CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools announced Wednesday several proposed reforms to the School Resource Officer (SRO) program, which will build on recent measures to help ensure SROs contribute to safe and welcoming school environments in the schools that choose to utilize police support. But the city is leaving decisions about having Chicago police officers in schools to the Local School Councils.
In addition to these reforms, which will be proposed in a revised intergovernmental agreement (IGA) that the Chicago Board of Education will consider on Aug. 26, CPS also announced Wednesday a series of partnerships designed to improve training, analysis, and student involvement going forward. As of Aug.18, 55 schools have chosen to participate in the SRO program in 2020-21 with 17 opting to leave the program this year.
"No one understands the school community better than its educators, families, and students," said CPS CEO Dr. Janice K. Jackson.
"The educators and leaders of this district have been working to break the school-to-prison pipeline over the past decade. We have instituted many progressive policies that have moved us away from a zero-tolerance policy."
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According to Jackson, the district also provided Wednesday new data that shows an 80 percent reduction in the number of students arrested on school property from 2012-2019. This includes an 86 percent reduction for LatinX students and a 78 percent reduction among black students. Rates of arrest among black students "remain unacceptably high and we must remain focused on addressing this as a school district, and we will do that," Jackson said.
CPS said the district is committed to equity and will not be satisfied until the number of student arrests is lowered, especially among black students who make up a disproportionate number of arrests.
Last year, the district entered into an IGA with the City of Chicago that introduced critical provisions to provide principals greater autonomy in determining which SROs served in their schools, outline required training, institute new training to support special student populations and de-escalation techniques, and create an eligibility pool and selection criteria. This year, the district is building upon last year’s agreement and proposing several new initiatives to strengthen the district’s efforts to improve the SRO program.
"While we continue to believe that our school communities are best suited to determine the role of the SROs, we recognize that improvements needed to be made to the program," Jackson said.
Also new this year, the proposed IGA will formally prohibit SROs from entering any information into the CPD Criminal Enterprise Information System, which will replace previous databases that were designed to store information around gang affiliation. In addition, all CPD terminals will be removed from schools so that SROs will no longer be able to access this information.
The district believes this is a critical step in further strengthening trust between SROs and the schools they serve.
This year, the district will also be strengthening its complaint process by explicitly directing that all complaints go to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), who will ensure any complaints are tracked, reviewed and resolved in a timely manner. While this has been executed in practice, it will now be codified in the IGA, with the expectation of regular reporting and sharing broadly through various channels to ensure that members of school communities are aware.
The district is also continuing to strengthen existing measures implemented last year, including training requirements for specific student populations, such as LGBTQIA; implicit bias training; strengthening program monitoring efforts; and codifying that SROs must follow the welcoming city and welcoming school ordinances.
SROs must protect students from discrimination, including that against undocumented people, Jackson said.
In addition to the IGA, the district is establishing a number of partnerships "to foster a more collaborative approach to creating that safe and supportive learning environment for our students," Jackson said.
The first partnership is with the Center for Childhood Resilience at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, to train every SRO, alongside the school-based behavioral health teams on restorative and trauma-informed practices.
The second partnership is with the University of Chicago Educational Labs, to provide technical assistance to analyze the extent to which disparities in school-based arrests exist among various student populations, to include factors such as race and disabilities. The analysis will review incidents of school-based arrests within the district and disaggregate the data by year, school, whether or not a school had an SRO present, and student demographics (to the extent possible without compromising student privacy).
And the third partnership is with the Mikva Challenge Youth Safety Advisory Council, to develop a training and measurement system that is designed to ensure student voice helps shape the effectiveness of the SRO program.
"Throughout this process, Dr. Jackson and I have made it a priority to underscore the importance of placing the decision of whether to have SROs in CPS schools in the hands of individual Local School Councils. The Local School Councils made up of parents and other stakeholders are in the best position to understand what their individual schools need and what their communities represent are needing...As of today, 17 schools decided they do not need an SRO program to create a safe school environment, reducing the budget for the SRO program to approximately $12 million for the upcoming school year, less than half of what it was last year," Mayor Lightfoot said.
"LCS, let me remind you, are elected, Democratic bodies that share our commitment to listening to the communities that they serve and acting in those communities best interest. I personally value their voices and input as they are the closest to these issues on an individual school basis, and I applaud them for taking up this responsibility and exercising their right to vote to generate the change they want to see. That is empowerment in action."
Mayor Lightfoot announced 55 councils have voted to keep the program.
"... These reforms also have significant and necessary changes to the SRO hiring and training process....These improvements grew out of the same conversations that have been ongoing for over a year, really from the start of this administration with CPS leadership, the LSCs, young people, educators, and other stakeholders, who have been pushing for change. Now, principals will have the ability to directly participate in SROs' interviews and reject or request candidates for consideration," she said. "Candidates will undergo an extensive screening process ensuring that their backgrounds are free of excessive force allegations and placing a premium on experiences working with young people in a learning environment."
Also, officers will not be allowed to enter student information into CPD databases.
"...Our commitment to giving our children an engaging, nurturing and, above all else, safe environment has never wavered and never will," Lightfoot said.
Chicago Public Schools serves 355,000 students in 638 schools. It is the nation’s third-largest school district.