Ahead of a highly anticipated vote Wednesday by Chicago’s school board on whether to remove police officers from public schools, students and activists are holding protests across the city, including in front the board president’s house, to give one final push toward police-free schools.
The vote to end a $33 million contract between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Police Department was a surprise item included earlier this week on the Board of Education’s monthly meeting agenda. If the resolution to kick more than 200 officers out of about 70 schools passes Wednesday afternoon, it’ll go against the wishes of Mayor Lori Lightfoot and top CPS leadership, who have said they want each individual school to decide for themselves whether they want officers.
Several aldermen called into the online meeting to voice their opinions on the issue, which proves to be one of the most significant decisions the school board has made in years.
In all, eight aldermen — Jeanette Taylor, Howard Brookins, Byron Sigcho-Lopez, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Andre Vasquez, Matt Martin and Maria Hadden — urged the board to end the police contract. Five of their City Council counterparts — Pat Dowell, David Moore, Derrick Curtis, Christopher Taliaferro and Nicholas Sposato — called to say they prefer officers remain in schools.
“Young people have told you from the very beginning, the young people that we claim to love, the young people that you are you claiming you’re so glad they’re graduating and congratulating, they’re on the phone telling you, they’re calling you to say that police do not need to be in schools,” Taylor passionately argued. “Have any of you sitting on the CPS board ... seen a student carried out of a school in handcuffs? In elementary school? My son has. And is that what we’re teaching them? How to put their hands behind their back?”
Sigcho-Lopez told the board that “unequivocally, this is a no-brainer” to remove police from schools. He pointed to the trauma faced by CPS student Dnigma Howard, who was 16 years old when she was shoved down a set of stairs and stunned with a Taser by Chicago police officers stationed in Marshall Metropolitan High School in a January 2019 incident that drew national headlines.
“A 16-year-old. I want to make sure you remember these words so you understand how this policy works and affects our youth,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “A police officer was screaming at the father of a special education child, a 16-year-old Black teenager, ‘Your daughter is going to jail.’ Now, is this the type of policy that we want to see in our schools?
“It’s immoral. It’s wrong. There’s no justification,” he said. “People are watching. People are seeing our decisions. This is the time for you to make a decision. Not to be a rubber stamp for the mayor.”
While the meeting went on, a march and rally was being held downtown to support removing police from schools. It featured Dnigma’s father, Laurentio Howard.
Dowell, one of the aldermen speaking in favor of police, urged the board to “take a measured approach” and “not to make a rash decision” by ending the police contract because the officers in her South Side ward have been a good presence in schools, she said. Other aldermen argued officers offer important protection for students from outside danger.
“I can’t imagine what it would be like without having a law enforcement officer there to protect our kids as well as our teachers,” Curtis said. “Our teachers are already overworked, and they shouldn’t be responsible for teaching and protecting at the same time.”
CPS CEO Janice Jackson said earlier this week when news of the scheduled board vote became public that “we cannot be overly emotional in this decision because these decisions are life or death decisions that we’re making. It’s not just playing to the loudest group that’s saying we need to do something.”
She said at Wednesday’s board meeting that it’s clear there are real concerns that have to be addressed, and she’s not saying otherwise, because students have to feel safe both physically and mentally. But she still wants each school to decide for itself.
“I don’t believe that a top-down mandate makes sense in this situation,” Jackson said. “If this were an easy issue and cut and dry we wouldn’t be spending so much time on it today. There are just a lot of people who have different views about it.”
Jadine Chou, head of CPS’ Office of Safety & Security, told the board that a survey administered in May shows almost all community members strongly oppose keeping officers in schools. Students and parents are split on the issue, while administrators overwhelmingly want to keep police.
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Overall, adults had more positive feelings on school officers than students, Chou said.
She added that the district has responded to concerns in recent years, acknowledging there wasn’t enough oversight on the program in the past. New rules for police in schools call for officers to be kept away from school disciplinary issues, allow principals to choose their officers and include stricter background requirements for officers to work in schools.
“We’re just asking for everyone to be on this journey with us,” Chou said. “We’ve come a long way as a district. We recognize we have a way to go. But we feel like we are making progress.”
Board of Education President Miguel del Valle, meanwhile, was met with jeers outside his home Wednesday morning when he came outside before the meeting to told a few dozen protesters gathered there that he would vote against removing officers from schools.
“I want you to know, I am voting no on the resolution. I don’t hide. I don’t hide from my decisions,” he said. “I disagree with you. Respect my opinion.”
Del Valle, who historically has been a progressive advocate for equitable public education, asked protesters to keep their noise down because his 86-year-old mother was scared inside the house.
Chicago police showed up a few minutes later, and seven officers stood guard in front of del Valle’s home as loud chants continued. A Chicago police spokeswoman confirmed CPD received a call around 10:20 a.m. to the Belmont Cragin block where del Valle lives “regarding protesters causing a noise disturbance.” It wasn’t clear who called the police.
The youth-led protesters watched an online stream of the board meeting and yelled and banged on items every time del Valle spoke.
Protesters played loud music and sang along to NWA’s “F—- the Police” and Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.”
“We are out here to get police out of schools,” 19-year-old Jermaine Wright said. “As a lot of Black and Brown youth we feel underrepresented, we feel scared when we walk into schools and we have police in there that are killing our people.”
Wright graduated from Kenwood a year ago and now is pursuing a marketing degree from the University of Tampa, but that isn’t stopping him from advocating for the removal of police in schools.
“It’s was so traumatic for me even when I went to school because I know that these people took away my aunts, my uncles, my cousins and I was scared,” Wright said. “At one point I stopped going to school and then I got the police called on me for doing that. It’s like I couldn’t get away.”
Students even called into the board meeting from outside del Valle’s house, urging the board to listen to their demands.
Jennifer Nava, 18, a graduate of Thomas Kelly College Prep chants during a teach in outside Chicago Board of Education President Miguel del Valle’s home in Belmont Cragin on June 24, 2020. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Lanessa Young, 18, draws around Haroon Garel’s, 40, body during a teach in outside Chicago Board of Education President Miguel del Valle’s home in Belmont Cragin to demand an end to police presence in schools on June 24, 2020. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Youth activists dance in front of Chicago Board of Education President Miguel del Valle’s home in Belmont Cragin to demand an end to police presence in schools on June 24, 2020. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
“We are here to demand the defunding of the police to get CPD out of CPS to eliminate CPD,” the students said in unison. “We as a youth don’t feel safe with police in my school. Police are not meant for schools. Police do not belong in schools.
“You’ve got the power. You’ve got the choice. Make it right.”
Another speaker at the meeting was Marvin Hunter, the great-uncle of Laquan McDonald, the Chicago teenager who was gunned down with 16 bullets by former CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke,
“I hear very compelling arguments for both sides, but the truth of the matter is, speaking as a lifelong resident of the city of Chicago, the optics of having police officers in the schools is not a good look from the perspective of the community,” Hunter told the board. “Most people have been traumatized in our community at one level or another by uniformed police officers.”
Referencing his nephew’s murder, Hunter said “just that action alone proves that police ... do not have the capacity to understand children, nor are they trained in that way.”
Another public participation speaker, Rebekah Fenton, a physician in Northwestern University’s Pediatrics Department, said she feels scared as a Black woman every time she comes across police officers, and that same fear is in Black and Brown students in schools every day.
“The school resource officer contract threatens the futures of Chicago’s youth,” Fenton said. “The mere presence of police in schools increases the risk of incarceration. Continuing this contract neglects and exacerbates the collective trauma of policing in Black and Brown communities both in and out of schools.”
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Protesters also gathered outside Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s home Tuesday night.
Lightfoot has said she would rather keep the decision about school cops in the hands of Local School Councils, which were given the power this past school year to decide whether police should remain stationed in their schools. Not a single LSC voted to get rid of its officers, but LSC members around the city complained about short notice before the vote and a lack of information on the issue. The councils are made up of elected parents, teachers and community members.
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