In the strongest rebuke yet to Illinois school districts asking police to issue fines to misbehaving students, the state’s attorney general said the practice, which is still used statewide, is illegal and must be stopped.
The attorney general’s office, which investigated student ticketing at one of Illinois’ largest high school districts, found that Palatine Township High School District 211 violated the law when administrators ordered police to fine students for behavior at school, and that the practice resulted in “an unjustified and disparate impact” on black and Latino students.
“We strongly urge other counties and police departments to review their policies and practices,” ProPublica’s office said in a statement.
But the attorney general’s office did not notify other districts of its findings, which were made in July, or issue guidance that the routine practice violates the law. This means that its findings for suburban Chicago may have a narrow effect.
The office also said it is not investigating similar civil rights violations in other districts.
In 2022, an investigation by ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune, “The Price Children Pay” showed local police officers ticketing students, resulting in fines of up to $750. Tickets for violating local ordinances are not considered criminal offenses and can only be punished by a fine. Misbehavior included using vape pens, skipping class, and engaging in verbal or minor physical altercations.
In response, the governor J. B. Pritzker and two state education chiefs said schools should not rely on the police to deal with student misbehavior.
State legislators tried several times to pass the law intended to end the practice by specifically prohibiting schools from involving the police in minor disciplinary matters. But the accounts have stagnated. School administrators say ticketing is a necessary tool to manage student behavior, and some lawmakers worry that limiting the role of officers in schools could lead to unsafe conditions.
Rep. Sean Ford, D-Chicago, told ProPublica this month that he plans to try again next year. “We don’t want the police doing the school’s job,” Ford said.
He said the revised legislation would aim to address the concerns of school officials and make it clear that school officials can involve the police in criminal cases.
“What will really decide this is a state law that will affect all schools in Illinois. That’s the only possible way I can see because it’s so prevalent throughout Illinois,” said Angie Jimenez, an attorney with the National Youth Law Center, which pushed for reforms to the Illinois law.
Jimenez said fining students as a discipline should have stopped more than nine years ago when state law prohibited it. “It really shocks me to see that less than ten years later you have this problem and we’re still trying to get to the negotiating table to reach an agreement,” she said. “Meanwhile, our students and families are being sacrificed in the process.”
Illinois Department of Education spokeswoman Lindsay Record said the agency continues to oppose the practice of ticketing students. “ISBE is evaluating potential policy solutions to this problem,” Record said, though she did not specify what those might be. Pritzker’s office did not respond to questions from ProPublica.
The attorney general’s office decided to focus its investigation on District 211 after officials reviewed a the first database of its kind published by ProPublica and the Tribune. The database documented nearly 12,000 tickets issued in dozens of districts over three school years, the reasons police ticketed students and, when available, the race of the students ticketed.
The two-year state investigation into District 211 focused on the district’s two high schools in Palatine, a suburb northwest of Chicago. From 2018 to 2022, Palatine police ticketed students nearly 400 times, mostly at Palatine High School. The investigation found that black and Latino students were sometimes ticketed when white students were given lesser punishments or even offered help dealing with substance use. Palatinate police also issued tickets to Fremd High School students, but much less frequently.
“Police reports indicate that typically district administrators conducted an initial investigation, then called the school resource officer for service and directed the officer to issue a ticket to the student,” according to a letter Attorney General Kwame Raul sent to the district in late July after as his office completed its investigation. Officers issued tickets to students even though police did not witness the alleged violations, investigators found.
The attorney general’s office told District 211 that school handbooks and agreements with local police must make it clear that school administrators are prohibited from ordering or asking police to issue tickets to students as a disciplinary measure, including for disorderly conduct or the use of tobacco or vaping products. The district’s policy should also make it clear that alternative approaches, such as substance abuse programs, are preferred.
Raul’s letter noted that starting in the 2022-23 school year, the district and police department have “drastically reduced” the use of school tickets.
The district, which serves nearly 12,000 students in three suburbs, has denied wrongdoing since the investigation began. A spokesperson for the district declined to answer ProPublica’s questions and instead provided a letter the district attorney wrote to the attorney general’s office criticizing the findings.
“None of the administrators interviewed indicated that they ‘directed’ school resource officers or other police officers to issue tickets or make arrests,” the attorney wrote, adding that only the police have the authority to issue tickets. The letter said school officials are required to report certain offenses, such as weapons or drugs, to law enforcement. However, in such serious cases, the police can and do arrest students instead of fining them. The district’s response letter says it will revise its student handbooks and policies. However, today’s high school textbooks still state that students can be sent to the police for possessing vaping products.
District records cited in the attorney general’s findings showed that in the 2021-2022 school year, black and Hispanic students received about 68 percent of tickets issued at schools, even though they made up only about 33 percent of the district’s enrollment. White students made up 42% of applicants, but they received only 24% of tickets.
State investigators attribute this in part to school administrators choosing not to involve the police in behavior problems among white students, offering them treatment instead of punishment.
The mother of a student ticketed in 2022 said that while she hopes the district will stop involving the police in school behavior, she also believes there should be remedies for students ticketed in the past. Her son, Black, was a 16-year-old sophomore at Palatine High School when he received a $200 ticket for damaging a fence outside the school. ProPublica reporters met with the family when the teenager and his mother attended a hearing to fight the ticket; he was suspended after another student admitted to causing the damage.
“I hope that if they find out that they are doing this illegally, they will erase all the tickets. This is what they should do. If someone had to pay fines, they should be reimbursed,” said the mother, who asked not to be identified to protect the privacy of her son, who graduated from high school in the spring and is now in college.
The attorney general’s office also focused on the village of Palatine, and investigators found that it also violated the law. Palatinate police issued tickets to students for missing a single day of school or less, even though state law prohibits it as punishment. The village also imposed a $200 fine, although the maximum allowed by state law is $100, investigators found.
The Prosecutor General’s Office recommended the village to change or cancel its decision. The head of the village and the head of the Palatine police department did not answer the journalists’ questions.
While some schools have stopped involving the police in minor student discipline matters in recent years, others continue. ProPublica obtained new records from several districts in various parts of the state that were covered in “The Price Children Pay.”
At Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in southwest Chicago, police have issued more than 60 tickets to students for disorderly conduct, possession of tobacco or cannabis and drinking alcohol since the start of the 2023-24 school year. Fines are as high as $175, and the school’s principal said the district is focused on providing a safe environment.
Officers in northwest suburban Carpentersville issued dozens of tickets last school year at Dundee Crown Middle School and Carpentersville High School and have issued tickets again this year. A district representative did not respond to a request for comment.
At East Peoria Community High School in central Illinois, students still receive tickets ranging from $75 to $450 for fighting and possession of tobacco or cannabis. Students aged 12 and up at a nearby high school were also issued tickets.
East Peoria High School Principal Marjorie Greuter said students are no longer fined for truancy, and school officials decide when to ticket students for other infractions. She wrote in an email that while students can be ticketed outside of school for violating a local ordinance, “we still believe that not doing so in the building presents a safety concern.”
