Today’s lesson, students, will address the difference between “de facto” (by custom) and “de jure” (by law).
As in: While it has always been de facto accepted that Arlington students could speak during the public-comment period set aside at School Board meetings, soon it will be enshrined de jure.
A revision working its way through the School Board’s policy committee, for eventual adoption by the full body, will write into school-system policies that students enrolled in the school system have the right to address the board as part of each meeting’s public-comment period.
That long has been the case in Arlington, but recent changes in the Code of Virginia apparently make it a requirement that all school districts explicitly state it. And so Arlington shall.
