I gave is minding their own business and they're being called by a teacher to come in and. get involved in what is potentially a fairly minor infraction. And so when I look at slide six, one of the things that I'm thinking about when I'm seeing, I'm talking, I'm seeing the training for, you know, the SROs and the training for the principals, I'm wondering if one of the things we can consider is extending that training also to the deans at our secondary schools, which, you know, and I just, and also maybe not the same level, but I just think we need some greater clarity and fidelity across the board of expectations for the teachers about when is, you know, understanding that there will be times when you need support in your classroom in
046handling a situation with a student. When is it that you should be seeking help from your school colleagues versus the vanishingly small instances when you should be going to an SRO? So when I look at the language, that's really kind of the thing that I want to see that we put a focus on. And then the only other thing that I would mention is, you know, I think there have been a lot of really great changes here. And I think there are changes that I hope that the public would see as a really good measure of the commitment of everyone to really make sure that this is a positive relationship that we, that school, that our... kids in our schools do feel safe having SROs. And one of the things that I thought could help
047with that is while legally by the state, we are required to review this every two years, I'd like to suggest that in this instance, as we're making these quite a few edits and revisions right here, if we could consider making a commitment to go ahead and review this in one year. It would give us a chance to actually see how well the data collecting is working. And if there are, you know, feedback from people on how some of the changes are working. So those are my two points. Again, I want to really thank everyone that stuck around to share your stories, both the SROs and our principals. Thank you. Yes, thank you. And now I see that Chief Brown has his hand raised, and I realize we did not hear from him. We talked about
048his staying around all the time, but we didn't hear from him. So, Chief Brown? Thank you, Madam Chair. And by the way, I'm not the star of this show. It's folks like Johnny and Gary. They do a remarkable job with the SRO program. A little bit of history, at least in my short time as Chief. The last iteration of the MOU before this that was not specifically clear in terms of the involvement of our officers and administrative activities. And as a result, there was a tendency in some cases for us to be telling people they can't wear a hat or some of the other kind of things. Man, I heard that from the SROs. They didn't feel comfortable doing it either. And so we took this MOU and we basically made it a little bit
049better. And we should always continually make it better. And I believe Mrs. Gentry is absolutely on point. We should be looking at this thing on a regular basis. While I was waiting, I did a little research in response to a letter that was given to me from Kanika Geary, our councilman. And one of the issues he brought up is the research that's in the school resource officers area. A little bit of history on that. And this kind of is in my realm of academic experience. A lot of the stuff that you're talking about in terms of the development of these kids is in delinquency research that was conducted going back as far as the 1930s with the Chicago Project. And in many cases, that was a longitudinal study that allowed for some assessment of not
050just criminal behavior, but delinquent behavior that led to ultimately some criminal. cases in some point. And it speaks to what a number of you were talking about, the other social economic issues that are present as factors in trying to see kids through it. So it's not necessarily a school to prison pipeline. There's a lot of other factors that are in there. As to school resource officers, they really emerged in this business in the 1990s after the passage of the Clinton crime bill. That's when they were buying 100,000 new cops. And they decided that they wanted them to do different things, including beefing them up in the schools. And since that time, there's been a, it's popped up in the security piece and everything else. And I've seen the evolution of the school resource officers. What's
051interesting is the research is very thin. Many of the early research that was done in the 90s, quite frankly, was case studies. There's one study that was sponsored by the National Criminal Justice Services, which involved 19 departments. None of them generalized to us. I've looked at the departments. They don't look anything like we do or our school districts. There was an awful lot of survey stuff involving Likert scales and everything else. And of course, retrospective data sets, which they coded to try and fit whatever they were trying to address. And quite frankly, they were pretty weak. Probably the best study that came out was just released this year. It was an NIJ sponsored study. It was a mixed method study. And they were talking about looking at not only what is responsive to the kids.
052but also what's responsible to the school. And interestingly enough, the big recommendations they made out of that was, number one, the officers should not be engaged in administrative discipline and should only be involved in criminal cases. Ta-da, we're one step ahead of that. And then the other piece is the officers shouldn't be trained. And in this state, in order to be an SRO, you have to be certified by the Department of Criminal Justice Services going through their training, which, by the way, is a training for SRO and school administrators. And it's a great program to get whoever needs to be in there from the school so they can understand how that relationship is supposed to work as best as it can. But the people that really make this happen, in my view, are people like
053Johnny and Gary, because they're out there with these kids. I've seen the relationship occasionally. I don't get to see it every day, but I've seen them work with these kids. I see these guys are like magnets. These kids come up and they want to hang with them. And, you know, that takes a special person to do that. And let me also add one other thing. I get asked this a lot since this whole discussion about the SROs in the school. If we have a crime and we don't have an SRO, you're going to get an officer from the beat. And the officer from the beat may not be as skilled as these gentlemen and their colleagues are in terms of how to work in that school environment. We had a complaint against one of our
054officers who was called to one of the elementary schools. And he just didn't do it right because he didn't ask the right questions. No one got killed in the process. We saw it as a teachable moment. But that happens because they're not out there with these young people and they just are coming to take the report. If I'm in the area, I may take a take a respond and take a report. And that should frighten all of you. The bottom line is. This is a great program. And for us, it establishes a relationship with young people. And more importantly, it gives us an opportunity to show that we're good people and we're people too. And we're not just people wearing a badge and toting a gun. And that is the essence, as many of you
055have said, is community policing. And if we can put that on there, that'll establish the relationships in the school environment that could last for generations. I thank you for the opportunity to let Neri and Johnny talk about their day. I thank you for the opportunity to chat a little bit about the history of this program and give me an opportunity to echo what your principals have said. I think this is a good program and I think it needs to stay. Any questions, I'll be happy to respond to. Okay, next up I have Dr. V. Right. Well, thank you, Mr. Contreras and Chief Brown and the officers from the APD who came to share about your experience. I really, it was very valuable to hear from you and I really appreciate you for being here. And
056I just want to say that, you know, none of the comments that I'm going to make right now this evening are meant as an assessment of any particular individual or anybody's character. This is really. You know, I see us being here to talk about policy and our institutional practices and how we decide to allocate our resources as a city and a school division. And I do appreciate the information that's been shared with us. And I appreciate the edits that have been made to the MOU. I think the challenge for me is that the data that we've received, it doesn't really adequately document what the SROs are doing. And, you know, our community is asking us for greater accountability and transparency. And as you mentioned, 40 of the 81 respondents to the survey, you know, even
057said we should end the program. And as you also mentioned, we're getting letters from some of our city council members who are asking us to really reevaluate this partnership. So, you know, so I really feel a responsibility to do that. And, you know, what the data tells me, the data that was presented to us is that there's not a lot of crime in our schools to the point that's been made. I've heard a lot about how SROs are not involved in discipline, and I'm very happy to hear that. I look at that data because that's what the model MOU from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice is. It's one of the data points they tell us to look at. So I'm looking at it, and I see that suspensions disproportionately affect black students in our
058school division. And that is a problem. Whoever's responsible for that, that is a problem that we have got to correct in this school division. And the school climate survey, which I just want to point out, only sampled 100 students because we did the random sample. But, you know, a couple things stood out to me about that. One was that almost 50% of students do not think consequences are the same for all students. Over a third said students are not treated fairly, regardless of race. And a quarter said that SROs do not make them feel safer at school. So there was a point when Mr. Contreras was talking about discretion. And that's a gray area that I'm very concerned about because when it comes time to issue, whether it's a suspension or a criminal charge, you
059know, how is that discretion being applied? And, you know, we... Any way we can make sure that this is a fair process is something I would like to see us incorporate into this MOU if we're going to continue it. But, you know, my takeaway is that I don't believe our schools are dangerous places or that we need police in our schools to maintain safety. You know, the SRR program, it is costing the city approximately $850,000 a year. One of the questions, the thoughts that I keep coming back to is, you know, we have 44 school security officers that, you know, we are paying for out of the ACPS budget. And I think if the school security officers are, you know, receiving proper training and supervision and are being carefully selected, as you've presented that the
060SROs are, I feel like they should be able to maintain a safe environment in our schools. And then just kind of lastly, there was one of the survey comments, you know, I read through all the survey comments that we received and one that that stood out to me, I just wanted to read it. It said, we must also admit that for many children, the mere presence of uniformed officers is a stressful and sometimes traumatic experience. Many children have now seen frequently over the last year, uniformed officers brutally assault unarmed Americans, often people of color. through the media. It may take years or longer to repair this loss of trust and credibility in police across America. We cannot reasonably expect an armed officer to make all of our students feel safe. In fact, some will fear
061for their immediate physical safety in life. And this does not foster a good learning environment. And, you know, I know that that's, again, this is not an assessment of any particular individuals, but like this is the reality of the climate that we're living in. And we've been talking about it. We, as a school board, our school division, we talk about this dual pandemic that we're experiencing. And we have this strategic plan that lays out, you know, centering racial equity that prioritizes trauma-informed care and removing barriers to learning. And so I'm thinking, you know, the question that I basically have is, how are these values and goals reflected in this review process of this MOU and the SRO program? Because I don't feel like it's been very explicit. and I don't think it's reflected in the
062written record. So those are some of my thoughts. I mean, my thinking would be, you know, let this MOU expire. Like the students, secondary students aren't even in the building right now. We are talking about doing a policy equity edit. It's one of our focus areas this year. I think we need a policy on SROs, which we don't have. And then this MOU should be aligned. with our policy. I know we have a number of policies that actually touch on, you know, might mention SROs in them, but we really don't have a policy that empowers the superintendent to, you know, enter into the agreement. So those are my thoughts. And I'd really like to understand, Mr. Contreras, if there was, if the strategic plan, some of those goals that I talked about, if they were
063a part of this review process. Thank you, Dr. Reif. That's a very good question. We did not, it did not come up very often. The equity discussion did come up a lot, but going through the strategic plan section by section to see where we could address it in the MOU did not come up. I do want to say, though, that The MOU mentions the areas or tools that are going to be used to collect information, and we're going to get better at it. We're kind of in the process of developing a new process for measuring the performance of the MOU and the SRO in general. So we are going to continue to engage with law enforcement, our partners, going forward, and we will, the hope is to continue to address any equity concerns that do
064come up. while maintaining safety with this. Dr. Hutchings, I see you have your hand up. Yeah, so one thing I just wanted to just to add on to what what Dr. Reif had just mentioned, I do believe that it is, excuse me, that it is important for us to really identify what our data sources are going to be. Because the point that Dr. Reif that you made was that and Ms. Thornton, she made this point at our last session, you know, we don't have the data to really determine whether it is working or it's not working. I think it can go both ways. And I really do think that we have the anecdotal information from the stories and the conversations and things that we have, but we just need to be maybe more intentional in
065identifying what is the actual data source or data collection that is going to occur? What period of time will that occur? And then then we can actually have a true analysis of whether we believe, you know, this partnership is giving us what we're desiring to have. Out of the discussions that we've had, you know, over the past couple of years, you know, I know Chief Brown and I have had, our goal really has been to build relationships, you know, to have our SROs, you know, in our... It's really trying to change the narrative of what policing is. You know, everybody right now is hearing the stories about policing, which is real. So I'm not negating policing. It's real, right? It truly does happen. And, but what we're trying to do, I believe, is trying to
066really change that narrative so that police officers. can become those who protect and serve, not those who come in and police, not those who come in and are providing inequities within our buildings. I also think another point that Dr. Reif had brought up and also Ms. Gentry in regards to our discipline, I do believe that we're gonna have to internally start looking at our discipline data. you know, because that is separate from it. I said this at our last meeting before. That's an issue that I also share, that it's really about the referrals that are being written and what's happening in our classrooms. And SROs have absolutely nothing to do with at that point. That's like an internal problem that we definitely need to address, you know, sooner than later. And I believe that it
067will be through our strategic planning process or plan. So I just wanted to make those points that I wanted to validate that we don't have the actual data points now to support, other than the anecdotal data that we just shared, to support if we are achieving the goal that we've set in having SROs in our buildings. I recommend and I hope that we can identify what are those actual data points around the relationship piece so that we can be very explicit. So we're now monitoring what's going on and not just having to react and respond, you know, to what the community is saying or what the nation is doing right now, that we can actually have our own internal data points. Great. Next up, I have Ms. Lorber. Thank you, Chair Anderson. Thank you, Chief
068Brown, and to the two officers, Officer Hilario and Officer Agueta. Your presentations were really moving and compelling, and I think I go along with Dr. Reif in saying my personal feelings and assessments of the program have nothing to do with you, because clearly, if every I think you both belong in a high school doing something, working as, you know, perhaps I'd rather see you as a counselor. I have a feeling about guns in schools. I have a feeling about, first, I want to just say simply that mostly everything Dr. Reeve said, I agree with. So I'll just give a few little. complementary comments. One of the things that has troubled me for years, I worked inside the school system for nine years. And when we brought in the SRO program at the high school, suddenly
069we have police cars everywhere. And I have to say, I do buy in to some degree to the suggestion that for some people, Just seeing police cars kind of gets their heart rate up. I'm one of those people, and I never break the law. But the minute I see a police car, all of a sudden, I'm kind of like, oh, have I done something? And that speaks to the need for community policing. I am a strong proponent of community policing. And I almost feel like the $800,000 that we're spending on the SRO program would be better spent on... more training of all of our police on cultural competency, on working, you know, there are any number of community police programs that train police to deal with all kinds of different situations. So for example, I
070keep forgetting what your title is, Mr. Brown. Captain? No. Chief. Anyway, like Mr. Brown. When you were saying it's better for us to have someone like Mr. Larson, Mr. Argueta solve the problem in the school, because if another officer came in, they wouldn't be so well trained. But the fact of the matter is all of the officers in the city, especially in Alexandria, should be. absolutely capable of doing this. Am I taking too long? I guess I'm going on. No, you were frozen. Your voice was... I will just skip to... But now, then it's working even though you're... I would just say, okay, can you hear me now or not? Yes, we can. Am I frozen? Nope, video and audio. So I would just say, are frozen? No, no, they're both working. Everything's okay. All
071right. Oh, okay. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to say, I can provide a story just as compelling on the in the opposite direction of several years ago in 2006 and seven when I was in the school system, the SRO at George Washington Middle School was was not someone who I thought should be in the middle school, they people didn't certain people felt very comfortable with that officer and certain people didn't feel that. And so in some ways, this is sort of an anecdotal approach, and there's no guarantee that everyone's going to feel comfortable with a particular SRO. I mean, you two are outstanding. As I said, love you in any school. But finally, getting down to specifics, one of the things in the MOU that it talked about was that the unique role that
072the SRO could play in limiting referrals to the court system. And so I think if we were to do an evaluation, that was the other thing in our first work session when we brought this up, I asked, well, where is the evaluation data? And I think we've all discussed the fact that it isn't there. But I think if and when we do an evaluation, we really need to look at What is it making a difference? Do fewer, because our biggest concern is that students getting referred to the court system for minor offenses. And then that's the beginning of a long. relationship with the court system. And if anything, I think the most important role an SRO could have would be to run interference in that line and make sure that students are not getting sent
073into the court system when in fact mediation, other things can be done to prevent that. Anyway, I'll stop because I know other people have comments. Actually, I remember hearing, meeting with Chief Brown and that there's a lot that's done about, I don't know if you want to mention that about not trying to keep people out of the court system, because I thought that was really interesting and exciting what you had. Well, you know, in 2017, we adopted the 21st century policing approach, and you're welcome to take a look at the plan. It's posted on our website. We're going to have an update here shortly. And a good part of that is to do just exactly what you're suggesting in terms of diversion. The other part of it is it's not some of it we can't
074do because depending on the nature of the crime, the way the statutes are written, we have no discretion whatsoever. What I will tell you is in some cases we have data that's disproportionate too. And the superintendent's absolutely correct. We can't be held accountable for the disciplinary actions of ACPS. We can be held accountable for what we end up doing in terms of an arrest. In fact, we pick up on that all the time. And one of the things we're doing is we're doing deep dives in our data right now in our arrest data. And we hope to have within a week or so, I'm hoping to get something published that will explain some of that. And an interesting point, we have a disproportionate amount of arrests involving African-Americans and Latinos, mostly for petty larceny, mostly
075at two commercial locations in the city. So we went out and talked to them and said, hey, do you realize that you happen to be arresting more Latinos and African Americans? They had no clue. They were just doing their loss prevention strategy. So we have gone through and we are very interested in the whole issue of trying to have equity. We've been working in the city set up a work group three years ago and we put ourselves in as a demonstration organization. I think the thing that's frustrating for myself and other police officers, especially when they're doing a great job like Gary and Johnny and the rest of them, is when people put together a narrative that puts all cops being bad cops. And that's how it gets taken, to be frank. And we don't
076get credit for the good work that we do. For example, we've had since June our frequently asked questions on our webpage in response to the questions we were getting following the killing of George Floyd. And when we first did it, we had a lot of hits on that webpage, on those FAQs. And the questions went away. In the last six weeks we've had, it's trickled down to nothing. So either everyone's well-educated on APD or they just don't care anymore. The biggest fear that I have, I've done this now four times in my career. October 1 was 45 years of hanging around cops. And I told political leaders and community leaders, and I'll say the same thing to you. I don't want these young men and women in policing to have to go through it again.
077And it takes some political courage to fix it. And we need to fix it. And it's deep. It's not just the cops. I could give you countless things of where the system is set up. and the social economic issues that take place, the cop gets the 911 call, they roll in, they get the number, and we have to try and explain it. It's sad. You got two officers here that give a lot of their own time for these kids. And they and their colleagues like them. I can give you another 10. If you give me a second, I'll list them too, who do it on their own too. We do a huge community outreach program. We have 107 civic associations in this city. We have somebody assigned to everyone and they meet with them at
078least once every other month or more frequently if they ask. I get to see all the reports. I mean, you can go on and on and on. This is a very good department and I've seen my share of good ones and I've seen my share of bad ones. My frustration in all this, we will respect whatever decision the board wants to make. It's your operation. It's your business. If you don't want us there, we understand it. But I don't want to get into a situation where we're starting to take narrative over the actual facts of the people who are doing this job for you. It doesn't cost you anything. It costs the police department. We fund this program, not the ACPS. And if you don't want us in there, I can use these assets somewhere
079else. But you lose Johnny, you lose Gary, the other three officers, and the sergeant. Your call. That's my fear. I just don't want people rushing to judgment on this stuff. And I don't want these officers caught up in the narrative because that's not fair to them. And I'll take any questions you may want to have. Okay, we still have a list of hands raised. Next is Ms. Thornton. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you sincerely to all the officers that made the time to come out tonight, including Chief Brown. I really appreciated your comments. I am a strong advocate and proponent of community policing. I understand the importance of having, especially youth, feel comfortable with understanding the role of police officers in their community and reducing the fear that has historically plagued many marginalized communities with
080law enforcement. So I appreciate that. And I do enjoy hearing about the soccer program that officers Larios and Argueta have started at TC and the involvement of the International Academy in that. I was a part of a protest a couple of months ago this summer where there were two APD officers leading chants with our TC students. So I acknowledge all of that and I appreciate it. I do wonder, however, you know, Does that involvement, you know, necessitate a daily police presence in our schools, though? Because I think we can have those same types of involvements and you have a very strong community outreach program. So I think those types of activities could and should continue, you know, regardless of this MOU. And, you know, I think this. This is an opportune time for us to
081be having these conversations because as Dr. Reeves said earlier, you know, this is not anything exclusive to particular officers or even to the Alexandria Police Department, but this is a policy discussion and allocation of resources discussion. And I think for me, Dr. Hutchings mentioned this earlier. You know, data isn't everything, but when it comes to issues like this, the data doesn't matter. And for me, you know, my first question is, like, why? Like, why do we require a daily presence of officers in our schools? Is it because our schools are high crime areas where the response time is just too long that we can't wait and we must have an officer present? Do we have a lot of, like, incidents that are imminent threats to our students? Those types of questions are, you know, we
082don't have the answers to any of those right now. And so really, it's just like a tradition in my mind. We've had SRO since 1997. And we're going to keep the program because that's what we're comfortable with and what we know. And I'm a policy wonk. So I always like to kind of know the origins of why programs start and how policies are instituted. And when you look at the fact that this program was created in 1997. right in the aftermath of the biggest federal crime bill in the United States history. And, you know, everybody knows the stories how youth, primarily black and brown youth, were called super predators. There was a lot of funding towards zero tolerance policies. And, you know, this is the background by which this program was created. And I was
083struck by a comment in the survey. where someone said like the program or the general use of SROs is an unexamined tradition from a time when our institutions were far less aware of systemic and institutional inequities. And that really, you know, made me think because, you know, that is how it started. And we are much more aware now. And, you know, it's clear that our current police department is much more aware now and understands the importance of training, you know, especially with issues of inclusion and diversity. But, you know, if the context arose that, you know, there was a belief that our students essentially were prone to be criminals and had high crime, you know, is that what we still believe today? And I'm not convinced that it is. I haven't seen data to show
084that that's the case, that we have a lot of high threat incidents in our schools. So for me, again, this is a question of like, is this necessary? So. One question I did want to pose, and I think it was brought up, that we also do have school security officers in our schools. And I wanted to hear from officers Ladios and Arqueta, if they're still online, like how are the roles and responsibilities distinguished between the security officers and our SROs? Because I'm wondering if there's a lot of overlap there. So if you could just talk a little bit about that, that would be really helpful. Thank you. Yeah, so we work very closely obviously with security. Officer Bostic is the head of our security, at least in TC, her daily. She lets us know anything
085that she feels is unsafe that's going on or anything that we really need to know about. Most of the time, because there's a lot more of them, if there is something that happens, they're the first people there. They're great people and they know what they're doing. I will add that... However, their training isn't up to par with ours in the sense that if something serious were to happen, their reaction wouldn't be the same as ours. And I can just tell you from one experience I had last year, we had a possible person with a gun out somewhere in the neighborhood. So we had to lock in. During that time, me and Officer Guetta, I immediately leave the school, stand outside. turn my lights on i guard the front door a security officer no longer works
086for us their reaction was to get in their car and leave so there is a difference between us and them they help a lot but when it comes to something really happening in that school there's a difference the biggest point between us okay um next up i have miss nolan thank you so much chair anderson and i just want to um apologize in advance. I do have quite a bit of notes and I know it's a long meeting, so I do, I am sorry, but this is a topic I'm exceptionally passionate about, so please bear with me and thank you. So I just first off want to say some thank yous. I want to start off with thank you to Principal Ballas, Principal Peters, and Principal Mazer for being with us today. I apologize for
087the long evening. I know how exceptionally busy you are during this time. We are critical leaders who are serving kids during the time of COVID, and so thank you for joining us today. words really matter. You're our leaders. You're the ones on the ground. And so I just want to say how much we appreciate you. I would be remiss if I also didn't start off by thanking Chief Brown. We are so exceptionally lucky to have your leadership in our community. I also think it's important to also thank Sheriff Lawhorn, who, while he's not here, is also a phenomenal leader of law enforcement in our community. So I just want to thank the both of you. I think you're the model of what community policing is and that people should be here with clipboards studying how
088you do it and figuring out how to bring what you do to other communities. So I just want to thank you as well. I also want to thank Captain Soriano, who I see that you're here joining us today. So thank you so much. And also, I just want to give a special thanks to our SROs, Larios and Argueta. Thank you so much for being here. Apologize again for the long evening. We know you have busy lives, but it's so important that you're here. I have had the pleasure of going into TC and witnessing you working firsthand and seeing all the kids giving you the fist bumps and the laughing and wanting to come up and talk to you. So I just want to say how much I appreciate your work. I also do, I don't
089typically do this, but I do think it's worth me sharing at this moment my background professionally as it might be useful for this conversation. So I have worked in urban high schools for 24 years. I work primarily in Baltimore City High School and Washington DC High School and a little bit in Chicago Public Schools. And so I've worked in 35 urban high schools. I taught in one for five years. And so I've had a significant amount of experience working with students as well as with SROs. I've seen phenomenal ones and I've seen ones that could use some work. And so I understand the national conversation. I also do have a son who recently graduated from TC Williams. He is African American. All of his friends are African American. And so that is the subgroup category
090that a lot of folks are concerned about in terms of suspension rates. And him and his friends are often ones that we talk about with your data. But I have a lot of anecdotal stories I'd like to share tonight. And I also had the pleasure of being a representative on the gang task force as a school board member where I had a significant amount of experience with the law enforcement and really got to see firsthand their youth development lens of which they do their work. Thanks in large part to the leadership of Chief Brown. I do want to say also that I'm very familiar and I thought principal Mazur did a phenomenal job explaining why this conversation is happening and how it's an important one to have. So I just don't want to say that
091I don't understand the reason for the conversation, but I did want to offer that I have a significant amount of experience that. that could perhaps be helpful in this conversation. In fact, my first two years of teaching, the majority of my students were recently incarcerated students that had been released. And so that's the population that I'm used to serving. So that's just a little bit of background and some context as to why I'm going to make some of the comments I'm going to make. So number one, I did do a deep dive in our data on how we compare to the state level. We actually have the lowest, not only volume, but also percentage, which is two very different numbers of arrest and referrals. So even though we have SROs in our building, we are
092at 1%. Whereas other larger urban high schools in the state are often at times 5% both arrests and referrals. Many of those high schools have SROs and some of them do not have SROs. So what I want to repeat is that in the data for our state of Virginia, we do have a significant amount of high schools that do not have SROs and yet their arrest of students and referrals is a higher volume and percentage of TC Williams. So that's one point I wanted to make in terms of state data. The second point I wanted to make is that as been stated repeatedly throughout this conversation, our SROs have nothing to do with our suspensions. They don't refer students to suspension. They don't get involved in that. And so We just want to be mindful
093that if the lever we're trying to pull and what the outcome we're hoping to have is less suspensions, particularly for students of color, this is not the lever to pull because it's not correlated. So I want to make sure that we're very, very, very mindful of that. In fact, if you talk to national experts, which I have, particularly on this situation, the levers to pull on the prison pipeline for students are threefold. It's number one, truancy. It's number two, mental health. And it's number three, substance abuse. Those are the three areas of where we should be putting focus of both policy and budget and not the SROs because the SROs are not correlated to our suspension and arrest records. The third thing I would like to say is that with all due respect to some
094of my colleagues who have said they're not concerned about these two individual SROs, this is the SRO program. This is who gets selected. Like, this is it. It's not like these, no offense to you, you know, officers Larios and Argueta. you're phenomenal officers, but this is the quality and this is the paying attention of the leadership of our APD that ensures that it's folks like this that are interacting with our students. So this is the program that we have. It's not like this is by accident. We have officers before us that support our students in a national academy, which are often students of high risk in a soccer tournament. We have officers, like I've stated before in previous meetings, who sell Christmas trees to make sure that students get to go away for the first
095time ever from Alexandria in a sleepaway camp. We have a number of officers who volunteer within our schools. And so I just want to make sure that we're not due to a national conversation, as Chief Brown said earlier, that we're actually getting rid of the resources that we as a board claim to care about. I also want to provide as a data point that as a result of us hearing from a few students, I did talk to the students that approached all of us. And when I asked them, what are the top three concerns you have of systemic racism within the walls of TC? And what are the top three things you would choose to change about TC? Even the students that came to advocate before us did not mention that SRO is the lever
096they would pull. In fact, they talked about things like making sure their voice was heard, AP classes were more available, things of that nature. So as a result of that being a conversation where the students themselves did not make the case that the SROs were their concern. In fact, the only thing they said they had a concern about with the SROs was they just wish they knew their names, which I asked the students, how would you solve that problem? And they said, well, if they could introduce themselves at a pep rally, that'd be pretty cool. I'm like, well, you just solved your own problem. So instead I went about and did a focus group. I talked to 30 African-American students who live in public housing that attend ACPS, two of whom have had brushes with
097the law on a separate, not within the building, but. just through life circumstances. And every single one of the 30 students I spoke to said they love the SROs, including two students that had brushes with the law. They said that how much they're committed to them, how much they depend on them, and how much they look up to them. And so I just want to share that as another data point because I wanted to ensure I wasn't just listening to the four students, only one of whom attends ACPS that was approaching us, but that I went out and talked to the very students that I know this board is committed to and tried to get some focus groups in here from them. I, like I said earlier, that did come from the experts at truancy
098mental health and substance abuse is where we should be doing our resources. Because I'm really concerned right now that due to a national narrative that doesn't align that we're going to pull resources from the very kids we care about. And I really think we need to focus on number one, the data, which I've reviewed earlier about the correlation does not exist between SROs and suspension, which is what I hear everyone's rightly so concerned is. And I also think we want to talk to and listen to those on the ground. The fact that we have three exceptional principals that are here before us on a very long night while they're taking care of a challenging school year. Every single one of them said how committed they are to the program, how much of an asset it
099is. So I want to make sure that we on the school board seat are listening to those closest to the ground and that we're trusting our leaders and listening to what they have to say. Because as it's been said previously, we are the model of school policing. And this is not the first time I've said that for five years now. I've often told people that our law enforcement in Alexandria is one of our best assets. So I'm a little concerned about making sure that we're not getting rid of one of our best assets. The reason for having community policing, which I've mentioned in the past at school board meetings and it's been mentioned much time today, is to number one, make sure students are comfortable with law enforcement, make sure we're preventing crime, make sure
100they have a trusted adult mentor, make sure that they have a trusted individual that if like some of our students do experience crime, they have someone they can go to and report that crime and making sure that they are safe. So again, I just want to make sure that these are some of the comments I wanted to make that I'm very, very concerned with this conversation. I think it's completely valid and helpful to revisit an MOU. I am honestly petrified that we are turning a narrative, a national narrative into something that does not exist here in Alexandria. And I'm really concerned about the kids that I care about in the public housing are about to lose resources that they very greatly depend on. And so I just want to implore you all to think about
101that. So those are my comments. My question is, since we have the luxury of having both officers Larios and Argueta, is there anything that we as a school system can be doing to support your work? And is there anything you would like to see with our partnership that could be beneficial? I just wanted to know if you had any feedback since we all have this unique moment together. So thank you, and I apologize again. I know it's a very late night. I know that was a lot of comments, but again, I feel really passionate, especially due to my experience having worked in urban school systems and knowing the resources kids get from SRS. I'm just really concerned about making sure we don't hurt our kids. So again, my question to both the officers, is there
102anything we as a school division could be doing to strengthen the partnership? And is there anything, any feedback you'd like to share? To be really honest with you, I have a great relationship with Peter and his admin. I really don't have any complaints or really anything they could really do. The only thing that I can think of we've already addressed is an MOUs just solidifying that we are just doing crime, which we already know that and we've already been doing that. So there's really nothing. And I would just piggyback on what Mario said. I mean, I really don't have a really great relationship with Mr. Ballas and all the other administrators that work at TC. They do a really great job with us. Great. Thank you so much again for your service. I really appreciate
103it. Okay. I have Mr. Suarez. Thank you, Chair Anderson. And certainly a tough act to follow from Ms. Nolan's point-by-point recitation there. And thank you also to the officers for your comments and everything that you went through. And I really appreciated hearing the sort of personal stories that you're telling about, you know, your interactions with the students. And I would echo my colleagues in saying that I know you have the, you know, the best intentions for the students and the right heart for this work. And so I'm really grateful for that. And I will say, you know. My family's in policing. My mom was a police officer for over 20 years. So I respect the profession and I greatly respect what you guys do on a daily basis. I know it's not an easy job,
104and especially in this climate right now, people are not giving policing the respect it deserves because there are obviously some bad apples in the national conversation that you hear about, but most cops are doing the right thing and are trying to do right by our communities. So I just want to emphasize that. I do want to make sure though that when we're having this conversation, we are sort of validating the students and we are validating some of these anecdotes we've heard. I hear what's being said in terms of a lot of the great things you guys are doing. And so I think that's awesome. And I think all the extra efforts you're taking to get the schools involved. kids involved in it for school programs, you know, helping them with Christmas trees, all these other
105things that have been mentioned are wonderful things. You know, but the reality is, is we have heard from several students who, you know, feel stigmatized as a result of police being in the schools. You know, the notion of having police cars outside of the school, all of those things can have an impact. And I guess for me, like, First of all, I've been surprised at how little we've actually talked about the agreement tonight. And I have several points on that that I want to go through, because I felt like that was the purpose of today, was to kind of talk through, like, how are we going to make this agreement where it needs to be? That's number one. But number two, I think there's a question of, like, where does the burden lie with this,
106right? Like, you know... And it goes back to some of my colleagues talking about data. I feel like we have a lot of good anecdotal reasons to potentially keep the MOU, but we haven't really, you know, collected the data or analyzed the data in a way that, you know, makes it clear that this program is worth it and is adding the benefits that we need to be adding to the division. And, you know, And obviously, $800,000 is being spent on this. And Ms. Nolan mentioned things like truancy, mental health, substance abuse, and all these other things. And there are questions of where is the best use of the resources. And at the point, we have city council members, several of whom are coming to us and saying, hey, maybe we need to divert these resources
107a different way. I think that's a conversation we need to have. So this is not to say that we should blow up the MOU. I think to one of your points, Chief Brown, I think. it's really important that we conceptualize this MOU as sort of a global understanding between the relationship between police and the school division, right? Because, you know, to your point earlier, there was that incident this year where a police officer came into a school, didn't know the protocol, parents were very frustrated about that, improper questioning occurred, things like that. And so the whole police force needs to receive training to be able to properly interact with students. And whether the MOU exists or not, or whether SROs are in the building, there are going to be interactions between police and the students.
108So we always are going to have to have some sort of memorandum of understanding or some sort of framework or policy, as Dr. Reif alluded to earlier, to kind of frame how this goes. And so I just want to emphasize that. And I guess I just wanted to make a few comments on the agreement itself, just kind of food for thought. And I'm going off of the... I guess it was blue lined sort of edits to the agreement that were put into the materials. I don't know if folks have that in front of them. But, you know, and I will say, you know, having gone through the red lines, you know, I do think directionally the edits are good. And to the point that I think Chief Brown made earlier and that others have made
109earlier, I think that. to the extent we are keeping this MOU in place, I do think that they are in the right direction and that there does need to be an ongoing conversation to kind of make this better over time and so forth. So let me just make a few comments on that. And a lot of these are from the perspective of a lawyer, because I think when you when I go through this and I see things that are vague or ambiguous, it makes me nervous about how it you know what's going to happen with that, how it's going to be interpreted and so forth. So one of the things is on page three, it talks about, you know. there's a tracking that's going to happen with regard to official contacts with students. Well, it's
110very unclear to me from looking at the agreement, like what an official contact is. I think there are a couple attempts to define that in the agreement. But, you know, if a police officer is fist pumping someone in the hallway, is that an official contact? You know, what are we doing to kind of track the interactions and where are we drawing that line, right? It sounds like the intent is to draw the line at sort of when there's a maybe a questioning incident or something like that. But I think we need to really understand what the nature of the interactions are. And I don't really have a window into that. I only have this sort of anecdotal window. So I think there needs to be a continued conversation around what is an official interaction. I
111also think there needs to be a conversation of where SROs should be in the building. I've heard arguments about, yes, SRO, you know, it's important for SROs to be on campus because they can respond to an incident better. Maybe they have a better relationship with students and things of that nature. But, you know, is it appropriate for SROs to every day gravitate to the International Academy when the students are in the International Academy are disproportionately students of color? What kind of message does that send? Is that what we want to be doing? These are hypothetical questions, but we don't have a discussion around that in the STEM OU. Where are they going to be? Why are they going to be there? And how does that align with our policy? And so more generally, too, just
112about the data and what is the data that we're collecting. I think we do need to make sure that we understand what the data is and why we're collecting it and how it relates to things. To the point that was made earlier, as I've heard more from my colleagues, I've accepted the premise that, you know, the SROs themselves are not probably causing disproportionate discipline in ACPS themselves, at least directly. I think that, you know, I accept that premise. But I would want to know, for example, you know, how often are teachers calling the SRO, right? And the agreement talks about... training for teachers and their interactions with SROs, but I'd also like there to be training for SROs and being able to know when to tell a teacher, hey, this is not my role. I'm
113not going to come to help you with this one. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'd like to make sure that, you know, both directions understand what the role is. And that's been a kind of a theme of the conversation of like, you know, making sure everyone knows their role. Everyone knows their lane, so to speak, in this sort of relationship. Another sort of concern I have in the agreement. you know, is this notion of sort of deputizing SROs as being custodians of student records or being able to access student records. I do think there need to be more protections around that. There are laws like the FERPA that I think this tries to work around, but I do think that, you know, there should be, I think, a higher threshold. It shouldn't be
114a default thing where officers should be allowed to access records. That's just my personal opinion. I do think we need to maintain a fair amount of separation. And, you know, I would just highlight that, you know, on page six, for example, other vague language I see, so for example, like the SRO assists. with matters, this is new language, related to safety, security, and the exchange of information, like, that language is just exceptionally vague, you know, anything relating to safety, like, I mean, I can conceptualize that as anything, so I, you know, so I just worry about some of that very vague language, and then going back to my point about the student records, if we look at page eight, There's some language in the blue that says the carrying out of duties are often related
115to law enforcement investigation. So I can access student records and the carrying out of duties that allow me to access record are often related to law enforcement investigation. So with a word like that, often, I don't know, I can think of things other than law enforcement investigation to trigger the right to. to access records. So, and I guess as sort of a final comment, I will say this is a positive comment. I do appreciate that the language was added on page nine regarding the pre-notification of parents before any interrogation occurs. I think that was a great addition. And I know we had a parent specifically raise that concern. It was, I think in reference to the incident. Sheep Brown and I were probably referring to earlier. I will say it says. The legal custodian shall
116be notified of the pending interview and the SRO police officer must verify that the student has had contact with their parent, guardian, or legal custodian. I think that needs to be a little clearer to mean what we mean by contact. Does contact mean just leaving a voicemail and then the questioning can commence? Or does it mean there's actually like a two-way communication, a response by the person? I think I assume that is the intent. I think it should be clear that, you know, the person. the parent has actually affirmatively said, okay, yeah, you can proceed with that. Or, you know, hey, wait for me to get to the school. I also didn't see language about a right to an attorney being present for the questioning. I feel like maybe some language to that effect should
117be added as well, especially if it is a situation that implicates criminal type of contact or, you know, liability or something like that. But, But yeah, so I think that's pretty much all my comments. I mean, and I wanted to just kind of go through my line by line thoughts in the agreements because I thought I guess I assumed that that was more the intention of today was to kind of go through line by line, looking at the agreement, and also just kind of putting my lawyer hat on there as well. So, you know, but but again, I do think the edits are directionally good. I do respect my colleagues who, you know, who have voiced support for the SRO program. And I do think it's clear that both of you individually have done a
118great job with the students and have done a lot of good. But I do want to get us to a place where we are placing the burden on APD and the school division to show us the data. I think Ms. Nolan did a lot of that work, maybe on her own, to kind of pull some of that information. But I think we need to more systemically have that information and allow that to... help us make the best decision about this program going forward. Because I think the points that Ms. Thornton made were well taken about the history here and about how, you know, there's a reason that's kind of insidious that this program was created. And also, I think in Alexandria, sometimes to be very just blunt and candid, I think sometimes we get into
119this mode where we're progressive and we're great and we're different. And so it's all good here, you know, and I don't think that's always the case. So I think we need to. be critical and have the difficult conversations around these issues. So thank you. Appreciate you listening, hearing me out and indulging me. I know it's late and I'll yield. Thank you. Next up, Ms. Alderson. I love that the lawyer just yielded the floor. That was awesome. So thanks for listening to me at 10 51 PM. I. I think you guys have heard some of my thoughts before. To try to sum this up, I think maybe, because I'm not clear what we're trying to achieve. And I think that's where I struggle. So, and I've had some good conversations. I've had a really good conversation
120with the folks at Grassroots Alexandria to really get a sense of like an understanding of what was trying to be accomplished. And I felt like I don't, I feel like I don't have a clear answer to that. So I've kind of broke this down for me. It's like three different things. What are we trying to achieve? How are we going to measure it? And how will our relationship between us and the APD help us meet our goals? Because I think that our relationship, I believe that our relationship, the relationship between ACPS and the Alexandria Police Department can absolutely help us reach our goals. And maybe that just sort of, I guess it's a different way for me of framing the discussion, like being very clear on, you know, we have this memorandum of agreement. a
121memorandum of understanding, you know, how does it explain these particular things? I don't know if that means anything to anybody, but for me, I think that's sort of how I've captured, because I think everybody has made important points. So I'm just throwing that out there. I think that maybe the issue, because when people have brought up the data piece, well, the question I write down is, well, what is that data? Like, what is that data that we're looking for? Or what is that data that we're all going to agree upon that tells? the story that we're trying to tell or gives us the information that we're trying to receive. And I don't have any clarity on what that is. Because like some other people, people keep bringing up suspensions, the disproportionality in discipline. And listen,
122you guys know, last year, I spent a good half of the year working with a delegate to craft legislation to address this issue. And it was focused actually on teacher training, right? So in my view, if our goal is to, you know, address disproportionality, then... We remove, you know, at the extreme of removing the APD from the schools, removing the school resource officers, well, you're still going to have staff who are policing kids and behaving in ways that will cause issues that can have strangers brought into the building, which I think is another concern for me. Like, I do think, I do believe there is an element of that safety in connection with the SRO being able to address issues because I've also said, yes, crime happens in schools. I don't like it, but it
123does happen. And it's one thing for, you know, police are going to be called because they'll have to be called in certain situations. And do I prefer, you know, someone coming off? not just someone, and I'm not saying all police are bad, but do I prefer a police officer who just comes off the street, who doesn't know the school, who doesn't know the kids, who doesn't have relationships with the principal? Do I prefer that? Or do I prefer someone who does have that relationship? As an educator, I prefer someone who has the relationship because we all know that relationships matter. I guess, you know, as we move forward through this, I think for me, again, my three questions that I need answered and that might help us. have this discussion better or move where we're
124trying to move is, you know, what are we trying to achieve? How are we going to measure it? And how will our relationship with the school resource program help us meet our goals? Because we have goals to meet. And so I think we need to, we've already established what those goals are in the strategic plan. So just map everything to that, right? How does every program that we use, how are we going to use that program to meet our strategic goals? I think that's, for me, a more, a different way of looking at it. And then lastly, since we're giving anecdotes, I have to give an anecdote because you guys are here and just like everyone else says, like, you know, it's clear that you guys are awesome guys. And I think there are a
125lot of awesome police officers out there. And I want to tell the story of working at George Washington Middle School. our beloved resource officer at the time, when I taught U.S. history in seventh grade, when we taught about the Roaring Twenties, we talked about bootleggers and we talked about speakeasies. And we like to use the History Alive curriculum. So me and some of my colleagues, we created a speakeasy in the library. It was all, the windows were covered up. It was dark. We gave the kids a password that they had to get to get in. They had, they had no idea like why we were taking them there. We're like, you know, we're just going in. So we go in and we're like, it was a party. There was music. We, so somebody was there
126to teach them the Charleston and they had ginger ale and they're like, Oh, we're having a good time. This is great. And our school resource officer. for five of the periods in a day for two days, she was the one who would come and surprise the kids and bust up the speakeasy. Because that we were trying to teach them about bootleggers in the roaring 20s and how, you know, the alcohol was illegal. And so this was a problem that eventually allowed us to change, decriminalize the use of alcohol in our country. So that's just an example of a school resource officer actually engaging in the curricular process of teaching kids SOLs. And, you know, I will never forget that. I know the students will never forget that because when she came banging on that library
127door, every kid just froze. You know, like, what's going on? And here she came in. And so those are things that matter too. And I think, you know, maybe we figure out how to bridge this gap. I think that's the most important thing. Great. Okay. Now, it's now 1059, everybody. And we do not have to vote on this today. And this was really an opportunity to ask the resource officers and to have the chief and to have the administrators here. So we can, I mean, I think people who have spoken, I see Dr. Reif, you have another, but I think you did speak once and I'm not sure. I mean, if it is. Can it be short? Because I want to kind of bring us to a close because we are able to have some
128offline, you know, input to central, you know, to Dr. Hutchings and about this. And then we can, it will be on another agenda in the October 29th meeting. So we have, you know, we have a little bit of time. It's not coming back to us even next week. So, Dr. Reif, did you have something short or? Yeah, I'll just say just, I know it's late and I appreciate everyone's time just to kind of quickly respond to what Ms. Alderton was saying. Why are we here? We're here because there was legislation that was passed in Virginia that we have to review this agreement. And I think that that was good that that was passed because I actually think that, you know, this process is really an important process. that we're having these conversations. And I think
129for me, you know, better accountability and transparency is the objective here. And so if we, you know, if we are going to move forward with keeping this MOU, I think I do have some suggested changes and I can email those. I can just send those along to Dr. Hutchings, but it's basically just the data collection, like a little bit more clarity around it because the narrative is just kind of. It's not always clear to me who's responsible, and especially like the new form that you drafted. It's not clear if it's administrators or law enforcement who's supposed to be completing it. I also saw that the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Service says there's supposed to be a clear division of responsibilities with school security officers laid out in the MOU, and I don't see that.
130And then I think adding something around an anti-discrimination clause of some sort. would be a good addition to this MOU. And just taking a closer look at those privacy rights for students to tighten them up would be my suggestions for how to further improve this MOU. And I'll send those comments along to Dr. Hutchings. Yes. So I would say, because I heard some suggestions from Mr. Suarez as well. And so I think that if people can send those and they can be. you know, incorporated into the information so that when we get it back again, it's closer to what people are looking for. So, okay. So we have already adjourned our meeting and I have to tell you, we're going to be back together in nine hours. And Jacinta and I are going to be
131together all day. So we don't have to adjourn because we already did that. If you don't remember, that was a couple of hours ago. So we are just done unless somebody has something else. Good night, everyone. Thank you again for our guests. Good night. Thank you. Good night, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Thanks, Johnny and Gary. Good night.