Students at Hyde Park Academy High School gathered outside their school on Thursday, May 28 to protest the principal’s decision to expel two community organizations that had been providing support services to students in the weeks after three classmates died this spring.
Three Hyde Park Academy students died in less than a month—two in traffic crashes, and one in a shooting a block from the school shortly after dismissal. Violet Harris, 15, was killed on March 22, 2026, after a vehicle struck the electric scooter she was riding in South Shore. LaNia Smith, 18, died on March 30, 2026, after a hit-and-run accident in suburban Dolton. And Eric Billups, 16, was shot and killed on April 15, 2026, at a bus stop just steps away from the school. A 16-year-old girl, who students identified as his girlfriend, was also shot and wounded in that incident.
The Hyde Park Academy students, organized by the local community group Southside Together, walked out of school on their lunch break and held a press conference across the street from the school at 6220 S. Stony Island. They then headed downtown for a scheduled Board of Education meeting to share their concerns and grievances.
At issue was the abrupt removal of two community groups, Southside Together and GoodKids MadCity, from the school. Students and community organizers contend the groups were removed in retaliation for a May 15 student-led town hall, where they criticized Principal Rosette Edinburg’s handling of the recent student deaths and broader school climate.
“They kicked the only resources that we have in our school out,” a junior named Aiyanna said.
She called the spaces run by the community groups the “only places where students feel comfortable enough to share their feelings, to talk about what they’re going through.”
An email reviewed by the Herald shows that Edinburg wrote to Southside Together on May 16 that “our partnership and the services provided to Hyde Park Academy High School will conclude, effective as of this communication.”
“We appreciate the support you have provided during our time together,” she wrote. Edinburg was not available for comment as of press time.
CPS said in a statement, issued after the board meeting, that Hyde Park Academy High School administrators ended the partnership with the two community organizations because they “no longer align with the specific needs of the school community.”
Shortly after the deaths of Harris, Smith, and Billups, Hyde Park Academy leadership and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) said grief counselors, designated safe spaces, and additional crisis and social-emotional teams would be available at the school, according to Block Club Chicago. In a more recent statement, the district said that “the school has a counselor onsite and additional staff who provide mental health assistance or refer students and families to additional mental health services.”
Multiple students said the services were not readily accessible and were not announced until a week after the third death in mid-April.
“If I don’t know, I won’t be able to use it,” a sophomore named Peter said.
Southside Together and GoodKids MadCity had helped run the school’s Peace Room, created in 2021 after the Hyde Park Academy local school council voted to direct funds away from a school resource officer toward mental health resources.
Dixon Romeo, executive director of Southside Together, said it made little sense for CPS to remove groups providing free support to students given the district’s longstanding budget challenges.
“As Chicago Public Schools face drastic budget cuts and our young people grieve the loss of their peers, it makes no sense for the school to shut out free community-based partnerships that are providing some resources,” Romeo said in a statement. “The young people deserve more.”
Southside Together has worked with the school for roughly 15 years. Yvette McCaskill, a youth organizer with the group, said the organization received an email from Edinburg on May 16, the day after the student town hall, saying its partnership was being terminated, effective immediately.
“There was no negotiation,” she said.
McCaskill added that all planning for the town hall had been done in coordination with Edinburg.
“It’s frustrating,” she said.
McCaskill said the decision was “severing a relationship that we built with the young people to be able to have their voice heard in their school.” She described the peace room as a place where students engaged in restorative justice practices, built relationships and learned to advocate for themselves.
However, CPS said in a statement that the school’s Peace Room remained open to students.
“Community partners must comply with CPS policies and procedures, including vendor onboarding and employee background check protocols, to ensure student safety,” said CPS press secretary Sylvia Barragan.
The students alleged a Museum of Contemporary Art’s artist-in-residency program at the school was also abruptly ended. But CPS disputed this in a statement, and the MCA told Block Club that the “partnership between the MCA and Hyde Park Academy remains unchanged.”
The MCA did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment as of press time.
Students said at the Thursday press conference that the school failed to adequately support them after those deaths, forcing them to focus on their schoolwork without giving them sufficient time to mourn.
Zaynah Soyebo, a junior, said that after Billups was killed on a Wednesday, students were given the day off on Thursday but had to return on Friday to teachers telling them to focus on raising their grades.
“We got told from our teachers that we need to bring our grades up, and not nothing about any mental health, not anything about how we felt about it, not anything about how traumatic the experience was,” she said.
Soyebo also said the school had not established any permanent memorial to the three students.
“These are people that are here more at school than they are at home,” she said. “We don’t even have anything to remember them by.”
Hours after the press conference, the dean called the parents of participating students to inform them their children were suspended through the end of the school year, which runs to June 4. Shortly thereafter the assistant principal of the school reversed that decision, writing in an email to parents that “NO STUDENTS were suspended as a result of participating in today’s walkout.”
CPS did not respond to specific questions about the potential suspensions.
Max Blaisdell is a staff writer at Hyde Park Herald.