Educators for Excellence-Chicago Reacts to Chicago Public School’s Board of Education Vote on Police in Schools

August 26 (Chicago) — Educators for Excellence-Chicago (E4E-Chicago), a teacher-led organization, reacted to today’s vote by the Chicago Board of Education to amend the contract between Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) that includes a decrease in CPD funding and new, specific provisions for School Resources Officers (SROs). 

“After a contentious conversation and divided vote on police in schools, there is one thing upon which all parties can agree: the legacy of racism and racist policies in our city and schools continue to negatively impact our students,” said Stacy Moore, Executive Director of E4E-Chicago. “While E4E teachers will be glad to see the Board taking steps to set stronger hiring standards for SROs and require more robust training, they also know this is ultimately not enough to catalyze the long-term, systemic changes needed to root out  racism in our schools that harms students. I look forward to a day in which police in our schools are a distant memory and the school-to-prison pipeline is dismantled entirely. In the meantime, if we are serious about eliminating discipline disparities in our schools, the next step needs to be to provide restorative training not only to SROs, but to every school staff member. Reinvesting the money cut today from the SRO budget into restorative practices and anti-racist trainings would be a sign that CPS is ready to make that investment for our kids.”

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