CPS High Schools Vote to Keep All, Some, or None of Their Police Officers

Over the past few months, Chicago high schools voted on their respective Whole School Comprehensive Safety Plans. These plans include decisions on their school’s school resource officer (SRO) status—whether to keep all, some, or none of their cops. Unlike before, a school will receive funding for each officer taken off duty.

Chicago police officers are assigned to individual Chicago Public Schools (CPS) through the School Resource Officer program. Last summer, the appointed school board voted against terminating the district’s $33 million contract with police, and later, high school Local School Councils (LSCs) chose between keeping or getting rid of their SRO program, resulting in fifty-five schools deciding to maintain their SROs and seventeen schools voting to remove them. The Weekly kept track of how South Side schools voted. 

Schools are also voting on a variety of options offered in CPS’s Safety Plans. Five non-profit organizations developed “a menu of trauma-informed approaches … as alternatives to the School Resource Officer program.” Their recommendations include holistic restorative justice practices, increased focus on social emotional learning and mental health by providing access to professionals, and training for designated intervention employees such as safe passage workers, counselors, social workers, behavioral health teams, administrators, and security officers. 

For the first time, for each officer a school chose not to retain, they will receive at least $50,000 from the district to go toward their alternative safety plan. During LSC meetings, schools’ safety committees presented a range of options:Hirsch Metropolitan in Greater Grand Crossing plans to use the funding from removing one SRO for a full-time social worker, a social and emotional learning curriculum, and a partnership with a girls mentoring organization; North-Grand plans to spend the $50,000 on a safe passage program; and Hyde Park Academy plans to use the money for a dean of culture and climate. 

As students slowly returned to classrooms this spring after a year at home following COVID-19 guidelines, CPS decided SROs were “not necessary at this time” due to overall reduced in-person attendance. 

Over summer break, high school LSCs held virtual meetings to discuss and vote on their SRO status. Thus far, of schools located on the South Side, fifteen voted to keep both of their SROs, nineteen voted to remove one, and four voted to remove both.

Visit bit.ly/LSCSafetyPlans for the final citywide tally.

*Schools located on the South Side are denoted with an asterisk.

Last updated July 21

Madeleine Parrish is the Weekly’s education editor. She last wrote about the state of mental health in Chicago.