At a bare minimum, every student attending a public school in the United States should feel safe. Sadly, in far too many government-run schools, this is not the case. This is particularly true for the 320,000 students who attend Chicago Public Schools (CPS), where abuse, assaults, thefts, drug dealing, and gang activity have become all too commonplace.
Instead of dealing with these pressing concerns, the Chicago Board of Education recently passed a resolution that will remove all remaining school resource officers from the CPS system by the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.
Rather than having a school resource officer on duty to handle dangerous situations, the Chicago Board of Education has elected to implement a “holistic” approach to school safety, focusing on social justice policies such as “conflict resolution” and similar restorative justice approaches.
Unfortunately, the decision to remove school resource officers from CPS will likely result in more violence and a less conducive learning environment.
According to a recent report by the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute, “School safety is a particularly pressing issue in urban public schools; the incidence of violent episodes is almost 60 percent higher in city schools than in suburban schools, and 30 percent higher than in rural schools. Urban schools are approximately twice as likely as other schools to report that students verbally abuse teachers and act disrespectfully (other than verbal abuse) toward teachers either daily or at least once a week.”
This disturbing trend has engulfed Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
Consider this account from a ninth-grader who attends a Chicago public high school: “There’s fighting like—every Friday there’s a fight... at our school... It makes me feel distracted and stuff like that, nervous.”
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Or this comment from a CPS teacher: “I see behavior problems I have never seen before. I get cursed out almost daily.”
Throughout the nation, millions of students are trapped in public schools that are not only doing a pitiful job of educating them, they are dangerous places in which students and teachers are constantly under threat.
Trust me, as a former public high school teacher, I know this is true from first-hand experience. While I was pursuing my master’s degree in secondary education at National Louis University in Chicago, I spent many days in CPS classrooms.
On a weekly basis, we would “shadow” CPS teachers while observing classroom procedures and teaching strategies. In short, I was absolutely shocked almost every time I performed one of these shadow days. Why? Because most, not all, of the classrooms I observed were so chaotic that barely any actual learning could take place.
Among the things that most stood out: I witnessed a student throw their desk at a teacher, I saw multiple fights between students break out in classrooms and hallways, and I repeatedly witnessed students berating their teachers.
In fact, the utter lack of respect for teachers and the abhorrent language used by students towards them was fairly normal. In fact, it was so ordinary that most teachers didn’t bat an eye when they were cursed out by students.
Eventually, I graduated with a degree in secondary education social studies and began my teaching career in South Carolina. Unfortunately, things weren’t much better below the Mason-Dixon Line.
While working at a few public schools as a substitute before landing a full-time teaching job, I was appalled at the level of violence and disrespect perpetuated by students. Brawls involving several students were a routine occurrence. So were thefts, assaults, and destruction of property.
Why do I bring this up? Because I could not imagine how bad things could have been without our school resource officer. Back when I was teaching and observing in CPS, school resource officers were present in every school I worked in. On countless occasions, while serving lunch duty or roaming the hallways, I saw the school resource officer called into action.
In a few instances, he even helped me breakup fights between students. And, had he not been there, I can guarantee you things would have been much worse.
Based on my personal experience, I can unequivocally say that school resource officers should be present in every school. Not only do they prevent fights from escalating, but their mere presence acts as a deterrent. Trust me, students are much more hesitant to do something they know is wrong when a school resource officer is right around the corner.
However, there is an even more important reason I support school resource officers, and that is because their presence in the building and on the grounds makes those students who actually want to learn feel safer. Yes, in every school that I have worked in, most of the students want to be protected from harm so they can learn and socialize. It is a small percentage of students who cause most of the trouble.
By having a school resource officer on hand, students and teachers feel safer because they know there is someone around who can maintain order under the most dangerous circumstances. All students (and teachers) deserve to feel protected while at school, which is why school resource officers were hired in the first place.
The Chicago Board of Education ought to know better considering that Chicago’s experiment with defunding the police has resulted in a surge of crime and violence over the past few years.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is a former public school teacher and editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
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