Lord of the Flies update. In late January a fight broke out after a basketball game between Deep Run High School and Glen Allen High School in the affluent West End of Henrico County. One student reportedly suffered a broken nose. According to WWBT-Channel 12, brawls had occurred “several times” over the previous two weeks. “My concern is that it’s developing as a pattern because the same thing happened with a different school, same venue, seven days later,” said one parent.
Three students of Deep Run High School in Henrico County have been charged with non-aggravated assault by a mob. It’s good to see students being held accountable for their actions. In predominantly White western Henrico, shutting down the “school-to-prison pipeline” is not a pressing concern. Maintaining order in the schools is. I don’t recall seeing many mugshots being published in news reports about school fisticuffs before. Perhaps the sub-text of this story is that parents and local authorities are sick and tired of the erosion of school discipline and aren’t going to take it anymore.
Do legislators get it? Seven hundred and five schools in Virginia — including 30 middle schools and 30 high schools — do not have school resource officers (SROs). Delegate Karen Greenhalgh, R-Virginia Beach, has sponsored legislation requiring local school boards to employ at least one SRO or unarmed school officer (SSO) in each building. Governor Glenn Youngkin endorsed the bill, which passed the Republican-dominated House of Delegates, but it failed in the Democratic-dominated state senate, reports WRIC-Channel 8. Foes opposed the measure on fiscal grounds. It would have cost the state $51.6 million, not including local matches by localities. Dems also argued that school police presence fuels the school-to-prison pipeline, which criminalizes students of color.
Throwing out the bad apples. Forty-six police officers across Virginia have been decertified since July 2021, WRIC-Channel 8 has found in its examination of the Virginia master list of decertified officers. That compares to a total of 146 who had been decertified since the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services began keeping the list in 1999. The increase in decertification follows a new law expanding the offenses for decertification to include excessive force and lying. Of the four Chesterfield County police officers decertified last year, one had solicited inappropriate photos from a 17-year-old girl. A Richmond police officer was put on administrative leave after fatally shooting his fiancee’s dog and lying about it to police. Several others cited by WRIC were decertified for lying to other police or filing inaccurate reports.
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