CPS board, Springfield could hold dueling votes on school cops

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times file photo

State lawmakers are advancing a bill this week that would leave the decision on cops in Chicago Public Schools to local school councils, potentially upending the Board of Education’s plan to vote Thursday to remove officers from 39 high schools that still have them.

The bill is the latest backlash in Springfield against policy changes proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s school board that align with his progressive education agenda. The Illinois Senate is also expected to vote Thursday on a bill extending a ban on school closings and limiting the school board’s authority to make budgetary and admissions changes affecting selective enrollment schools.

Backers of the bills have criticized the mayor’s administration for attempting to implement major changes at CPS before the city’s school board becomes fully elected for the first time in early 2027, particularly after Johnson’s former employer the Chicago Teachers Union pushed for years to create an elected school board to give parents a bigger voice.

The debate around police in schools has been a thorny one since the social justice protests in the summer of 2020 after Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd. Student activists called on the Board of Education to end its contract with the Chicago Police Department that year, worth $33 million at the time.

Instead of a blanket removal of officers, CPS has reduced the cost of the deal and allowed local school councils to vote on removing cops from their schools. Most have done so — only 39 high schools still have at least one officer. As schools removed their cops, they developed alternative safety plans and were given resources to pay for new restorative justice coordinators, deans and other programs aimed at addressing the root causes of conflicts and students’ trauma.

Many schools have reported positive results.

The University of Chicago Education Lab worked with CPS to analyze the effectiveness of the restorative practices that replaced policing and found student arrests dropped 35% in schools and 15% outside of schools while decreasing out-of-school suspensions by 18%.

Still, some schools have said they’d prefer to keep their officers, who they feel offer a sense of safety and are welcome members of the school community.

The Board of Education is expected to vote Thursday to remove cops from all the remaining high schools and give them resources for alternative plans.

But House Bill 5008, sponsored by Rep. Mary Gill, D-Chicago, could prevent that. The bill would amend the Illinois School Code to add a new item to the “powers and duties” of Chicago’s local school councils: “Until February 1, 2027, to contract with the Chicago Police Department to have police officers or school resource officers on high school grounds.”

The bill initially opened contracting with the Police Department to all schools, including elementaries, and would have permanently cemented LSCs’ power on school cops.

Gill filed an amendment to the bill Monday that passed the Police and Fire Committee on Wednesday sunsetting the provision in 2027 — when Chicago’s fully elected school board is inaugurated — and clarifying that it applied only to high schools.

Gill — who represents the Far South Side’s Beverly and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods and a few south suburbs — has said a local school council member who was upset with the Board of Education’s plans asked her to take up the bill to maintain local control over school cops.

Some advocates have raised other questions about the bill's language, including whether it puts the onus on local school councils to negotiate individual contracts with CPD, and whether it makes school police a requirement rather than a choice if hiring cops becomes among an LSC’s “duties.”

Gill’s office didn’t immediately respond to questions about those concerns.