Chicago Public Schools moved one step closer to finalizing a new school safety policy Thursday following a Board of Education vote in February to remove uniformed Chicago Police Department officers from all district schools beginning at the end of the school year.
The Board approved a new “School-Wide Safety Framework” presented by the district on Thursday. But a state bill that could override the district’s plans is also expected to come up for a vote this week. Sponsored by Representative Mary Gill (D-Chicago), HB5008 would allow local high school boards to contract directly with CPD to employ school resource officers, known as SROs, by February 2027.
The tension between state and local political efforts is the latest in a long debate over whether a decision should be made across the board, rather than at the school level, to remove police from schools.
Under the district’s $10.3 million CPD contract, which expires in August, SROs are currently in about a quarter of the district’s high schools, where LSCs voted to have one to two officers on patrol during the day. school. Effective at the end of this school year, the new policy calls for an end to district-wide SRO programs, with the understanding that CPS will continue to partner with CPD, “who have always provided and will continue to provide critical support for all of our schools.”
Chief of Safety and Security Jadine Chou said at Thursday’s meeting that CPD has committed to retaining School Sergeants, who have long worked with the vast majority of the district’s 600-plus schools that have either never had SROs or removed them .
The vote to remove all SROs fulfilled a 2020 district commitment to phase out their use, board members said in February, adding that a central decision was needed to prevent proven disparities in school arrests from perpetuating. About 70 school districts across the country have adopted policies to remove police from schools, according to a 2023 Georgetown Law report.
Proponents argued that LSCs should continue to vote on whether to maintain SROs, given that different schools have different needs.
Lynn Morton of Community Organization and Family Issues (COFI), one of four community nonprofits that partnered with CPS to reshape its safety policies, acknowledged that the removal of SROs makes some community members nervous.
“Let us all keep in mind that true discipline has to do with education. It’s about learning. Therefore, our dollars must be spent in areas that promote learning and education,” she said.
A new school security framework
The proposed policy expands the “holistic” approach to school safety that CPS adopted in 2020, when the district began incorporating community groups and students into safety planning. Adopted in the wake of racial justice protests in 2020, the reform also allowed LSCs to market SRO funds to invest in alternative strategies, such as hiring restorative justice coordinators.
The school arrest data the district released that year showed that the overwhelming majority — 73 percent — involved black students, who made up just 36 percent of students. Calls to police continue to be disproportionately higher for students with disabilities, according to the Board’s February resolution.
The new policy states that all schools must have functioning indoor and outdoor security cameras and at least one security officer, with the assignment of additional officers dependent on the size of the school population and neighborhood crime rates. Schools may consider metal detectors and should also have emergency procedures in place for which drills should be carried out with students.
The CPS has historically required part-time security roles are filled by sworn police officers – a provision that district officials he said last June would be removed in a new collective bargaining agreement with Service Employees International Union Local 73. The district has not commented on whether that provision was lifted in a recently announced tentative agreement with the union representing security guards and other personnel. of support.
Physical, emotional and relational safety are the cornerstones of the district’s approach, which will be implemented in phases, said Chief of Safety and Security Jadine Chou at a Council committee meeting last week. “This starts with a baseline assessment… working with our community partners and stakeholders like parents and students to ensure we are understanding their needs,” she said.
Later phases entail the creation of school-level safety committees, which will develop and implement safety plans that emphasize cultivating trusting relationships between students and staff, social-emotional learning, and non-exclusive discipline, by the 2028 school year- 29. “Safety cannot be defined or driven by fear-based reactions,” Morton said.
Mandatory monthly conversations between administrators and student representatives will also take place at high schools under the proposal. But whereas previously only high schools had the opportunity to create comprehensive safety plans, including student and community input, the proposed policy expands the process to the entire district.
More than 9,000 responses to a public survey on school safety shaped the new draft policy, Director of Safety Operations Kylie Kosmacek said last week. The policy will then be published for public comment. In June, four community engagement sessions will be hosted by COFI and three other CPS community partners, Broader Urban Involvement & Leadership Development Inc., Mikva Challenge, and Voices of Youth in Chicago Education.
“We are coming together to reimagine school safety to prioritize the social-emotional and physical safety and well-being of students in a safe environment that allows us to learn and thrive regardless of the neighborhood in which we live,” Amundsen High student Edgar Nava School, a member of the School-Wide Safety Steering Committee, said in a press release.
