The Chicago Board of Education voted Thursday to fire all school police officers and implement a new “comprehensive” plan for school safety by the fall. Local student activists are celebrating the decision as a victory for their years-long campaign for police-free schools.
Before the seven-member board voted, some 40 protesters gathered in front of headquarters that morning to support efforts to cross the finish line, and the remaining 57 police officers ( (also known as school resources). Officer (SRO) — Currently assigned to 39 Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high schools. (He does not have an SRO at CPS elementary school.)
As passers-by on their way to work passed, their cries echoed across the bay between the skyscrapers of Madison Avenue.
“Back up, back up, we want freedom, we want freedom,” they shouted. “We don’t need all these SROs, we do.”
The contract between CPS and the Chicago Police Department (CPD), which provides officers, will cost the district $10.5 million, down from $33 million a few years ago.
“We want to reinvest that money and reallocate it to restorative justice practices that don't punish or expose students to harsh sentences,” said Essence Jade Gatherite, a youth organizer at Chicago Freedom School. We are asking them to do so.”
Critics have long argued that placing police in schools contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline for students of color.by data In 2020, CPS reported that the overwhelming majority of students arrested in schools were black, 73% of whom were black, but they made up only 36% of the student population. And many of the students who interact with SROs are students with learning disabilities.
“When we talk about these things, we're talking about ending the throwaway tactics that CPS practices when it takes away the responsibility of getting to where students are,” Gatherite said. Told.
In an interview last month, WBEZ and Sun-TimesMayor Brandon Johnson expressed support for a commission to remove the remaining uniformed police officers from schools.
Since schools were first given the option to add, retain or remove officers in 2020, several schools have had two officers assigned, including Phillips Academy in Bronzeville and Lane Tech in Roscoe Village. Voted or chose to remove both. Other colleges, like Hyde Park Academy, voted as follows: obtain Eliminate one police officer and leave the other alone. For the past few years, 14 schools It has been decided to demolish a total of 28 SROs across the city.
The organizations leading the protest outside the board's headquarters, Chicago Freedom School, Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP), Assata's Daughters, and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, It is part of the CopsOutCPS coalition, which led the previous fight in 2020. Authorizes the school council to maintain or remove her SRO.
STOP is calling on CPS to reallocate all SRO salaries to these schools.
“CPS was unable to provide schools with the full $180,000 it would have cost to retain one officer,” STOP executive director Alex Goldenberg said in a statement. “Instead, schools that voted the officer out were given between $40,000 and $80,000.”
Many of the protesters who ventured into the Loop on an unseasonably warm late winter morning were high school students from Hyde Park Academy, which still has one officer, as well as students from Dunbar Vocational School in Bronzeville and Curie High School in Archer Heights. I was a high school student. There is nothing left after voting.
“We want to get this SRO out of the building so we can provide the programs we need,” said Hyde Park Academy junior Makayla Acevedo.
Acevedo is also a member of STOP, a Woodlawn-based community organization that is spearheading a grassroots movement to remove SROs from high schools.
In Acevedo's experience, the one remaining SRO does not meaningfully contribute to the safety of students and staff at Hyde Park Academy. “He doesn't help, he doesn't solve problems,” she says.
Acevedo said multiple staff and students were injured in the fight at the school, but the SRO was unable to intervene. That made her wonder what the officer was really in the building for.
She believes that restorative practices, which include conversations between those who have caused harm and those who have been harmed, provide a better path to achieving safe school environments.
of the board unanimous vote Even with the elimination of remaining SRO positions by the beginning of the next school year, CPD officers will continue to be on hand to supervise the arrival and dismissal of students at the beginning and end of classes.
Ms. Acevedo said funds earmarked in the CPS budget for SRO salaries were instead earmarked for nursing and culinary arts programming at her high school, helping students like her earn certifications. I hope that there will be no need to go outside. Pre-vocational skills they desire.
“I want everyone to succeed in their dreams,” she said.
