A new policy limiting state and federal law enforcement’s access to Arlington Public Schools facilities is going into effect.
The Arlington School Board has approved a policy revision that restricts access for law enforcement agencies other than the Arlington County Police Department.
Under the change, non-ACPD law enforcement with a valid warrant or subpoena are restricted from entering schools and administrative facilities beyond the main office. The change also directs staff not to turn over the individual being sought until receiving clearance from APS legal counsel.
State and federal law enforcement without a warrant will be barred from entering APS facilities, under the new policy.
The revision provides a “detailed protocol” for all staff to take if confronted by law-enforcement agencies, said School Board member Bethany Zecher Sutton.
She chairs the Board’s two-member policy subcommittee, which vetted the proposal earlier in February and sent it to the full Board.
“The theme is to provide certainty” on how the school district and individual schools would react, said Board member Zuraya Tapia-Hadley. She sits on the policy subcommittee with Sutton.
Typically, policy revisions would be presented as information items at one meeting, then acted on several weeks later. In this case, both those steps were combined into a single meeting.
The revisions do not apply to ACPD, which operates under its own memorandum of understanding with the school system.
The new policy, adopted last Thursday, came in connection with a resolution declaring the school system a “safe zone.”
“This is a commitment,” said School Board Chair Mary Kadera. “We serve all students — we take seriously our responsibility.”
If a valid, signed judicial warrant or subpoena is presented and accepted by the school system’s legal counsel, the policy requires that law-enforcement personnel will be directed to “wait in the main office while staff bring the person to them.”
“We’re not going to have the agents walking around the school going into classrooms,” said Steven Marku, the school system’s policy director. “We’ll have them wait. The staff will go and get the person they’re looking for.”
How that sit-down-and-wait scenario would play out in real-world conditions is difficult to gauge, said one attorney contacted by ARLnow.
The attorney, evaluating the situation on condition of anonymity, guessed that the Trump administration would, if it hadn’t already, put plans in place to deal with this kind of situation, and would test the resolve of local leaders to enforce their restrictions.
“One way or another, I think this ends up in court,” the attorney predicted.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) last week issued an executive order deputizing state law-enforcement and corrections officers to assist with federal immigration enforcement and to “request localities fully cooperate with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement removal and other enforcement operations.”
