Northside College Prep in North Park was the first LSC in the district to vote to remove SROs from its school on July 7, 2020. In the end, more than 70 high-school LSCs voted on whether to keep or remove police, only 17 LSCs voted to oust their SROs, according to Chalkbeat Chicago.
With the application window for the 2022 LSC elections being open until March 4, current LSC members are encouraging parents, community members and students to apply in the upcoming election. As of Feb. 3, according to CPS press secretary Evan Moore, 112 LSC elections applications had been submitted.
For Hilesh Patel, an Edgewater resident and Senn High School parent, joining the LSC in 2021 was crucial. He’d watched the conversations unfold around police in schools the previous year, and wanted to become more involved in his eldest son’s school.
“I didn’t want SROs in the school, but I also wanted to make sure that I was coming to the table asking questions about why they were there,” Patel said. “I wanted to come into the LSC space making sure that I was able to ask questions, critical questions around that specifically, but also around student voices to make sure student voices were heard.”
As for Trina Reynolds-Tyler, a South Shore resident who joined her neighborhood high school LSC in 2020, she did so to amplify the voices of young people who, she said, aren’t always heard or represented in LSC meetings. She’s one of the community representatives on the LSC at South Shore International College Preparatory High School.
“I love young people, and I feel like a lot of times their voices are not represented in these rooms. For so long, they haven’t even necessarily been conditioned to come to these meetings for their voices to be heard,” Reynolds-Tyler said. “So the meetings end up typically being like a place where adults are making decisions about things that impact these young people’s lives.”
Interested candidates have until March 4 at 3:00 p.m. to apply to be a candidate in the 2022 LSC election.
The Office of Local School Council Relations will host an informational webinar on Tuesday, Feb. 22, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. A panel of current LSC members will give guidelines on the role and the LSC application and election process. The panel will also be available to answer questions.
Here is the link to register for the webinar.
Below are some important details to know about the LSC application process and what the role entails.