Alexandria Mayor pushes back on Virginia Attorney General’s characterization of violence in ACPS

Alexandria’s Mayor Justin Wilson is pushing again in opposition to a high rating state official’s characterization of Alexandria Metropolis Public Colleges (ACPS) as rife with violence.

Prompted by the homicide of a pupil earlier this yr and a number of other situations of violence in ACPS, Virginia Legal professional Common Jason Miyares stated in a letter to Wilson and to the Alexandria Faculty Board that he urges Alexandria to work carefully with regulation enforcement to strengthen the town’s Faculty Useful resource Officer (SRO) program.

In response, Wilson stated he welcomes state help in making faculties safer, however stated he disagreed with a few of Miyares’ characterization of the state of ACPS.

We consider, as you do, that faculties must be protected environments the place each pupil can thrive. Our superb educators and help employees work in partnership with regulation enforcement, our Commonwealth’s Legal professional and the households that we’re privileged to serve. That collaboration is mirrored fairly clearly within the self-discipline, crime and violence experiences made by the Alexandria Metropolis Public Colleges yearly to the Virginia Division of Schooling. These experiences replicate completely different realities in our faculties than depicted in your letter.

Wilson stated Alexandria could possibly be higher served with extra funding instantly into the native police and into further academic applications proposed by earlier Governor Ralph Northam however reduce underneath Governor Glenn Youngkin.

Wilson additionally stated state help for behavioral well being applications and extra strict gun management would even be a profit to native faculties.

“Alexandria has all the time labored in partnership with Metropolis businesses and the businesses of the Commonwealth to provide our college students the perfect alternative at success,” Wilson wrote. “We sit up for welcoming you to Alexandria to debate and decide methods to broaden the Commonwealth’s help of our youth.”

There have been 18 college students arrested within the first half of the 2021-2022 college yr, together with 41 reported fights and 13 confiscated weapons. This yr, safety has been stepped up at ACPS.

There are a number of Southern niceties baked into each letters and a broader political context at play than simply questions concerning the staffing of Alexandria’s SRO program.

Battling in opposition to Northern Virginia college districts over numerous points was a focus of Youngkin’s marketing campaign and has remained an ongoing thread of his governorship.

Likewise, the Metropolis Council eradicating SROs — regardless of college officers preventing to maintain this system — was a part of a broader push for police reform in Alexandria. This system was reinstated after a number of violent incidents, together with the capturing on the similar McDonalds the place a pupil was later murdered and one other pupil arrested for possessing a gun on college grounds. Nevertheless, two SROs had been later eliminated after accusations emerged that they’d had sexually inappropriate conversations with a pupil.