The High HOPES Campaign is a coalition of Chicago-based community organizations including Access Living, Community Renewal Society, Enlace Chicago, ONE (Organization of the NorthEast), Blocks Together, Trinity United Church of Christ, Southwest Youth Collaborative and POWER-PAC. They join together in advocating for CPS to reduce suspensions and expulsions through the implementation of restorative justice programs and other proven strategies.
This week, the Campaign released a new report, From Policy to Standard Practice: Restorative Justice in Chicago Public Schools,” which illustrates that restorative justice practices improve school attendance, student achievement, school safety and culture. The key recommendations call for CPS to:
* Commit to and proactively pursue a districtwide reduction in suspensions and expulsions by 40 percent in the coming school year.
* Overcome current barriers to the implementation of restorative justice by developing a sustainable, districtwide plan for rolling out these practices in schools.
* Fully fund and support implementation by creating full-time restorative justice coordinator positions in each school and offering ongoing training and technical assistance.
* Reprioritize spending on school safety by diverting costly investments in policing and zero-tolerance strategies to the implementation of restorative justice. We estimate that such a full-scale investment in restorative justice would cost around $44 million, much less than the $67 million budget of the CPS Office of School Safety and Security.
* Create monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to track the reduction in punitive discipline methods and the success of restorative justice implementation, and make that information available in an ongoing, public manner.
