In a Feb. 22 vote, the Chicago Board of Education approved ending a contract with the Chicago Police Department and thus removing the officers, called SROs, from 39 city schools in the Windy City.
The officers will remain through the current school year but will not return in the fall.
Chicago Public Schools instructs approximately 300,000 students in 634 schools across the school district.
Nicholas Sposato, a Chicago native and the city’s 38th Ward alderman, told AFN in a January story he was warning school officials they are endangering students and teachers but his pleas were being ignored.
“You’re not dealing with people that have common sense,” he told AFN two months ago, referring to the school board as a “bunch of commie loons.”
Chicago’s school board is adopting what it calls a “Whole School Safety Policy” that eliminates school resource officers, a Fox News story reported. That plan replaces SROs with restorative justice coordinators, youth intervention specialists, and unarmed security guards.
Regarding the school board’s final decision, Sposato says he delivered a parting shot to its members.
“I did take a shot at them at the end,” he says, “and let them know that blood will be on their hands if anything happens."
