In light of the tragedy of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and countless others murdered by police brutality, we, the District 99 community, recognize that we are not immune to racial discrimination within our district, and it is well past time to demand change. From 2015-2020, Black and Latinx students made up 72% of the arrests on DGS and DGN campus for drug possession, drug use, and fighting, despite making up only approximately 26% of the student population. Black students were especially affected making up about 49% of arrests despite making up only 8.6% of the student population. It is the responsibility of District 99 to maintain a healthy learning environment for all of its students, and that includes teaching adolescents how to control their behavior with age-appropriate positive reinforcements. Our current system simply does not achieve this. The inherent bias present in our punitive systems has real consequences and not recognizing that is affecting the course of so many lives. Lives that matter. Black lives that matter.

Currently, the guidelines for student conduct in regards to fighting and violence are terribly vague. The discretion is upon the administrator as to whether the student receives punishments, anywhere from in-school suspension to being arrested by police and/or expelled with no clearly available written clarification on exactly what this difference is. Due to the incredibly disparate rate in which students of color are given harsher punishments, it is fair for one to conclude this system has indeed enabled inherent biases. However, even without the bias present, this system is not effective. The district’s policies use language borrowed from criminal law and not from childhood development nor psychology. As a result, the policy of our district does little to teach new behavior in a constructive way and does more to push students out of the school system entirely. Thus, we believe the following should be considered and implemented.

First, the following definitions must be immediately adopted within the school code:

“1. Fighting: Mutual, intentional participation in a physical altercation occurring between two or more persons with no one main offender and no major injury. Fighting does not include verbal confrontation, unintentional contact that does not cause serious bodily harm, or self-defense. 2. Credible Threat: A threat that is “real and immediate”, not conjectural or hypothetical. 3. Self-Defense: Right to use reasonable force to protect oneself or others from the fear of or infliction of bodily injury or violence. 4. Serious Bodily Harm: Bodily injury that will occur without significant delay which creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.”

With these definitions in place, all efforts should be made to keep a student within traditional learning environments, with the exception of a student who poses a serious and credible threat to the school environment or has inflicted serious bodily harm upon another. Students who have engaged in fights shall receive positive intervention from school personnel. Such intervention should focus on the student’s personal growth and development and avoid criminalizing the students involved, thus no arrests shall be made on account of fighting and other school-based infractions. The procedure implemented should be “clear and consistent” and “proportional” to the students’ conduct. These interventions may include behavioral supports, counseling services, restorative justice practices, and peer mediation.

However, students should at all times maintain their legal right to self-defense. This currently is not maintained nor respected by the district code. Within Illinois, a person has an explicitly outlined right to use force when one reasonably believes it is necessary to protect themselves or another from a real and imminent threat of person with such use being only proportional to the threat in which one faces. This factor and write should be fully taken into account when the district creates policies.

Other comprehensive policies outlined here​, here, and here should be immediately undertaken as the aforementioned changes are being made. Separate policy and procedures should be developed in regards to sexual harassment, sexual violence, and relationship violence which, although mentioned within board policies, have no specific intervention or procedures documented and freely available in response to when such acts are perpetrated by students. Further, a separate policy should be implemented in regards to actions taken for the purpose of creating terror within the school environment through real, credible threats.

All of the aforementioned policies should be implemented or be in development by the next in-person semester.

Lastly, for the sake of posterity, the schools within the district should state a commitment and plan to move towards all model policies outlined here, created by the Dignity in Schools Campaign, in recognition that this is the reality. These recommendations are being asked of the school in order to make a safe, positive learning environment in which all students, regardless of race, have the opportunity to thrive and excel.