From reporter Jennifer Smith Richards:
Since 2022, we’ve been investigating how schools partnered with police in Illinois to discipline students by issuing them costly tickets for misconduct, sidestepping a state law banning schools from fining students directly. Our reporting in “The Price Kids Pay” revealed how thousands of students have been funneled into quasi-judicial systems where they have little power to fight tickets they got at school for infractions like vaping, fighting or truancy.
We also discovered that Black students were twice as likely to be ticketed at school than their white peers. Families often end up with hundreds of dollars in fines and fees and some are sent to collections when the debts go unpaid.
With a second Trump administration signaling it will dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and deemphasize civil rights enforcement in schools, Illinois lawmakers say it’s now urgent that they protect students by ending school-based ticketing. Legislators introduced a new bill this week that is a stronger, more precise version of previous measures that attempted to end the practice. Earlier bills never got a full vote; the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police was among those objecting to the bills. A vice president for the group said he has not yet seen the new bills but said the group will work with lawmakers and advocates.
“We can’t let Trump policies dictate our morals,” said Illinois Rep. La Shawn Ford, the new bill’s chief sponsor. “Our schools should be a place where we protect students from the school-to-prison pipeline, period.”
