In 2020, Chicago high schoolers spoke out against police presence in their schools, which they said promoted a school-to-prison pipeline. Disproportionately affecting students of color, that pipeline pushes students from classrooms into the justice system through punishment like expulsions or arrests that don’t address the root cause of behavioral infractions.
Also in 2020, Chicago Public Schools and partnering organizations — including those from the West Side, like BUILD and POWER-PAC IL — convened a steering committee to develop a Whole School Safety plan that addresses students’ holistic safety by removing police from schools and providing resources for emotional support, restorative justice and trauma-informed care inside schools.
Now, some of what was discussed six years ago is coming to fruition in the school year that started last week.
At a Chicago Board of Education meeting in July, members passed a $10 billion budget for the 2027 fiscal year, including several million to implement the Whole School Safety plan citywide this upcoming school year. And Chicago Public Schools published an implementation guide that, for the first time this school year, charges every school with creating a Whole School Safety Committee and staffing behavioral health professionals, plus outlines standards for social-emotional learning, restorative practices and evaluating students’ holistic needs.
The implementation guide says Whole School Safety Committees should meet at least once every two weeks to develop individual school plans and evaluate their effectiveness. Committee members must include either the principal or assistant principal, a security officer, teacher, at least two parents and three students — and will be recruited by the Local School Council, a student committee and Behavioral Health Team. The new Behavioral Health Team will be made up of a school administrator, counselor and social worker that refers, screens and connects students to behavior and mental health supports.
The Whole School Safety Committee will then create a Whole School Safety Vision Statement, conduct a needs assessment and develop an official plan for the school.
“It was more than getting police out of schools. There had to be a whole school framework, and that has been our stance from the beginning,” said Karen Lynn Morton. She’s an Austin resident and co-chair emeritus of POWER-PAC IL — or Parents Organized to Win, Educate, and Renew-Policy Action Council — which is led by parents who are trained by Community Organizing and Family Issues, a Chicago-based organization that empowers parents to get involved in civic issues. Morton is also co-chair of POWER-PAC IL’s elementary justice campaign and has been a part of the Whole School Safety steering committee since its launch in 2020.
Six years ago, only about 50 of over 600 Chicago Public Schools practiced Whole School Safety, according to Morton.
“Those were the schools that still had SROs,” Morton said of school resource officers, or on-duty police, some of which were on the West Side. In the following years, some of those schools removed police officers from their campuses, replacing them with more mental health and restorative justice resources, and more counselors. “POWER-PAC and other members of the Whole School Safety Committee, we wanted to see this across the board with every school in the district.”
Dexter Leggin, who was also a part of POWER-PAC’s West Side branch and died in June, co-chaired an elementary justice campaign with Morton that advocated for implementing restorative justice practices in all Chicago schools and led to the Whole School Safety campaign.
In July 2024, the Chicago Board of Education voted to remove resource officers from all city schools. That same summer, the board also adopted the Whole School Safety policy for the upcoming school year. And now there’s a charge to implement more Whole School Safety framework.
According to WTTW, today 275 of 630 Chicago Public Schools have implemented the Whole School Safety framework. And according to Chalkbeat, schools that had resource officers who were removed were given an amount similar to the salary of an officer to implement Whole School Safety plans.
When asked what resources for Whole School Safety the recently passed budget includes, Morton said, “We’re not sure. We have a picture of cuts that are happening across the board at CPS, but at the individual school level, we don’t know yet.”
Despite funding uncertainty, Morton said one of the things she’s most excited about in implementing Whole School Safety citywide is the collaboration with parents and the wider community.
“There’s an invisible barrier I want to see come down. I always say parents are crucial to the learning process, but we are also looked upon as not knowing. But I can help you educate my child because I have a PhD in being that child’s mother,” Morton said. “That inward and outward level of respect, and going back and forth with each other to improve our schools — That’s what I want to see.”