Chicago Public Schools know better about controlling children's safety.

[ancianita]

The nation can be as cynical about "urban" violence as they want.
The nation can be as cynical in comparing Chicago gun deaths to smaller towns' mass shootings.
The nation can be discouraged by its failure to make schools safe.

But the facts of Chicago Public Schools as safe places INSIDE are a model of preventive safety for the nation's schools.

School security is funded under operating expenses by the CPS Board. In my entire 34 year career, no shootings have taken place in any of the public schools of the 3rd largest city in the U.S.

CPS has instituted police protection with one CPD policeman assigned per high school, located in an office separate from classroom buildings -- usually off near the auditorium area.

Outside all schools, CPS has unarmed security officers with batons and walkie-talkies on school perimeter patrol. No neighborhood people enter grounds without being verbally acknowledged (like a Walmart greeter), then told that the school grounds are federal safe zones, and then directed to the entrance where they are met by security inside the building.

All non-students are met at only one school entrance by security, then literally walked through a metal detector to the administration office before they can be escorted anywhere else in the school with an official visitors pass.

Again, NO shootings have taken place INSIDE any of the public schools of Chicago. The model is PREVENTIVE.

No one can hold any schools responsible for what happens to children on nearby streets, parks, or in their own homes.

The Chicago Public Schools safety model shows that its schools, INSIDE, are safe places for children.
Schools CAN be the safest place for children to be in America.


It CAN be done.



https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/19/project-to-connect-kenwood-academy-buildings-add-cooling-system-to-gym-gets-key-city-approval/

[uponit7771]

1. K&R,

[Bev54]

2. As a Canadian I cannot even believe you have to have this conversation and

I suspect other people in other countries feel the same. This is insane and everyone is looking at bandaids. Just get rid of the goddamned guns, have a registry, can't buy without a license and proper training. It is called restrictions - no military weaponry. Our children don't need active shooter drills, they do fire drills and maybe lockdown drills on occasion, which usually happens if there is something going on close to a school, like a robbery. I don't understand how people can live with constant threat, it must be exhausting. I know I can no longer watch these incidents at all because it makes me so angry that nothing is being done or has been done. This is democracy?? Not in my world.

[ancianita]

3. As an American I

know that people in other countries forget that America's problems are problems of scale.

I'd like to offer for your consideration the fact that, coming from a nation whose population is 12% as big as that of the U.S., perhaps there's a reason more conversations have to happen across the U.S. compared to Canada and other countries.

Problems at scale are much harder to turn around. Much harder for big scale diverse countries to turn around than smaller homogeneous countries, many of whom are only as big as this country's states. These states also run 50 different school systems, and so there's scale of difference in education. Problems in general are also much harder to adjudicate across 50 separate state jurisdictions and 13 federal court jurisdictions.

So I hope you can see why I'd say it's a bit late to offer "just" solutions that require more than "just get rid of the goddamned guns" in a country whose constitution protects the gun manufacturing corporations through its commerce clause.

I don't understand how people can live with constant threat, it must be exhausting

In such a big country, that's not what's happening, even as guns outnumber the population. The good part of the U.S. is that there is a lot of country out there accessible to Americans who want temporary respite or permanent relocation. Most immigrants who've come here are particularly aware of America's scale. The other cool thing about this particular big scale country is the scale of its innovation and hard work that humans across the entire planet enjoy using without a shred of thanks to America. Like the Internet, and the freedom to offer criticisms about America's problems, with perhaps one rare offer of financial or innovative help.

Public schools and their teachers in America have produced our presidents, astronauts, scientists, technology, engineers, climatologists, environmentalists, activists, and hopeful children who will use all our previous knowledge.

This is might not appear to be democracy, big scale messy as it looks. But seeing as how we're trying to save democracy on a big scale, and maintain it more permanently, thanks for your support.

[Bev54]

8. If it was just scale then Canada should be about 29 school shootings during the same time period

it is not it is 2, the UK should be about 70 in the same time period, they are 0. This has nothing to do with scale and all to do with the American relationship with guns and their impotence at regulating them.

Country, School Shootings
United States 288
Mexico 8
South Africa 6
India 5
Pakistan 4
Nigeria 4
Afghanistan 3
Brazil 2
France 2
Canada 2
China 1
Russia 1
Turkey 1
Germany 1
Kenya 1
Greece 1
Azerbaijan 1
Hungary 1
Estonia 1
Japan 0
United Kingdom 0
Italy 0
Spain 0
Argentina 0
Australia 0
Netherlands 0
Switzerland 0

[ancianita]

11. Then you don't understand scale. You're confusing it with proportionality.

Did you read the list of gun manufacturers in the U.S. that I linked?
Do you know that they are constitutionally protected businesses?
Do you recognize that as a big scale problem for the U.S.?

Perhaps you could direct your criticism toward social media platforms that keep flogging Democrats as if they should be even more responsible for regulating guns, even as HR 8 and HR 1446 are ignored by the rest of the political class. Join their chorus.

Oh, and link this graph, please.

[Bev54]

12. Here is what I am not confused about, you are making excuses and accepting

that children have to live in an almost prison like atmosphere because your government (republicans and some democrats) has failed to do something about the guns and the types of guns in the hands of those with a sick mentality, (Iam not saying mentally ill but gun mentality) that seems to be unique to the US. Do you think the rest of us do not have mental illness in our society? The only difference between the US and all the other countries, who do not have the problems is the "right to bear arms" mentality. That is what needs to be fixed and get all the guns out of the hands of most of society. It is the mindset that needs to change not more "preventative", who the hell wants to live that way? It is not just schools, it seems you cannot go to a nightclub, a grocery store or ride a subway. If you cannot see the problem of what you are proposing then to me, that is the problem, accepting that is the way to live.

I prefer my life of freedom without worrying about being shot or that my grandchildren are going to be shot.

[ancianita]

13. Is that what I'm doing? And it's not just your interpretation?

You think I'm accepting an adaptive school model in a spirit of defeat?

I thought I was presenting a good model for school safety UNTIL all the things that you say are wrong with society get fixed. Something that works until society unfucks this gun humping country and ensures domestic tranquility.

So, if you prefer your life of freedom without worrying about being shot or that your grandchildren are going to be shot, then you seem, perhaps more than you think, to agree with me about keeping schools -- little islands of innocence give children the experience of all that is good, beautiful and true about the world -- safe from this 'right to bear arms' mentality.

[Bev54]

17. I don't worry about my grandchildren or myself being shot because

I don't live there. You didn't say a good model UNTIL........, you just espoused about a good model period, which is a bandaid on a gaping wound.

[ancianita]

19. Then why did you even bring that up. I don't worry about my kids or grandkids, either,

They graduated from Chicago Public Schools and went on to get college degrees. And I was there.

A bandaid on a gaping wound? What gaping wound do you refer to? If you're not there, do explain.

[Bev54]

20. I said it in my very first post

[ancianita]

22. I know. I read it. Why did you bring it up?

I'm trying to lift the spirits of Americans who stereotype schools as part of the problem. They are not.

You talk of gaping wounds, so explain where that gaping wound is.

[Ex Lurker]

4. A lot of activists

This article explains how police in schools harms Black and Brown children https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021/09/14/removing-police-schools-inaugural-learning-justice-magazine-includes-story-explaining-how

[ancianita]

5. This thread isn't about activists. Your post is about flawed models, and NOT in Chicago, but in

Minneapolis; Denver; Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco and Oakland, California; and Rochester, New York, Gwinnett County, Georgia, Montgomery, Alabama

This is about how districts confuse appropriate behavior policies with criminalizing misbehaving children. Police are not supposed to supervise a single thing in any academic areas of any schools. But in authoritarian areas I could see how districts might try to use police as support.

There are many states that don't understand the profession of teaching; or the first priority of administrations to create an optimal learning climate.

How schools use safety models to optimize their learning climate and goals is the issue.
Police are not the problem. Police are not the first and last resort of safety in schools.

Many states in general call obedience training education, as some extension of what parents want help with; often many schools mistake police presence for auxiliary help; often parents want police as substitute parents.


This thread isn't about failure. This thread is about what works.

[former9thward]

6. As a long time Chicagoan I will post some accurate information.

Chicago police are being REMOVED from the schools.

As Many Chicago Schools Remove Cops From Hallways, Data Shows Some Schools Send Kids To Police At Alarming Rates

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/schools-cops-arrests/

CPS Agrees To Take 1 Officer Out Of Each Of 24 Schools That Voted For Removal

https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/08/30/cps-police-comply-24-schools-request-remove-1-cop/

CPS schools remove dozens of cops, shifting $2M from school policing to other student supports

More than 30 Chicago high schools have voted to redirect money spent on uniformed police officers to alternative behavioral and mental health supports a year after intense student-led protests put a microscope on the role of cops in public schools.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2021/7/21/22587789/cps-public-school-police-cops-resource-officers-sro-restorative-justice

In additon there have been countless shooting outside and near the schools.

Parents Concerned After Shootings Outside Chicago Schools on Consecutive Days


Parents are pushing for government officials to take action to address gun violence in Chicago after a teen girl and a security guard were shot outside a school Tuesday, followed by gunfire outside another school Wednesday morning.

According to authorities, a gunman opened fire in front of McDade Elementary at approximately 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, sending parents into a panic.

“Come on, like Chicago stop! Please,” Philonise Griffin, who rushed to the school to pick up her daughter, said. “They just want to go back to school.”

The gunfire didn’t strike any students or staff, but did leave two bullet holes in a window in front of the school.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/parents-concerned-after-shootings-outside-chicago-schools-on-consecutive-days/2636267/

[ancianita]

7. While it's mostly accurate, it's not completely accurate in telling the whole safety model story.

District 299 still has 330,411 students enrolled in 636 schools, 162 of them high schools.

So if 24 remove police, you can do the math and, if you choose, realize that the worst instances of police removal don't indict the school system's use of police. Using your examples...

"outside and near the schools" only underscores how safe students are INSIDE schools.

"a gunman opened fire in front of McDade Elementary at approximately 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, sending parents into a panic" further underscores that parents need to work on the safety of their communities OUTSIDE the public schools.

I've lived in Chicago for 49 years. Got held up by students from a high school at gunpoint outside my house in Hyde Park. I'd hardly claim it's the school's fault that they had guns or chose me as a target, but they were apprehended and served their time. One is a successful business man in his community now.

So what is it you're trying to promote here? Public school failure? Or a gun problem? Police problem? Chicago communities' problem?

Because you sure haven't proven a Chicago Public Schools failure.

[former9thward]

9. Everyone in Chicago knows Chicago has an enormous gang problem.

They do most of the killing in Chicago. They are mainly young people. And they recruit other young people. Yes, gangs have largely been removed from inside the schools. It is no longer the 1970s or 1980s. But the gangs have done a cost/benefit analysis. They know there is a cost to doing business directly inside the schools. So they do their dirty work right outside. They recruit, they sell, and often they kill. That has never been addressed no matter who is Mayor or Police Superintendent.

[ancianita]

10. What's that got to do with how good CPS school safety is? That's a whole different thread.

Teachers are the scholars of their communities. Teachers know the value of police and security that enables them to do their jobs well. So they stay in their lanes, and remind other confused Americans what it takes to maintain safe public schools.

Teachers and public schools are not the stop-gap backup plan for solving community problems.

Teachers and public schools of America are not to be used as punching bags for everything wrong with the country.

[Eko]

30. Its just a bandaid.

Sure the schools are safe, and that's a great thing but it doesn't change the problem of mass shooter events. Should we do the same thing to grocery stores, music events, nightclubs, churches, walmarts, post offices, and theaters? Should we just create a fortress society? Why not just take out the common denominator? Guns.

[ancianita]

31. Prevention is not a bandaid if prevention makes the schools areas of safety in communities.

The problem of mass shooters is a societal problem. It should never be up to schools to "change the problem" of society, just to teach, protect and empower future generations.

What businesses do to protect themselves is a business problem. I've seen all manner of security systems in these businesses, haven't you?

This society is what it decides to make itself. If the few, say a political minority, have a war mentality, hoard weapons and live in their own fortresses out of fear of living with difference, we're still big enough a society to move on without them. I'd never subscribe to, defer to, or enable the worst of us to define what our society is.

I'm totally with you about taking out military assault weapons. I'm all for any of the many kinds of ways to do it -- passing national background check law, further funding and empowering the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to stop straw buyers and weapons traffickers, banning and fining and dissolving the charters of any manufacturers that make assault weapons; putting any black market sellers of assault weapons in jail, banning assault weapons sales at gun shows; ordering sheriffs to offer buy-backs of assault weapons, then house-to-house confiscations of them, then arresting any and all sheriffs who refuse to follow the law and participate in the national draw down of assault weapons.

Biden was right. When we banned assault weapons, mass shootings didn't happen; when we stopped, they tripled.

[Eko]

32. I never said it was up to the schools to change the problem.

I run a business, a big one. I couldn't afford to have all that done to protect it. Can barely afford to have it staffed. It is a band aid because it only solves the problem in one area. Its up to us to change the problem, and if we settle for just fixing schools then we have failed everyone else.

[ancianita]

33. Cool.

I'm fine with all this. I hear you about expense. Security is related to the scale of who we're looking out for. Commerce has customers or clients, and states serve humans, some in-one-high-school districts, others in 167-high-school districts like Chicago.

I'd never settle for just fixing schools. It's that schools are in the news, right? Along with the moans and groans and fear that I read on social media that tell me that this one part of the community, schools, is a place people from all across the country don't want their kids to be afraid to be in. That's the effect that makes mass shootings domestic terrorism.

[ananda]

14. It's an intelligent blue city in a blue state.

Nuff said.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. "No school shootings" is certainly one way to define "safety."

CPS Security Guard Charged with Sexually Assaulting Teenage Student

Former CPS Security Guard James Wilson Jr. Charged With Sexually Assaulting Four Girls, Including His 11-Year-Old Niece

CPS Security Guard Accused of Sexual Misconduct

Through it all, he kept his job at CPS: Security guard stayed on despite multiple misconduct allegations

Chicago School Security Guards Accused Of Sexual Misbehavior At High Rates

[ancianita]

16. Look. Don't say imperfect safety is failure.

Your first source: Carter's harassment took place in a computer lab and the security guard's been arrested.

Your second source: Wilson sexual assault happened outside school, and he's been arrested.

Your third source: The no-name security guard is arrested for a class one felony of two minor boys.

Your fourth source: Cruz has been repeatedly charged, found not guilty by a jury while the child was at another school.

Your fifth source:
Long term, principals had been allowed to hire security guards on their own. Under the new system, security guards will be hired and vetted by the human resources department and then principals will choose their guards from the centralized system; this improvement came out of 160 cases, 44 of them substantiated.
Of those 44, two involved sexual misconduct and the police were involved. The rest were sexual harassment, inappropriate behavior or unprofessional behavior.

Twenty-three employees were fired based on conduct, while many others resigned or, in the case of substitute teachers, were blocked from taking assignments.

These examples don't disprove the CPS safety model in the current context of in-school mass shootings.
The examples are other insurgencies of society's sickness; they're the insurgent felonious predations of non-teaching staff. You want to pile on the insurgent evils of society that hurt kids in schools, fine. Not every model of human safety is perfect. But notice that in each case, children turned to trustworthy school professionals and the school professionals helped the children get legal help.

You can also see that outside of schools, these kids would probably have encountered worse treatment -- on the street, in their homes, wherever predators prey on the young -- and would probably not have had the legal recourse the school professionals helped provide them.

A nation should not believe believe any "random" yet frequent mass murder events that corporations would exploit to stigmatize a democracy's institutions. This is how the law and order of Central American countries are now being destroyed.

So yes, in the context of mass shootings, a "no school shootings" post is one way to define safety.
Given the inappropriate societal doubt cast on the value of American public schools over these murders; given the hype about untrustworthy "guards" who didn't save 18 kids or their teachers from murder; given doubters' tendency to throw out the nation's public school baby with the dirty bath water, one way to define kids safety is a good thing.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

28. Your thesis seems to be "we need to put cops in schools so they're not privatized for being unsafe."

Am I reading you correctly?

[ancianita]

29. It's not. I'm saying that public schools must not be stigmatized for the lax security we've seen

lead to tragic deaths of innocents, and I offer a successful model that's worked elsewhere. People all over the country thought that what happened at Uvelda could happen to their schools, and wonder where they could otherwise school their kids safely.

CPS has invested a prevention system that's resulted in relatively safe schools.

If you want to call it a thesis, your choice. But this isn't an academic exercise. We've already seen privatized schools as "choice." Erosions of public trust have come about by corporate campaigns against public schools already, through the pretext of testing "reforms" that were designed to set schools up for failure, to justify privatizing schools; and this recent mass murder of children provides another pretext corporations can use. As for what you think is my thesis, research has already shown that privatized schools have been no better academically, or safer, than the public schools that exist. From what I've seen, they're simply another form of social division, a kind of for profit scheme to take public taxes to pay for a class and race segregated system. Bush tried his "faith based initiatives" to use of taxes to pay for religious charities, and he was about to move on to tax subsidies for religious schools.

If I have a thesis, it's that democracy is served best by democratic institutions that create spaces for public discourse and learning, like libraries, even public universities. Corporate schools as for profit businesses are not institutions of democracy.

[sarisataka]

18. So is the answer

Heavy security including armed guards and metal detectors?

I know I have heard that proposed and rejected. Should we reevaluate?

[ancianita]

21. Until society fixes its problems that hurt kids, it's a temporary answer. CPS doesn't have heavy

security. But schools must be secure enough to operate.

People can't say no metal detectors -- which elementary kids and no teaching professionals have to go through, only non-employees and community people -- and still expect no guns. That's naive.

What should we reevaluate?

[sarisataka]

23. I was asking if we should reevaluate

Metal detectors in schools.

Why do they not screen elementary student? I have seen three reports this week of young children bringing guns to school.

[ancianita]

24. Why. What is wrong with metal detectors. They screen. You got a problem with tech screenings?

[sarisataka]

25. Myself, no

Others do.

[ancianita]

27. Me, neither.

Until those others come up with a better way to deal with the menace outside schools, I say they're fine.

[Stuart G]

26. Kick for viability