#CopsOutCPS

Across the nation Summer 2020 brought anxiety, tragedy, awakening and change. In Chicago, for a group of determined young people, it brought a long-sought-after victory—the removal of police officers from Chicago Public Schools. Coming from a variety of organizations dedicated to youth and community empowerment, they shared a goal of ending the police presence in their schools and dedicating $33 million in savings to programs that support youth. Undaunted by Covid-19, they met on Zoom to strategize and used social media to organize demonstrations, fueled by the power of the issue itself and the national examination of the role of police in society in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. In June, they forced the Board of Education to consider the issue and lost by a single vote. When it was announced that individual schools, not the Board would make the decisions, #CopsOutCPS changed its tactics and organized Local School Councils school-by-school. The results? By summer’s end, 17 schools had decided to remove police from their premises; the Board of Education cut the police budget in half; and the #CopsOutCPS youth gave new meaning to the phrase “the power of community.”