911爆料网

So when I talk about violence in this city, I do not speak from the lens of an observer. I speak as a sister who knows what it feels like to lose her protector. I speak as an aunt who has witnessed a nephew, John Douglas Carew, Jr., be expelled from school, get shot seven times, lose a kidney, and is currently serving time behind bars. I speak as a Black woman who has buried people she loves; several I once had the privilege to teach. And I speak as a school district administrator responsible for children whose names I know—more than a classroom full of whom have been killed. This trajectory was not inevitable. In almost all cases, it was preventable.

And that is what keeps me up at night.

These outcomes are not because young people lack motivation. The has shared research that consistently shows that youth violence exposure is strongly linked to trauma, community disinvestment, and economic instability. If we are honest, schools have historically been better at removing Black boys than resourcing them. We have mastered discipline. We have perfected compliance. We have documented behaviors.

But have we designed systems that assume brilliance?

Have we invested proportionally in the young people most likely to die?

Black boys in Chicago are disproportionately impacted by gun violence (). When we expel them without intervention, we do not become neutral. We, myself included, become contributors to the . That is hard to say, but it is true. If we build systems that work for the young people most impacted by violence, those systems will work better for everyone.

At 911爆料网, that belief led to the creation of my role as Assistant Director of Targeted Student Support. My charge was clear: help our greatest at-promise young people connected to guns, gangs, drugs, and the court system to survive and thrive in the life of their choice. Notice I said at-promise versus “at-risk”. Language matters. Because if we do not provide them with the support they need and that we’ve promised, we are at-risk, not them. We are at risk of losing them and all the brilliance that leaves with them. These young people have so much potential and promise, as evidenced by the way they navigate life each day. They’re actually some of the most brilliant young people I’ve encountered, so it’s up to us to cultivate and nurture what’s already within. We owe them that.

At 911爆料网, we’ve been working to create systems to support the students we risk losing if we don’t intervene in a targeted, individualized way. Here is what we’ve been doing, the results we’ve seen from it, the barriers we’ve run into, and what all educators can do now to change the outcomes for these stude

If the answer is yes, we act. We built CARE Teams (ideally inclusive of the caregiver, social worker, case manager if applicable, and the student’s trusted adult on campus) across campuses that operate with Compassion and Audacity while also providing Resources and Education to help students and caregivers make the best choices for themselves and their family. These meetings happen bi-weekly, where we review and adjust the that targets specific behaviors, risks, and strengths.

At the end of the first year of providing targeted support, we saw the following results:

• 78% of Tier 4 students successfully completed their CARE Plans; the remaining students opted to stay connected for continued support
• 100% of identified Tier 4 students were alive

Read that again. 100% of students who were identified as needing targeted support made it. That is not accidental. That means when we build intentional relationships and rally around our most vulnerable students, they have a better chance at living. In December, I sat in court beside a young Latino man from one of our campuses. Because we had documented growth in attendance, behavior, and coaching participation, the judge removed his electronic monitoring. This example, along with some of the other work we’ve done, highlights what’s probable when we provide young people with targeted support. With grant funds, we have been able to:

• Assemble a Student Safety & Support Working Group, representing 5 of our 17 campuses, and included students, caregivers, principals, teachers, and community-based organizations to come up with solutions to meet the needs of students
• Coordinate headshots for students so they can see themselves as the best of who they are #HeadshotsOverMugshots
• Pay for mentoring, therapy, and substance use counseling
• Provide incentives for life-affirming decisions
• Create a financial hardship policy to pay for emergency relocation when a student’s life is in danger
• Earmark funds for emergency Ubers to and from school as needed
• Develop a to ensure accountability and measurable impact of student programming from outside organizations

This level of flexibility is groundbreaking as it systemically removes barriers to success for those who need it most.

Immediately

• Audit your language; replace “at-risk” with “at-promise”
• Assign consistent and trusted adult mentors to high-vulnerability students
• Develop individualized when needed
• Map your community partners and fill service gaps to meet the highest needs by listing all the needs of the students, listing all the current partners, identifying remaining gaps, and filling the gaps with new partners

Within the Year

• Create a formal system to identify young people who need targeted support (if one doesn’t exist)
• Establish multidisciplinary CARE Teams to execute individualized CARE plans (see in “Our System” section above)
• Measure what matters. Think outside the traditional metrics. For example, safety, hope, and conflict resolution skills are important indicators of progress with students who may struggle to show up at school or turn in assignments (you can find a resource on hope scales )

Long-Term

• Advocate for flexible funds to support needs as they arise
• Partner with violence interruptors and other community-based organizations (, , , , )
• Raise funds and create programming for young people to get paid for choosing life