Understanding student discipline and suspensions data and research can empower parents to help their children and school communities flourish. 

This playbook summarizes research and data that shows suspensions negatively affect all students; some students are suspended more than others; the positive effects of restorative justice; and more. It also includes actions parents can take to learn more about their child’s school’s approach to school discipline and school climate. 

Arrests were two times greater in schools with a regular police presence than at similar campuses without one and race, gender and disability were huge factors in which students were detained, according to a new government watchdog report. 

The Government Accountability Office report found that when “race, gender and disability statuses overlap” — a concept often known as intersectionality — students “can experience even greater adverse consequences.”

Since 1966, Chicago Public Schools has had a visible police presence in its schools. Beginning with the 2024-25 school year, that no longer will be true. 

The Chicago School Board voted unanimously in February to no longer have Chicago Police serve as school resource officers (SROs)...

Un recurso para empoderar a las familias para que ayuden a sus hijos, y a todos los niños en sus escuelas, a prosperar. Este playbook para familias cubre investigaciones y datos clave sobre disciplina, suspensiones y justicia restaurativa.

The Chicago Board of Education held its monthly meeting on Thursday. 

Board members are expected to overhaul the way schools track disruptive behavior and how it communicates with families about incidents at school...

Rashad Talley, the principal at Wendell Phillips Academy High School, believes safety and discipline practices that are healthy are more about the staff’s relationship with students and not whether the South Side high school has police in the building every day. 

“It’s hard for me to pinpoint whether a [school resource officer] makes that much of a difference, because I could be an SRO and have a great relationship with a kid,” he said. “I don’t think it matters, the title of the person, or the position of the person. It matters, that relationship.”

As Chicago Public Schools prepares to eliminate resource officer positions districtwide, a new study found removing police from city schools has not led to increased disciplinary issues, nor did it make students and staff feel less safe. 

The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research on Wednesday published a new report examining the impacts of removing resource officers from Chicago public high schools...

Removing uniformed police officers from Chicago Public Schools had little effect on students’ and teachers’ perceptions of safety, according to a new report, published Wednesday. 

The study — conducted by a team of researchers at U. of C.’s Consortium on School Research, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital Center for Childhood Resilience — examines the outcome of CPS’ plan to phase out uniformed police officers in schools...

Chicago high schools that removed police in the last few years saw a slight dip in the most serious types of student disciplinary violations, according to a new study released Wednesday. 

The study, from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, comes as Chicago Public Schools plans to launch a new safety policy for the upcoming school year that will unilaterally remove school resource officers, or SROs, from all campuses...

How does your child’s school approach school discipline and school climate? The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research recently released a toolkit called Family Playbook: School Suspensions, Discipline & Restorative Justice. The playbook summarizes research and data on school discipline and includes actions you can take to learn more about how your child’s school approaches discipline and climate in school.