The Chicago Board of Education is moving forward with plans to terminate its $10.3 million school resource officer program in Chicago Public Schools and order schools to remove officers before the 2024-25 school year starts.
The resolution to remove school resource officers is expected to pass swiftly with backing from Mayor Brandon Johnson and will require the district to create a new policy that “codifies best practices for a holistic approach to school safety at every District school.”
CPS must present the new policy to the board for final approval by June 27. It must include explicit orders to end the use of resource officers by the first day of district classes in the fall, along with an implementation plan with the mayor’s office and Chicago police.
The looming sunset of the program follows a commitment made nearly four years ago to provide a comprehensive plan for schools using resource officers to “phase out their use,” according to a resolution posted Tuesday before the board meeting on Thursday.
The 2020 resolution passed by the board, named the “Whole School Safety Program,” instructed CPS to develop a plan to implement alternative safety systems “for CPS students in every school that prioritizes their physical and social-emotional well-being, learning, and transformation.”
School resource officers are uniformed police officers responsible for safety at dozens of high schools across the district. There are a maximum of two resource officers at a school.
Opponents of resource officers say the controversial program leads to higher rates of discrimination against students of color. Data on school-based arrests released by the district in 2020 showed the overwhelming majority — 73% — involved Black students, who were only 36% of students. Calls to police continue to be disproportionately higher for students with disabilities, according to the proposed resolution.
Following racial justice protests prompted by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020, groups of CPS students demanded the district nullify its then-$33 million resource officer contract with the Police Department. Instead, with support from then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration, the district cut the contract in half and punted the issue to individual school communities, allowing Local School Councils —composed of principals, staff, parents, community members and student representatives —to vote on the issue.
Over the last decade, the number of resource officers has dwindled to 57 across 39 schools this school year, down from 166 officers assigned to 74 high schools in the 2012-2013 school year.
Schools with councils that opted to remove resource officers have received trade-in funds to support alternative strategies, such as hiring social work and restorative justice coordinators as well as security guards. CPS has said the district will provide trade-in funds for the remaining 39 participating schools if the program ends.
Prior to the 2023-24 academic year, the board approved a $10.3 million (how many years) contract with the Police Department to post resource officers at dozens of schools that voted to keep one or two resource officers.
Among the votes by 40 school councils last spring which determined the number of resource officers present during the current school year, only two councils voted in favor of removal. The Marshall High School council voted to remove both officers and Austin College and Career Academy’s council voted to remove one.
Sean Price, director of peace and justice for BUILD Inc., one of five community-based organizations with which CPS has partnered to guide school safety planning, was involved in the Austin council’s discussions.
Whether councils should continue to make resource officer decisions has been at the heart of recent debate. But Price said in January that what matters most isn’t which CPS body makes the decision — it’s the process of talking through students’ ideas on improving safety and parents’ and administrators’ concerns.
Price said last year Austin used trade-in funds provided by the district in lieu of a second officer, to hire a school culture and climate coordinator. The school is also working on additional funding to create a meditation room, he said. “They wanted a space where, ‘If I need to step away and take a breath, or to calm down, I have a space related to that,” Price said of student feedback.
With administrators, student leaders and parent Local School Council members involved in planning and implementation, he said, “Whole School Safety creates this level of connectedness with the students who are in the schools, with the parents of the students, and then subsequently with the community as a whole.”
Regarding the potential shift to a blanket decision to remove officers by the school board, Price said, “As long as we continue to have communication, and as long as we continue to seek collaboration and partnerships with the process, I think it will be successful.”
Cassie Creswell, a CPS parent and former chair of the Jones College Prep Local School Council, which voted to remove its school resource officers, said, during the last resource officer contract renewal in June, that CPS should make a centralized decision, as some other large school systems have done. Creswell is also the director of Illinois Families for Public Schools.
“It’s not really something that should be left up to the schools to decide because it’s clear what the good and supported policy is: It’s not to have armed officers in schools,” said Creswell, citing the lack of evidence that police improve school safety. “I would like to see this new administration give up on that bad strategy, especially because financially, schools are not being given one-to-one resources.”
The average funding for a single school resource officer, in the current $10.3 million contract expiring in June, surpasses the amount of trade-in funds provided to hire alternative safety personnel, such as restorative justice coordinators, she said.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ earlier this month, the mayor said he supported ending the resource officer program. Johnson said Wednesday his priority remains creating a healthy and safe learning environment for students.
“Resources will be made available for local schools to decide how they want those funds distributed,” Johnson said at a media briefing, noting that school communities can use trade-in funds to hire more security guards, mental health practitioners or other personnel.
Since the start of the year, around a dozen elected officials have taken to Board of Education meetings to urge members to either leave decisions on resource officers to Local School Councils or to invest in alternatives.
Most recently, state Rep. Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar of the 22nd District attended a board meeting at her daughter’s school, John F. Kennedy High School, where she said recurring fights among students have led to soft lockdowns. As the district continues to lobby the state for funds to help cover CPS’ looming $400 million deficit, Guerrero-Cuellar demanded the board clarify its plans for school security.
“What do I tell parents when they call my office and they’re talking about their kids’ safety,” she said. “I need answers from you. You need to address the community. There is no communication from CPS in terms of all the fights that are occurring.”
Guerrero-Cuellar said in the absence of details, it’s difficult to support CPS’ appeal for additional state funds. “I’m willing to work with you as a legislator, but I have to answer to the community, just as you have to answer to the entire city of Chicago,” she said. “How are we going to keep these kids safe?”
CPS parent Dulce Arroyo said recent incidents of gun violence among youth show the need to invest in programs in neighborhood schools that support “collective healing”, such as youth centers, mental health services and recreation and job training programs. In the past month, three CPS high school students were shot and killed and two more were wounded after leaving class for the day in two separate incidents near district schools.
“It’s heartbreaking how so many neighborhood schools, in predominantly Black and Brown communities across Chicago, don’t have the funds to provide students with what they need to become their most aligned selves,” she said.
An organizer with Palenque LSNA, a community organization serving the Logan Square, Avondale and Hermosa neighborhoods, Arroyo added, “There would be more opportunities for reimagining and building up the self-esteem of students who need guidance and support – not more policing.”
On Wednesday, less than 24 hours before the vote on resource officers, Chicago police announced charges against two boys, ages 14 and 17, in the Jan. 31 slaying of Daveon Gibson, 16, two blocks from Senn High School in the Edgewater neighborhood.
The teen suspects were charged with first-degree murder for Gibson’s death and two counts of attempted first-degree murder for wounding two other Senn students. The North Side high school does not currently employ resource officers.
Addressing reporters at a press conference, police Superintendent Larry Snelling acknowledged that the pending future of resource officers lies with the board, but said he remained committed to the work of police in schools.
“Whatever decision is made there, it is no reflection on the great work our police officers were doing in schools while mentoring the children there,” Snelling said Wednesday after announcing charges. “Those officers were trained to be in the schools. So, if those officers are removed from the schools, CPD is going to continue to do what we’ve always done: Protect our children, protect the streets.”
However, the likely removal of uniformed police officers raises questions on whether off-duty police officers will continue to serve in part-time security guard roles.
Since 2018, an agreement with the Service Employees International Union Local 73, the union representing CPS support personnel, requires the district to hire Chicago police for part-time security roles.
Union spokesperson Eric Bailey told the Tribune earlier this month that the union offered to waive that contract stipulation for hires as well as a requirement to be able to effectuate arrests. As of Wednesday, a job posting for a part-time security officer on the district’s website shows a requirement to be an active Chicago police officer.
Both Bailey and CPS said that if approved, the memorandum would allow the sworn officer requirement to be removed before a larger contract renewal is finalized. The district’s overarching five-year contract with SEIU, which also represents CPS crossing guards, special education classroom assistants, bus aides and parent workers, expired in June.
Chicago Tribune’s Sam Charles and Alice Yin contributed.
