Table of Contents
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Alexandria City School Board on Thursday unanimously approved a renegotiated agreement governing the role of police officers in city schools, ending a year of revisions and extensions and sending the 2026-28 Memorandum of Understanding to the Alexandria Police Department and the City Council for final action.
The new MOU — formally the School-Law Enforcement Partnership Memorandum of Understanding — runs from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2028. It governs the conduct of School Resource Officers stationed at Alexandria City High School and the city's two middle schools, covering procedures for information sharing, investigations, questioning of students, searches, arrests and physical interventions.
Board member Ashley Simpson Baird, who chairs the Governance Committee, walked the board through two substantive changes the committee made since the document last came before the board on April 9.
The first appears in Section 7 on principal reporting duties under Virginia's mandatory crime-reporting statute. The new clause specifies that "principals should be aware that neither possession of alcohol nor possession of less than one pound of marijuana constitute felonies under Virginia law." Division counsel Robert Falconi told the board the change was made in consultation with the city.
"It's just a clarifying change," Falconi said. "Same basic principle, though."
The provision addresses a concern raised at the April 9 meeting and in subsequent committee discussions about how state mandatory-reporting requirements interact with principal discretion in low-level drug and alcohol incidents. Earlier drafts required principals to be "generally aware" of conduct that would rise to a felony and to refer to ACPS legal counsel when in doubt. The new language gives principals an explicit threshold.
The second change is a new Section 8 on immigration and citizenship status — added, Simpson Baird said, to comply with a state law signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger last month. The provision states that no School Resource Officer employed by a local law enforcement agency in a public school, nor any individual employed by, contracted with or working as an agent of ACPS, may engage in actions or practices resulting in the denial of a free public education or exclusion from any program or activity to a child based on the actual or perceived immigration or citizenship status of the child or the child's parents.
Both changes appear in the redline version of the MOU posted on BoardDocs.
The full board approved the agreement without dissent. Board member Reyna, speaking before the vote, thanked the Governance Committee. "I just want to say thank you to the committee for listening to the comments and taking those to heart," he said. "And I think it landed in a good spot."
Board member Tim Beaty asked what comes next. Falconi said the document still needs to be signed by APD and that the City Council will hold a hearing on the MOU on May 26. He and Simpson Baird plan to attend.
The agreement closes a process that began nearly a year ago, after the previous MOU expired June 30, 2025, and the school board approved two extensions while a renegotiated version was developed. A 2025 draft stalled after community members at a May 2025 public hearing objected to a provision that would have designated SROs as "school officials" under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. That designation, included in the state model MOU, would have allowed officers to access student education records without written parental consent. The 2026-28 agreement strips the designation and its related language entirely.
The 2026-28 MOU otherwise retains the framework that has structured the SRO program: police interventions are to be used as a last resort; school administrators and teachers, not SROs, are responsible for school discipline; and SROs operate under the SRO Triad Model, in which officers serve as law enforcement officers, public safety educators and informal counselors and mentors. A new quarterly assessment form gives principals at schools with SROs a formal mechanism to evaluate officer performance.
The April 16 public hearing on the MOU adjourned after one minute, with no community members signed up to speak — a stark contrast to the May 2025 hearing that prompted the year of renegotiation.
The Alexandria Police Department's School Resource Unit includes one SRO sergeant and five School Resource Officers, according to a city website.
The MOU appeared on Thursday's published agenda as a consent calendar item but was taken up as an action item to allow Simpson Baird to walk through the changes on the floor.
The Alexandria Brief
Alexandria, Va., news and information you won't find anywhere else.
Publisher: Ryan Belmore, an Alexandria resident and journalist.
The Alexandria Brief has no ads, no paywall, and no corporate owner. Support this work with a monthly or annual subscription, or a one-time contribution.
Send feedback, story ideas, news, and tips to ryan@alexandriabrief.com.
