Virginia awards $5M for school resource, security officers — including $463K to Portsmouth

The Department of Criminal Justices Services Board will give $5 million to local governments across the state for school resource and security officer positions in the next fiscal year, including $463,000 to Portsmouth.

A spokesperson for the Portsmouth school division said it hadn’t received a description of the funds or a finalized report from the Department of Education, so it couldn’t comment on how funds would be dispersed across the school system. But Portsmouth has one SRO at each high school and middle school.

Of the 76 grants awarded by the Department of Criminal Justices Services Board, 16 are new, including the grant awarded to Portsmouth. In addition to the money provided by the state, localities will provide about $2 million in additional funding for SROs and SSOs. Portsmouth will match $147,250 for school resource officers, according to data from the Department of Criminal Justices Services.

Of the combined state and local funds, $6.2 million is dedicated to SRO funding and about $550,000 will fund SSO positions. A school resource officer is a certified law enforcement official employed by a police department, while a school security officer is employed by the school.

These funds will support 86 SRO positions and 15 SSO positions in school divisions across the state for the next fiscal year, according to a news release from Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office.

“The grants are awarded for a maximum period of 4 years (48 months), but reviewed annually for program compliance and budgeting,” said Michelle Miles, School Safety Grants Program Coordinator for DCJS.

Southampton schools also received a continuation of their grant for about $100,000 to fund SRO and SSO positions. No other Hampton Roads area school districts received school resource or security officer funding through the grant program.

While many local schools have school resource or school security officers, recent staffing issues at local police departments have caused some agencies to make adjustments. Virginia Beach’s school system added five armed security officers to its ranks this year to ease the loss of the police department pulling some officers from their SRO positions.

Legislation proposed in the Virginia legislative session this year, which did not pass, would have required every Virginia school to have at least one school resource officer on campus. Proponents said the bill would have made schools safer. But opponents raised concerns about students having negative encounters with officers and student misbehavior leading to criminal charges. A 2017 Virginia Tech study found that minority students were referred to law enforcement at a rate that is disproportional to their demographic representation in Virginia schools and students with disabilities were disproportionately more likely to be suspended or expelled.

Youngkin announced the funding last week as part of a broader package of public safety grants — more than $37 million — going to local criminal justice programs, including gun violence prevention, victim witness, and substance abuse treatment programs.

“The grants awarded today will provide funding for localities that fund positions and programs that help to make our schools and communities safe as well as ensuring our youth and crime victims receive the support and services they need,” Youngkin said in a news release.

Lauren Girgis, lauren.girgis@virginiamedia.com