School Safety, Security, Emergency-Crisis Consultant l Litigation Expert Witness l Speaker-Trainer l Author | Researcher l Media Commentator
The Chicago Board of Education voted to remove School Resource Officers (#SROs) - Chicago Police - from city schools. This move was backed by the Chicago Teachers Union. How long before "buyer's remorse" sets in from this decision? #Schoolleaders only need to look to Denver and many other cities that pulled SROs from schools after the George Floyd murder. Many are struggling to return them back into schools as #schoolsecurity problems steadily increase and #teachers, #principals, #parents, and #students become increasingly frustrated. #Schoolsafety best practices need to be prioritized over political decisions.
Brian E. Clason
8mo
As a former Denver administrator with boots on the ground experience in the community. It wasn’t an overall disdain of school based law enforcement driving their removal. Rather, it was a handful of incidents where both school administration and school based law enforcement handled student incidents inappropriately. This left the community with a bad taste in their mouth and fearful. Denver Police and Denver Public Schools had an opportunity to dispense accountability for those who acted inappropriately and couple it with training based in lessons learned from those incidents to reform the admin-SBLE relationship and practices to ensure those things wouldn’t happen again. Instead, those incidents provided an open door for loud voiced radicals who would rather see police completely abolished take the spotlight.
Michael Shanks
8mo
It's concerning that many comments revolve around the expectation of ongoing school violence. Where's the collective call to address these issues at their roots? We require proactive steps such as enhancing mental health resources, launching anti-bullying campaigns, increasing the number of teachers and counselors, and reducing class sizes. While I advocate for the presence of school police officers, it's essential to recognize that their mere presence on campus isn't the sole solution for violence prevention.
Bobby Kipper
8mo
Always a mistake. I guess the students will find out there is one place they can go in the community without a police presence. The school is a mirror of the community. The city of Chicago definitely needs to apply the standard of safety to every neighborhood including the school.
Dan Kuzniewski
8mo
Chicago never ceases to amaze on its decisions. The riff is strong between the CPD and the community, and the community justifies feeling safer without SRO’s because they don’t trust the police. The reality is that having police out of schools removes the obstacles of maintaining the criminal conduct that “feeds” the community. Let’s also not forgot how politically motivated decisions are in Chicago, and therefore usually influenced by the powers of corruption.
If it’s predictable, It’s preventable. If it’s preventable and still predictable, then there is negligence. When there is negligence, there is liability.
Vincent J. Bove
8mo
A very unwise decision by the Chicago Board of Education to remove school resource officers. As memorialized in my cover story for The Chief of Police: “School resource officers (SRO’s): one of the most important school violence prevention, character education, and community policing initiatives.
I use the history of policing in the CPS system in my policing class. It’s an excellent example of doing all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons and doubling down after seeing all the worst results.
Donny Hudson
8mo
Let that sink in for a minute. This city is a shooting gallery on the daily! Sad what is happening.
School Safety, Security, Emergency-Crisis Consultant l Litigation Expert Witness l Speaker-Trainer l Author | Researcher l Media Commentator
8moHere is the school district's official communication about eliminating SROs: https://www.cps.edu/media/community-updates/2024/february/whole-school-safety/