PARENTS throughout Virginia are questioning an amendment to the Virginia Code passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Ralph Northam in March 2020 that no longer requires public school administrators to report criminal misdemeanors committed on school grounds to local law enforcement. Most parents didn’t hear about the change in the law last year amid the flurry of other legislation, but they are hearing about it now.
Both the Virginia Education Association and the Virginia School Board Association supported HB 257, which “eliminates the requirement that school principals report to law enforcement certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense.” School officials are still required to report any felonies to law enforcement.
The bill, which passed 46–44 in the House of Delegates on a party line vote and 28–11 in the state Senate, was an attempt to prevent the criminalization of childish misbehavior such as “kicking over a trash can,” according to a statement Northam’s office gave to ABC News7. “Of course, schools still have the authority to report any incidents that may be criminal to law enforcement. But no kid anywhere deserves a permanent record for littering—that’s why Virginia changed this law.”
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Which sounds reasonable, except when one considers the fact that calling the police about an overturned trash can is clearly an overreaction akin to calling the cops on a 6-year-old kindergartner with Down Syndrome who pointed a finger gun at her teacher in Pennsylvania. (Yes, that really happened.)
But it’s certainly not in the same category as reporting sexual battery, stalking, violating a protective order or making a violent threat against students, teachers and staff—which are all misdemeanors under Virginia law.
Sexual battery occurs when a person touches another person’s intimate body parts without their consent. It’s a crime punishable by a year in prison and/or a $2,500 fine. But the new law lets school principals make the initial decision of whether to report this crime, which in reality means that they get to decide whether the perpetrator will be punished as required under the law.
That decision should be left to the discretion of local law enforcement and prosecutors, who are required to take the age of the offender, the available evidence and any extenuating circumstances into account before pressing criminal charges. In some cases, no charges will be filed. In others, they will.
But the point is that unelected educators should not be the ones to make that determination. That’s the local prosecutor’s job. If the prosecutor is being too harsh on youthful offenders, they can and should be removed from office by the voters.
And while we agree with Gov. Northam that no kid deserves a permanent police record for littering, no kid deserves to be afraid to go to school because another student who attacked or threatened them is not held accountable for their crime.