CPS Planning To Spend $7.7 million To Hire Safety Patrol

  Plenty of us are up to speed on the decision by Rahm Emanuel to shut down 54 school programs and over 61 school buildings due to low performance. The issue that many people were not aware of are the safety issues that come along with having young students travel to further or different parts of a neighborhood to attend school. According to Lauren Fitzpatrick of the Chicago SunTimes, “Chicago Public Schools officials said Tuesday they will spend $7.7 million to hire local community groups to patrol consolidated schools in their own neighborhoods, announcing an effort to hire more “Safe Passages” vendors.” There are about 38 communities that the officials are targeting. A majority of the targeted communities are on the South and West side where most of the schools are being shut down and quite ironically where a majority of gang and gun violence occur. Safety was an issue prior to this change and now students face more danger in the South and West sides of Chicago. How can there be so much will to shut down schools due to performance but a nearly 10 million dollar expense to protect them from the changes made?