Public high schools increase gang, violence prevention efforts 

By Miriam Y. Cintrón 

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) lost 26 students during the 2007-08 academic year due to neighborhood violence. As the new school year unfolds, area high schools are working to keep such a streak from repeating.

The startling increase in violence arose partly from the breakdown of gang hierarchies over drugs, explained Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (4th Ward). Large gangs are fragmenting, leading to fighting within and between gangs—“two components working simultaneously that are plaguing neighborhoods,” said Andres Durbak, chief of the CPS Office of School Safety. Fights over turf also present a big issue as city neighborhoods transform and gentrify.

The more than two dozen shooting deaths of public school students have led officials to step up camera vigilance and security around schools, including Crane Technical High School at 2245 W. Jackson Blvd., where 18-year-old junior Ruben Ivy was shot dead in March within a block of the school just minutes after the dismissal bell. Police deemed the shooting gang-related, although Ivy, the 16th student killed during the last school year, reportedly did not belong to a gang.

Alderman Robert Fioretti (2nd Ward) addressed the incident by creating Operation Safe Passage, in which students meet at a local community center where neighborhood activists and police then escort them to and from school, said Fioretti's chief of staff Chris Karabis. 

CPS reacts to the violence

CPS also makes it clear that weapons do not belong inside schools. Posters and signs detailing disallowed items are everywhere, Durbak explained, and students know the consequences of bringing weapons to school. This outreach has worked. Over the past two years, six firearms have been taken from students—far fewer than the numbers confiscated ten to 15 years ago, he said.

In addition to these more visible steps, CPS provides a variety of resources to help students get more involved in school and away from gangs. Begun last year, the federally funded Youth Engaged in Schools (YES) program provides intense intervention via counseling to ninth graders who have been involved in the judicial system. CPS has instituted YES in schools such as Crane Tech and Manley Career Academy High School, 2935 W. Polk St.

            The Chicago Police Department has been deeply involved in the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, a federal initiative aimed at reaching youngsters before they enter high school and teaching them the dangers of getting involved in gang activity. 

High school initiatives

Local high schools are forging ahead with their own initiatives to curb gang involvement among students and increase participation in school activities.

            Besides participating in YES, Manley Career Academy sponsors several ways of “doing intervention on kids” that resolve conflicts and serve as an alternative to suspension, said Principal Sean Stalling.

            Peace Circles, for example, which the school will begin this year, allow trained staff to work with groups of youngsters to resolve their issues through discussion. Similarly, peer juries allow students to hear minor issues, such as frequent tardiness or chronic uniform violations, and render their decisions under the supervision of an adult moderator, Stalling explained.

            Stalling also hopes to grow the school’s mentoring program, Under Our Wings, in which teachers assist up to four students who are struggling with academics. Teachers participate on a volunteer basis, and Stalling has only one rule for them: once teachers choose to mentor a student, they can never give up on them even if things get rough—and the system has worked. Of the 100 students mentored last year, more than 60 were able to get back on track.

            Together, the programs have reduced violent incidents in the school by 75% and decreased discipline referrals 50%.

In the past, the school has brought in speakers who were disabled by gang violence, which has “been a powerful tool,” Stalling said. He also hopes to bring in more positive influences. To date, more than 150 African American civic, business, and religious leaders from the community have spent half-days in classrooms interacting with students. “That fits more with what we want our kids to do and become,” Stalling said.

These programs and initiatives may not address gang violence directly, but they do create a school environment in which students feel they have someone to talk to and in which they can peacefully address grievances they have with each other, Stalling explained.

Stalling also stressed the importance of listening to students and their needs. Interest expressed by a handful of students led to creating a peer mentoring program, a dance troupe, and a drama class, which last year staged professional quality productions of A Raisin in the Sun and The Wizard of Oz.

“We still have our fights and gangs; I’m not naïve,” Stalling said, but he noted the school is offering more “avenues for kids to feel invested in school” than ever before.

“We’re a work in progress,” Stalling concluded. 

Social problems trickle into schools

At Roberto Clemente Community High School, 1147 N. Western Ave., officials use everything from a dress code and metal detectors to security guards and peer juries to lessen gang presence, reduce violence within the school, and resolve student conflicts peacefully, according to Principal Leonard Kenebrew.

            Kenebrew said peer juries are crucial means to allow kids to be heard because otherwise they may act out if they feel people do not deem what they are going through as important.

            The school also works with community organizations, such as Gear Up and CeaseFire, which does street-level outreach to stop shootings. Freshman Connection, which provides support services to entering ninth graders who have been in jail, helps “nurture them so they don’t slip through the cracks,” Kenebrew said.

            He believes the most important effort is establishing relationships with students so they can value the adults in their lives and turn to them when they need to talk and before they do something drastic, he explained.

            “There are a lot of social issues in the community and in the [students’] homes that filter into the schools,” Kenebrew explained.

            A recent $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice is aimed at helping local law enforcement address such issues and decrease street violence. Though the funds have not been allocated yet, CPS is working with Chicago police to see how the money might assist schools directly, Durbak explained. He added that any decrease in neighborhood violence ultimately would benefit schools. “If funding brings peace to the neighborhood, that’s a huge win for us,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”