Since 2019, local school councils have had the authority to decide for themselves whether to have police officers assigned to their schools — and that’s the best way to handle this controversial issue.
In the years since former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration gave high schools that power, LSCs at some two dozen schools have voted to get rid of their officers, as part of safety plans that high schools have been required to develop in recent years.
That step-by-step approach is the best way, we believe, to wean schools away from relying on police involvement and punitive discipline to handle disruptive teens. As much as possible, restorative approaches — for instance, peace circles to handle disputes, along with counseling and mentoring for misbehaving teens, should take precedence over policing.
Schools should focus on being places of learning. Law enforcement should be a last resort, to deal with serious violence or incidents that involve guns or other deadly weapons.
But these approaches take money and time to implement, and every school community is different. The goal of “no cops in schools” is one to reach through persuasion, not mandate.
Yet principals say they’ve been told school board members have made up their minds not to renew the district’s $10.3 million contract for school resource officers, Sarah Karp of WBEZ reports.
Wrong move. Let LSCs continue to make the decision, in the best interests of their schools. That’s the meaning of “listening to the community,” something the Johnson administration prides itself on.
The board is still working through the issues involved, a mayoral spokesperson tells us. We urge the board to stick with the status quo.
Research has shown that students of color can be at risk of over-policing when officers are in schools. Ideally, even schools in tough, lower-income Black and Latino communities should adopt discipline strategies that don’t involve law enforcement.
Yet several dozen high schools, many of which serve Black and Brown students, still have at least one police officer in place because LSCs consider those officers to be a valued adult presence in schools where students sorely need mentoring and guidance. Who’s to say the current approach isn’t the best one, for now?
Mayor Brandon Johnson has already shown he recognizes that one size doesn’t fit all. During his mayoral campaign, he said armed officers had no place in schools in communities that are already distrustful of cops and over-policed. But once he took office, Karp notes, he said he was OK with LSCs opting to keep their officers.
The mayor and the board should continue with that. Local decision-making, by LSCs that presumably know best what their students need, should have the final say.
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