“As we speak there are different crises going on right now. We are fighting to get justice for George Floyd and the brothers and sisters that lost their lives to police brutality, while also trying to survive a pandemic that is disproportionately impacting Black and Brown lives even though our country sees Black youth as targets.” - Caleb Reed, VOYCE youth leader, age 17

Last night, the Denver School Board unanimously approved a resolution to remove police from schools. Minneapolis led, followed by Portland. Will Chicago be next?

On Tuesday, June 8th, after participating in countless marches over the past two weeks, VOYCE youth brought together a powerful group of young people, parents, school social workers from Community Organizing and Family issues (COFI) POWER-PAC IL, Southwest Organizing Project, Good Kids Mad City - Englewood, Westside Health Authority, Chicago Freedom School and the National Association of School Social Workers-IL, and more.

At the rally, Chicago Alderman Rodrick Sawyer and State Representative LaShawn Ford committed to advancing joint efforts at the city and state levels to transform what safety needs to look like without cops in our schools, and create systems of support and healthy environments for all students, but especially for Black and Brown youth.

Caleb shared his testimony - “I was arrested for not having my ID during a basketball game. I was arrested for 6 hours. I would have wanted the officer to ask me to leave, but that did not happen. While sitting in the cell I was angry and confused but I remained calm because I knew that situation could escalate really quick.”

Dexter Legging, a parent leader from COFI POWER-PAC, shared his perspective as a father raising two young Black children, and what his children see on a daily basis. “When my kids go to school, the first person they see is a police officer. The last person they see when they leave school is a police officer. We are not raising children for education, we are raising children to go to jail! We need police out of our schools and invest to support our kids.”

VOYCE youth called for the CPS Board and the Mayor to remove police from schools and invest in developing Health Equity Action Response Teams (H.E.A.R.T), an approach to school safety that relies on trained mental and behavioral health professionals and restorative justice practitioners with expertise in trauma-informed support for students, de-escalation, conflict resolution, crisis response, and other trauma-informed approaches.

Alderman Sawyer stood in support and stressed the need for elected officials to listen to young people’s experience. “If she (Mayor Lightfoot) heard from these individuals, from the experiences that they have, a lot of people would think differently. Police are not necessary in schools, it results in the criminalization of our Black boys. We don’t need that to keep happening!” The alderman announced that he will be working with VOYCE and allies to introduce a resolution before City Council and call on the CPS Board of Education and the Mayor to act on this demand.

Speaking on the urgency for city and state officials to take act, State Rep. LaShawn Ford said: “We have to make sure that the message gets to the Mayor, that the message gets to the Governor, and we say no more police in our schools!”

“I dealt with quarantine and the pandemic of the coronavirus and made the best of it. What I can no longer stand for is the pandemic of injustice that our Black people face daily when it comes to policing. What I can no longer stand is the fact that police officers continue to brutalize and murder my people becasue they know that they will not be held accountable.”
-- Daniel Davenport, Youth Leader, Southwest Organizing Project.

TAKE ACTION: We are at a critical turning point in our city, state, and country, and while we are in the midst of a pandemic every action counts!

If you are able, keep on joining the marches in your neighborhood and across the city!

Call your Alderman and the CPS Board of Education today to support replacing school police with Health Equity Action Response Teams (H.E.A.R.T.)

Support the organizing work of VOYCE youth during this critical time and donation today.

About VOYCE:

Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) is a youth-led alliance for education and racial justice led by students of color from across the city of Chicago and Illinois. Through VOYCE, young people have created the nation’s most comprehensive statewide school discipline reform (Illinois SB100), which ended zero tolerance discipline policies at all publicly-funded schools in Illinois, placed stronger standards on the use of exclusionary discipline, ended practices such as discipline fines and counseling out, and created a thoughtful framework to expand restorative practices in schools. 

In 2018, VOYCE youth leaders launched the Rethinking Safety Campaign, a campaign working to end the reliance on law enforcement in schools and expand resources for mental and behavioral health supports in schools.

For more information about VOYCE or to get involved, please contact Maria Degillo at maria@voyceproject.org or at 773-583-1387.