SAY NEWS:Plan to Remove Resource Officers from Schools Approved by CPS Board

By this fall, resource officers will no longer be present in Chicago Public Schools buildings, as lawmakers have passed a resolution mandating the district to create a new safety model that excludes the use of police in classrooms.

The item, which instructs CPS CEO Pedro Martinez to establish a new whole school safety policy that “must make explicit that the use of SROs within District schools will end by the start of the 2024–2025 school year,” was unanimously passed by the city’s seven-member Board of Education on Wednesday.

Board President Jianan Shi stated, “Schools that have taken part in that program will be able to create whole school safety plans and receive funding to invest in alternative safety strategies.” “Schools will have the opportunity to choose how to use the funds that we are investing in them.”

By its meeting on June 27, the board ordered that the district’s new safety policy be submitted for final approval.

It is hardly surprising that SROs are being replaced.

Johnson declared last week that “public safety is the number one priority in the city of Chicago.” “What we need to do is offer a truly comprehensive strategy for establishing an atmosphere that achieves that.”

After Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in 2020, Chicago and many other cities in the nation started to reevaluate their enforcement tactics.

Chicago activists and students started pressuring CPS to remove all police from school buildings that summer, claiming that their presence exacerbated the school-to-prison pipeline and had a disproportionately bad effect on Black pupils.

During the hearing on Thursday, a number of advocates for adolescents and students testified, urging CPS to permanently terminate its SRO contract.

“Police arrive after harm has already occurred; they do not stop it from happening.”