Study finds removing police officers in Chicago Public Schools did not impact perceived safety

Removing uniformed police officers from Chicago Public Schools had little effect on students’ and teachers’ perceptions of safety, according to a new report, published Wednesday.

The study — conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital Center for Childhood Resilience — examines the outcome of CPS’ plan to phase out uniformed police officers in schools.

The research coincides with CPS’ removal of the remaining uniformed police officers in 39 schools before the 2024-25 school year.

While having little effect on perceived safety in schools, the study found that, in some cases, removing uniformed police officers, known as school resource officers (or SROs), in district schools coincided with fewer “high-level” disciplinary events, which include violent offenses, drug-related offenses and other behavior that would generally prompt police to be notified.

The study used district-wide data from 2014-2015 and 2022-2023 to examine the difference in outcomes between schools that removed SROs and those that continued to employ them. It is based on qualitative responses from annual CPS surveys and includes all district-run high schools, excluding charter schools.

In previous years, CPS contracted with the Chicago Police Department to employ SROs, whose job was to maintain safety in high schools across the district. CPS does not employ SROs at elementary or middle schools, and most district schools, 595, currently have no school resource officers.  A maximum of two SROs work at each school that employs them.

In 2020, following the racial justice protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, a resolution passed by the Chicago Board of Education instructed Chicago Public Schools to phase out the use of school resource officers and create alternative safety systems, a resolution the district termed the “Whole School Safety Program,” which focuses on creating physical and emotional safety and relational trust in school communities. As part of this initiative, CPS partnered with several community-based organizations to develop a new approach to school safety.

In February, the board voted unanimously to remove all SROs from district schools before the 2024-2025 school year.

School resource officers will officially be removed from all of the remaining schools by June 30, according to CPS, and the board’s decision to remove all SROs and implement the “Whole School Safety Program” in all schools is expected to be codified at the Chicago Board of Education’s July 25 meeting.

Of the approximately 84 schools studied, 16 still had both of their SROs in 2023, and 23 had retained one SRO, according to CPS. These remaining schools will lose their SROs before school begins in the fall.

The results of this research are encouraging for CPS, who are moving forward with phasing out all SROs and implementing the “Whole School Safety Program” in all schools, which includes additional funding for schools who are losing SROs. Those funds can be used toward safety measures like capital improvements, hiring security guards and restorative justice coordinators and additional staff training

“I think it [the study] reinforced one of our key perspectives, which is [that] removing police officers is not something that’s happening in a vacuum,” said Jadine Chou, the district’s chief of safety and security. “It’s happening in light of other resources and plans that are going in place.”

The U. of C. study’s lead researcher, Amy Arneson, noted that these concurrent safety measures may account for some of the reduction in disciplinary infractions. She also said that the study’s data only reflects the early years of what removing SROs might entail for schools, and future research may offer different insights.

The roll-out of the new policy is likely to be different from the gradual phasing out of SROs, Arneson said, particularly since the schools currently transitioning from having a police presence are the same schools that previously voted to keep SROs. She hopes that the research will nevertheless inform communities as they make the transition.

“They’re gonna be the ones using it [the research] as well, combining it with their own lived experiences in moving forward, in terms of redefining safety in CPS over the next couple of years.”

The U. of C. study is the first part of a larger research study that plans to analyze broader safety goals. Forthcoming research will analyze additional safety measures, particularly how schools who chose to remove their SROs spent the additional funding they received to improve safety in their schools.

The study also found that, in 2022-2023, 63% of Black high school students had at least one SRO in their school, compared with 29% of Latino and white students and 22% of Asian and Pacific Islander students, disparities that became more pronounced as some schools phased out their SROs. Students receiving free or reduced lunch, non-English learners and students receiving special education services were also more likely to be in schools with SROs, according to the study.

For parents and community members who have lobbied against police presence in school, the board’s February decision comes as a relief.

“The general vibe in CPS, particularly for Black students and Black kids with [disabilities], is that is that there is a police officer available in the event that there is an incident, instead of leveraging restorative practices and the things we know that work best, particularly for our students in special education, to de-escalate situations,” said Cassandra Kaczocha, a Kenwood High School parent and board president of the education nonprofit Raise Your Hand. “Police officers don’t participate in that, and in fact, they tend to escalate situations.”

Kaczocha had previously lobbied against SROs at Mather High School, and began to speak in support of removing SROs at Kenwood when her son transferred there.

Other community members remain uncertain as to what the upcoming school year will look like.

Michele Clark High School, a magnet school in the Austin neighborhood, voted to keep both of their SROs during the 2022-2023 school year and, at the end of the 2023-2024 year, had retained both of their SROs.

According to Bernard Clay, a community representative for Michele Clark’s local school council, their community wishes to keep their SROs, but that conflicts with the Chicago Board of Education’s ruling.

Although many schools have elected to remove their SROs since 2020, Clay believes the universal decision across all CPS schools does not consider the specific needs of each school community.

“Those are those schools,” Clay said. “We voted to keep ours. We know our community.”

After the February Board decision, Chou said the district began working with school communities to make the transition. The 39 schools that have to remove their SROs by the start of the school year formed committees to develop a safety plan going forward.

“People have strong points of view on this topic, which is why engagement was so important,” said Chou. “The board decided they were going to move forward, and it was our job to make sure that we were incorporating any concerns that people have in light of the decision.”

For example, Chou said a number of the schools in which SROs were removed requested a Chicago Police Department presence at dismissal time, which, she said, the district has promised to provide next year.

CPS said they spoke with students, parents, principals and teachers in the schools that wanted to keep their SROs to determine what safety measures would ease the transition to a school without police presence. “What things have to be in place to make sure that you feel that you have what you need for your school’s safety?” Chou said.

The removal of uniformed officers in schools is too narrow a focus when it comes to addressing school safety, according to Dwayne Truss, a former Chicago Board of Education member and 29th ward alderman candidate in 2019. According to Truss, the Chicago Board of Education has focused on police presence in schools, but this overshadows pressing issues like literacy and academic concerns.

“It’s just the social justice warriors’ mentality,” he said. “It was like the symbolism of, ‘Let’s get police officers out of the schools.’ Every school is not the same. Every community is not the same.”