What was for years a hotly debated topic was hardly debated at all this week in the D.C. Council.

On Tuesday, city lawmakers quietly repealed a plan they had approved two years ago to gradually pull police officers out of schools, handing Mayor Muriel Bowser a victory and joining a number of other jurisdictions regionally and nationally that have backtracked on the issue in the wake of rising concerns of juvenile crime and school safety.

The move came amidst consideration of the 2024 budget, just as the initial debate over police in schools kicked off during budget deliberations in 2021. It was then that a majority of the council approved a provision to slowly phase out school resource officers through 2025. From roughly 80 officers in 2021 the number decreased to 60 last year, would hit 40 this year, 20 next year, and none by 2025.

The council’s action two years paralleled broader debates over policing that were sparked by the 2020 killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota, and the resulting national protests. Advocates and the D.C. Police Reform Commission argued that police in schools made many students uncomfortable and could push them into the criminal justice system. Multiple jurisdictions across the country debated whether to keep police in schools or not. Locally, Alexandria, Arlington County and Montgomery County opted then to pull them out.

But many of those same jurisdictions have partially or fully backtracked amidst concerns from parents and administrators over students safety, especially as juvenile homicides have spiked. The issue was never fully settled in D.C. either: at least five councilmembers wanted to keep police in schools. Bowser urged the council to reconsider last year but was voted down. Earlier this year, though, she launched a more aggressive push at convincing the council to at least pause the drawdown of school resource officers, hosting a summit of school leaders from across the city and encouraging them to contact lawmakers directly.

“I think what actually happened is school leaders realized as they saw the ranks of SROs getting depleted, they were going to lose this really important part of their school safety work. And they got scared,” says D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn. “I saw school leaders calling councilmembers. And I think what happened is that really had a great effect. I think it just caused the council to realize that school leaders really wanted this as an option for themselves.”

Last year, Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large) argued that the current system of school resource officers “is not working to keep our students safe.” But he switched his vote this year, a move White credits to the advocacy from administrators, educators, and some parents.

“I still don’t believe that armed police officers are the the best way to to keep our schools and our students and teachers safe. But there’s a real feeling from professionals in schools that they don’t feel safe,” he says. “So when we take resource officers out of schools without building a replacement first, they feel vulnerable and are more likely to oppose a different direction. If we want teachers and principals to get comfortable with the idea of fewer armed police, then we have to get them comfortable before we take those armed police out.”

White also said he did not want to be an “ideologue” in the broader debate on school safety.

But it wasn’t just advocacy that prompted the council’s change of heart. The possibility of an alternative to police in schools altogether offered lawmakers an opening to pause the drawdown of SROs.

As part of the budget debate on Tuesday, Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) added a provision that creates a new 15-person School Safety Enhancement Committee. The group will have until March 2024 to debate and draft recommendations for broader teams of school officials and staff that would be in charge of school and student safety, including but not limited to police. The committee is part of a broader bill he introduced in March to create new school safety directors and teams within every D.C. school.

“The folks that are going to be a part of this commission over the next year are going to be thinking more expansively beyond the circumscribed debates that have been going on to ensure we keep our young people safe in our schools,” Parker says. “I’m hopeful that in next year’s budget we can revisit this conversation to have a more thoughtful dialogue around real solutions versus the binary for-or-against [SROs] that has captured everyone’s attention so far.”

Even some groups that had been pushing for the continued removal of SROs from D.C. schools expressed support for Parker’s proposal, including the Black Swan Academy, whose student members had advocated for alternatives to police in schools. “We are thrilled that the council unanimously voted to support the amendment for School Safety Coordination. This is a much needed step to investing in TRUE preventative, holistic, relationship [oriented] and trauma-informed safety in our schools,” the group tweeted this week.

A final vote on the 2024 budget is set for later this month, and even with the council repealing its plan to pull police out of schools, it’s unlikely that MPD’s School Safety Division will staff up quickly again due to broader staffing challenges in the department. The council’s original plan would have limited the city to 40 school officers as of this July, but MPD says it’s already below that number; there are currently 38 school resource officers.