Hyde Park students protest Peace Room community group removal

Students at Hyde Park Academy held a press conference outside the school Thursday, saying two established community groups that helped them through a traumatic year were abruptly removed. They disputed whether the Peace Room is still usable, criticized the sch

On the days she felt angry or hurt. LJ Juarez said she went to the Peace Room at Hyde Park Academy and found someone to talk to. She’s a junior now. and at a press conference outside the school Thursday. she described the room as the only place in the building where staff consistently helped her calm down.

Juarez said she was “in there every day talking to them,” after a 16-year-old classmate was shot and killed last month across the street. She said the grief was compounded by other deaths this spring: “He was one of three students who died this spring.”

Two weeks before the students spoke. Juarez and other teens say. two established community groups that checked in with students and held peace circles were abruptly removed from the school. The students argue that the support they relied on has been stripped away at the exact moment they need it most.

At the center of their complaints is the Peace Room itself. The students say it’s locked and dark. But in a district statement, the principal told CPS officials that the Peace Room is open and that the school’s restorative justice coordinator can use it to run circles with students.

CPS officials and the students also diverge on what that means in practice. Students describe the room as inaccessible. The district describes it as available—without requiring the same community staff the teens said they had.

The conflict is personal for Juarez and others because of what happened around them. Sophomore Peter Brown said the removal adds to a feeling among students that the school didn’t do enough after multiple tragedies. After Eric Billups was killed in mid-April. Brown said students were told therapists would be available and additional security guards would monitor bus stops.

But Brown said he couldn’t figure out how to access the therapists. He also described the security effort as happening inside the school in ways that, to him, take away students’ ability to move safely and communicate during stressful moments.

“They’re inside the school taking away cellphones and clearing the hallway. rather than outside where the shooting took place. ” Brown said. “The school got way more strict since the student got killed, but nothing they are enforcing makes us feel safer. It feels like we are being punished, rather than comforted.”.

Junior Zaynah Soyebo wore a button with a picture of Lania Smith. one of two students killed in separate hit-and-run incidents in April. She said she was still shaken by that tragedy when Eric was killed. Not long after a balloon release to honor Eric. Soyebo said the principal began talking to students about keeping their grades up.

“How are we as teenagers supposed to do work after we just got through a traumatic experience?” Soyebo said. “We need time to process.”

Soyebo and other students said they believe their push for more resources helped spur the removal of the community groups. She said that earlier this month. student leaders working with Southside Together got the school to hold town hall meetings during the school day. When students started speaking, she said the principal took the mic and sent the students back to class.

She said students felt “disregarded and belittled.” And she argued that the school’s priorities shifted away from emotional support when they still needed it.

“Instead of trying to be emotionally available to the students that come here every single day and are trying to go to college and figure out what we want to do after high school, we have to worry about: Is our school even safe enough? Do they have the right resources?” Soyebo said.

Southside Together, the students said, had been a longtime presence at Hyde Park Academy. The organization helped develop the school’s safety plan, which became required once the district stopped stationing police in schools. Students also said the group helped the school use restorative practices, including peace circles.

CPS officials said the principal determined the groups “no longer align with the specific needs of the school community.” CPS also said it wasn’t a budget decision, noting that the staff are funded by grants and do not charge CPS for their services.

Hyde Park Principal Rosette Edinburg did not respond to questions via email. When WBEZ went to the school to speak with her, staff said she was not in the building.

Yvette McCaskill, a youth organizer from Southside Together, said staff from the community groups were escorted out of the school two days after the removal. She said Southside Together has been working in the school for about 15 years.

CPS officials said partnerships with community organizations play a “vital role” in addressing students’ unique needs. including by expanding access to mental health services. mentoring and family support that the district “cannot provide independently.” CPS added that organizations “must comply with CPS policies and procedures. ” including vendor onboarding and employee background check protocols. “to ensure student safety.”.

CPS also said one of the groups working in Hyde Park Academy did not have all its paperwork filled out. The district said the issue was raised as an issue in mid-May, even though its staff had been in the school all year before that was raised.

The push-and-pull between what students say they can access now and what the district says the school can provide is driving the dispute. The students’ accounts—about a Peace Room that they say is locked and about promises they say they can’t reach—have turned their protest into something more than a complaint. It is an argument that support was removed before students felt ready to lose it.

Hyde Park Academy CPS Peace Room Southside Together Good Kids Mad City restorative justice student protest Chicago Public Schools mental health services