Brenda Macias (she/her) is a Research Analyst II with the UChicago Consortium and To&Through Project. In this role, she supports data and analytics projects and manages data tools. Having attended CPS schools from pre-K through twelfth grade, Brenda has seen firsthand the impact of a strong school community. This experience drives her dedication to creating accessible data tools and analyses for youth, parents, educators, and community members. She aims to empower them to make informed decisions that best support their schools.

Chicago Public Schools officials finalized a new security plan Thursday, officially eliminating police officers from school buildings while focusing instead on holistic discipline and safety strategies. 

The Chicago Board of Education unanimously approved a new whole school safety plan, which brings to an end the use of school resource officers (SROs) inside district buildings following a yearslong review of CPS safety protocols and procedures...

Over the last few years, a marked transformation has occurred in education. Long-standing research on how to best teach children to read was acknowledged. School districts around the country embraced the "science of reading" – an interdisciplinary body of knowledge about reading and writing. Thankfully, our local districts have begun to make this long-overdue change. Springfield District 186, for example, will roll out a new K-8 classroom literacy curriculum plus an evidence-based intervention curriculum. The future of literacy looks bright. 

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)...

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...