By Heather Michon
Correspondent
Fluvanna County High School students nearly staged a walkout last week over the sudden reassignment of a popular Student Resource Officer.
Principal Margo Bruce held an unplanned school-wide assembly on Thursday afternoon (Nov. 2) to try to address the situation shortly before the walkout was scheduled to begin. However, because the administration can’t publicly share personnel or student information – rumors have continued to build throughout the community.
The narrative that took hold was that Officer Tre Ayres, who has been an SRO at FCHS since February 2022, was removed from his position after a parent of a student complained about his enforcement of school dress code policies.
“That is absolutely false,” Superintendent Peter Gretz wrote in an open letter to the community last week.
Instead, Gretz said, it was a personnel decision by Ayres’s employer, the Fluvanna County Sheriff’s Office.
Captain Von Hill, who leads the school law enforcement program, wrote that the reassignment was due to a staff shortage at the sheriff’s office.
“To ensure that we can maintain our commitment to providing the highest level of service to the community, it became necessary to make some strategic adjustments. One of the key changes involved reassigning one of our School Resource Officers (SRO) from their previous role to better meet the current needs of our community. This decision was not taken lightly but was made with the utmost consideration for the community’s well-being.”
Still, an online petition started on Change.org by Sara Williams calling for the officer’s immediate reinstatement at FCHS garnered 1,300 signatures in just four days.
