The Alexandria City Council voted Tuesday night to redirect funds used to keep police officers in schools and instead hire more mental health professionals for youth, despite objections from the city’s school board.

The council voted 5-1 to pull more than $789,000 from the school resource officer program’s 2022 budget and redirect the funds to a mentoring program, nurses, and therapists as part of the city’s new Teen Wellness Center pilot program. The SRO program is funded through the police department’s budget; the 16,000-student system is unlikely to be able to reallocate resources to maintain the program.

The council initially voted in May to pull the five officers from Alexandria schools, amid a broader national discussion over criminal justice and public safety that arose in the wake of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

But this week’s decision drew opposition from one group of elected officials — the school board itself. Cindy Anderson, a member of the board, said the decision to add mental health positions was rushed and lacked data.

“It is the antithesis of how we operate a school division,” Anderson told councilmembers on Tuesday night. “Not only are we being asked to add positions that we didn’t plan our budget for, but within this decision lies an inherent assumption that we are able to meet the full depth of our security needs without the presence of highly trained, and skilled and dedicated law enforcement officers.”

Anderson and other school board members say they were not part of the process in determining how these funds would be spent. Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said he disagreed with the school board, and added that he was disappointed that the board and council were at odds with each other.

“I think if the majority of the council wishes to reallocate this money, this is an appropriate way to do that,” Wilson said.

SROs will still be assisting on campuses during school arrival, dismissal, lunch time, and after-school programs.

“Four councilmembers sent letters to the school board to make our sentiments known,” Canek Aguirre, a city councilmember, told Anderson. “These are not the school’s positions to add or take away, these are city positions.”

Aguirre added that over the last year the school board failed to address and conduct research on equity and interactions between law enforcement and youth.

But Councilmember Amy Jackson, who provided the lone vote against shifting the funding, pointed out that each city school already has social workers, psychologists, and nurses. Jackson agreed with Anderson that the “process was bad.”

“I also agree with the school board that as elected officials, we undermined the process … that’s bullying,” Jackson said.

Anderson added that “especially coming out of the pandemic where there’s already enough change, this is adding another layer of change on a staff that has already been under extreme pressure and stress for the last year.”

Alexandria City High School students also spoke at the hearing, voicing their desire for more mental health resources.

“These sorts of investments are vital for myself and my peers, especially now more than ever. Many have struggled in many unexpected ways whether it be socially, emotionally, or mentally,” Abenaa Buabeng, a rising sophomore, told councilmembers. “We need to keep on supporting these decisions and keep providing the necessary tools needed to create a health and equitable environment for all.”

Alexandria is the latest jurisdiction in the D.C. region to move to take police officers out of public schools. The Montgomery County Council voted to remove SROs this year, and D.C.’s State Board of Education similarly voted to do the same last summer.

As part of its deliberations over Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2022 budget, the D.C. Council is proposing that the 86 officers currently serving in public schools be phased out over the course of the next four years. That’s drawn some opposition from school leaders themselves, two-thirds of whom said in a survey conducted by Bowser’s office that they strongly or somewhat opposed removing police officers.