 Welcome to today's session ticketed at school closed captioning of the program is available and can be enabled by clicking on the closed caption option on the bar towards the bottom of your screen. As an additional note, this session is being recorded and a link to the video will be emailed to everyone who registered. For those new to us, ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to investigative journalism. Today's program is in partnership with the Chicago Tribune and Peoria Public Radio. Today, we'll be taking a closer look at our reporting where we found that many Illinois public schools have been working with police to ticket students for misbehavior at school, resulting in municipal fines as high as $750. We'll hear from students and parents who have been affected by tickets and fines, as well as officials and advocates who will explain the implications for young people and their families. And we're also going to be answering your questions. So, if you have a question of mine, please ask it. But first, we're going to give you some background. We're going to tell you how we got started on this investigation and what surprised us. So when we got started, we were looking at police in schools, as you know, schools throughout the country have SRO school resource officers. And we wanted to see what happens when police get involved in student incidents student misbehavior at school. And so we decided to look into it. And we did we filed public records request to school districts across the state. And we started getting records back that showed that tickets or citations were frequently issued by school police officers when to students at schools. That was the very beginning. So once we got an idea that there were tickets being issued in schools, we began focusing on high schools, and we asked school districts for records of arrests and ticketing at their schools. We quickly learned that many schools didn't know how many tickets have been written on campus. And so we made more public records requests of police departments that had jurisdiction in each district, and we ended up making about 500 public records requests to get this information. This story into local administrative hearings where hearing officers or judges rule on the tickets that students received at school. We met dozens of families who often were very upset that children were being made to interact with courts or court like hearings, as a result of minor school misbehavior. They often were confused by the process and felt helpless, like there was no clear way to are you against a ticket and win. And the tickets were expensive for some families hundreds of dollars. And for many it was more than a week's paycheck. So we're getting all these records back we're learning about the hearings and we decide that we really want to be able to tell the most complete story about what the landscape is in Illinois was student ticketing. When we built this database, we entered all the information from the records we are getting, and what we are learning from the records and from the reporting. And in the end, we documented about 12,000 tickets over a three year period. We identified more than 140 high schools in at least 4245 sorry counties across the state where students were getting ticketed. And we were mostly looking at high schools but sometimes we would get records back or we would meet we would meet families and in the different hearings, and we were finding that children as young as eight were being issued tickets. We found that police were ticketing thousands of students a year for in school behavior that was in for many people watching and you know maybe was something that would have been handled by the principal's office, you know littering at school or being too noisy, breaking something and frequently now for having bait pens. We also found that there were racial disparities and who was getting the tickets. One of the things that helped frame what we were finding is that Illinois actually already had a law in the books that prohibits schools from finding students as discipline. And what was happening here was that the schools were not directly finding the students, but they were working with police who then wrote the tickets that came often with monetary fines. We also found a law that bars schools from referring truant students to police, but we found that that was happening in many places in violation of the law. So ticketing at school as a practice we found has had real implications for kids. Some have been sent to collections for unpaid school related ticket debt, and some parents had their tax returns burnished. The consequences varied from community to community based on what the local law was, and what the consequences were for breaking those laws. So we published the story the first story we've had a series of stories as part of the price kids pay but the first story published in April, late April, and we published it you never know what's going to happen. Is anyone going to read it. Is anything going to happen. And we publish it we got a lot of feedback and then that night I was actually at the grocery store, it was about eight o'clock and a friend text me a friend who works in education and she's like, Whoa, did you check your email, the state superintendent of education just sent an email to all schools and all stakeholders in education in the state of Illinois. And that email, you sum it up basically said to educators, stop this practice now. She said that if your school or your districts engaging in this I implore you to stop and consider the cost and the consequences of these files. She said that school officials had advocated their responsibility for discipline to law enforcement. And that was the beginning of a series of things that have happened since this investigation first published. Right soon, soon after our stories started running the Illinois comptroller said that they would stop collecting debt from truancy tickets on behalf of municipalities that was something they had been doing without realizing it. And then the Illinois Attorney General opened a civil rights investigation related to police ticketing and one of the state's largest school districts. We've had legislators say that they plan to take some sort of action and many schools have on their own decided to make some changes including just ending the practice of ticketing at school. We're very much still monitoring this issue, still actively writing about it, which brings us here to today's conversation. I'd like to invite the family members who have experienced school based ticketing to join us on screen now. We really thank you so much for being here today. We have families, you know from throughout Illinois from McHenry sock village, neighborhood. And I think we'll start tonight. Marla Baker. So Miss Baker thank you so much for joining us today. I want to tell tell everybody just quickly how you came to experience school ticketing. So you, you encountered school based ticketing through your daughter Amara, who was written a ticket accusing her of theft of a pair of AirPods right at neighborhood North High School. And you and Amara have been fighting this ticket for almost three years now. Is that right. Yes, hello, how are you. Great. So good to see you thank you for for being part of this conversation. Tell us, I'm remembering something that you told Jodi and I, you know soon after the story was published tell us about getting the news alert that we had that the Tribune and Pro Public I had actually investigated this issue that you have become so familiar with, and fighting it on your own. Tell us about getting that news alert and and what it felt like. When I first received the news alert. I was the word that I use is that I was I was very surprised that there had been over, I think in that at that time there were like 3800 students that you found that had been affected by the school ticketing process, and I was just completely completely shocked. I really thought that I was just one person in this incident. I thought that I was very very alone, because I had often tried to reach out to higher officials to help get their support in trying to get the ticket dismissed. And so when I saw that there was an investigation that was currently ongoing. I felt like someone finally understood you all as reporters. My voice, my voice and what I was advocating for for my daughter and that was for her to be free for something that was clearly something that took place in school and should have stayed there. And you actually reached out to us, which is how we connected. And you wanted to tell a little bit of your story. Can you kind of tell everybody here who's watching and listening how this whole process this three year long process now has affected your family. It has been very draining. This process has been extremely draining. I've been to court over 20 times now, and that process has been scary. Introducing your child into a court of law. It has been at times cost health issues to where my child experienced a panic attacks in the courtroom. These children do not know when they don't understand what this is about they when they when they aren't in the justice system when they haven't been exposed to the justice system. This municipal ordinance violation introduces children to a justice system that they just do not know when they do not understand. And it has been scary at times it has affected my daughter's health. And for me, it has been a process that has even worn me down that time. Three years is a very long time to be fighting a ticket. And I know it's been a really intense experience for both of you. Can you tell us a little bit about all the things that you have done to try to get this ticket dismissed. Absolutely. I started with first just advocating to the principal. And when I was not able to succeed in advocating to the principal. I then went to the school board where I received don't know help. I then petitioned the mayor of Naperville where I received no help to ask him if he could possibly look into this situation and advocate on my daughter's behalf, but he explained to me that it was not in his hands he had no power. And then I petitioned to the city council of Naperville after petitioning to the city of council. I then petitioned to my local state legislators after petitioning to them. And then begin to speak with attorneys to see if they could possibly help us with that situation. And we were unable to have attorneys that were willing to assist us. So I went out to the NAACP do page chapter to get them to try and assist us. And I then advocated is as high as I possibly could to our congressman officials as well. So I advocated on every level that I knew of possible for my daughter, and yet and still three years in court from this this ticketing in school. And you know we've we've written the story just about your situation. So we're pretty familiar with it. You, you're telling all of these people that you're coming into contact with the same thing, which is, this was a misunderstanding. And one of these air pods where hers picked them up by mistake. This is not theft and this shouldn't have been ticketed right I mean that that has been your message to them is that no, no violation of any ordinance actually occurred it was just a mistake. Is that right. Am I characterizing that right. Yes. Yeah, and, and as you're going through and trying to get someone to help you. You mentioned that you did hire lawyers. Can you talk about what that has cost you and Amara. Yes, we have spent over $3,000 in trying to obtain an attorney to help her fight this case. The attorneys look at the cost of their services versus the punishment and a lot of attorneys told me that this was not worth fighting, and that in order for them to fight the case on our behalf, we would have to pay $10,000. That's really expensive, really expensive. I want to give you one last, one last word here and then we're going to move on and hear from some other families as well. What is the message that you think the police and schools sent to children when they're giving tickets for things that are happening at school for minor misbehavior that's happening at school what's the message they received. The message that they send children who receive tickets in school is that school is a place where you are supposed to receive an education, and you are supposed to learn. And when you ticket a child in school for minor misbehaviors, where those are teachable moments, where those are moments where they could grow where those are moments where they could learn about the criminal justice system. But, you know, as an entity when they get, you know, older as an adult, they miss those moments to teach those kids they miss those moments to talk to those children help them navigate their feelings and emotions, and truly get an understand of what's happening in that moment when that but behavior is taking place. And I also think what they do is they abuse their power. That's the advantage of the trust that the children have with them, because children trust their parents, I mean they trust their parents, and the school acting the schools and school research officers acting place of the parents, according to local principles. And so, which is a court term that they use as far as schools being able to stand in place of a parent, a parent would not stand send their child to a court of law, over a minor misbehavior, a parent's going to talk to them to sit down try to understand what's going on. So if you're acting in the place of a parent, and you're the teacher you're the principal you're the school resource officer. You miss a valuable opportunity to teach that child and help them understand what these kinds of behaviors can lead to when you throw them in the court of law when you throw them in a criminal court. There's so many other issues that can then begin to happen if they miss court there can be violations. If they miss court there can be additional fines. There's so many other things that can happen if they missed that court date. In some cases there can be a warrant that's sent out for your arrest, depending on the situation. So I really do believe that their school officials created a divide in the trust with the child. They create a mistrust with the parent who is trusting them to act in their place at that time. And I also think that school resource officers end up abusing their power in that situation as well. Thank you miss Baker so much for joining us today and telling your family story and sharing all this with us tonight. We are going to move on to the next family now and we're joined tonight by Mrs. need for us. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We met for is probably back in November December in McHenry at the McHenry police station. When your son was there to fight a, he was a sophomore he was there to fight a ticket for a school bus fight in which he said he was defending himself. And your family ended up going to hearings. Many times maybe four times to try to fight this ticket. Eventually you decided to pay the ticket, your family decided to pay it. And I'd love for you to talk about your experience with the ticket and and the hearing process and really I guess if we begin just your first thoughts when your son got a ticket at school and what you thought and what you did. Well, our first thought was you know when we when he got the ticket and I found out that he was like essentially he got himself out of a choke hold and he just he did the roll a punch right after that. He was defending himself though essentially. When I found out he got a ticket for that. I'm like, we're, we're going to fight this like there's no reason to pay a ticket when you know you, you know for depending yourself. So why I then you know and I into I had no idea what the cost would be involved with this I talked to a friend of mine who is an assistant principal at a school, a town away from us and she's like, oh she's like, it's like $75 or something. Well, when we went to it wasn't even court. It's our. It's our municipal center. And I was told there that if we were just going to pay the ticket, it would be $400 plus $50 court costs, which are I, I guess it's not court but whatever the fees are for the, you know, for that place so we were just like we're not going to we're going to fight this because he was just defending himself so we're not paying these fines for this and it took I mean when we said we were going to fight it was and they're like okay well then we have to continue the case. So we couldn't even say anything at that time. And like say anything else at that time to defend him like to, you know, for his case or anything. So he just, we had to come back and it turns out, you know we had a snowstorm in there and we showed up at court and they were walking there like nobody showed up and I, you know, we're just I, it was just like we got there a little bit later because he was going to be one of the later cases, and they just decided to cancel, you know, the rest of the day and so we were there like it was like three or four different times, and like because they kept continuing it on us and finally it just got to the point to where it's like I just we want this done, my son wanted it done I wanted it done. We were pulling him out of school, you know, a couple of times for this, leaving work early my husband's leaving work early, and it was just, it was just a nightmare. You know, the hearings at the municipal center as you, as you mentioned, or at 130 in the afternoon. So, as you said you had to pull your son out of school you had to miss work. What struck you about those hearings at the municipal center about who was there and what the environment was like. There were lots of other high school kids there. And, and to top it off it's 130 in the afternoon all these kids are supposed to be in school, and they all get pulled out of school for this. And, you know, in all of their fines like for, I can't remember what it was disorderly conduct I think, or $400 fines. So, and we had, there was a parent in there, who she also wanted, you know, she's just like, when, when they said that, are you okay with paying the $400 fine she's like, No, she goes this isn't teaching our kids anything. You know, this is, they need like community service or something she goes, Can you give my son community service. And so sure they gave him community service but she still had to pay the fine. And it's like this, I, these fines, like, if someone is deserving of, you know, the, like some sort of a punishment paying fines isn't going to do it it's like they need the community service. And, you know, it's just, and just seeing the amount of kids that are that were in the courtroom all the times we were there. It's just, it's ridiculous. I remember there was a parent at one of the hearings who was adding up all the money each time a student went up. What, since we have families who are watching this and educators and other state officials. What do you think family should know about students getting ticketed at school and what do you think should happen, like happen in terms of policy wise. I don't feel like the fines are it's not helping anybody except, you know, patting somebody's pockets or something. But just like, well, just the example of, you know, these kids all get in these tickets and stuff. There are, there's been plenty of times that like my kids have witnessed fights in school actually not my kids. But like some of their friends and stuff they've witnessed fights at school, and people, these kids are afraid to step in and try to help out, you know their front like to break up a fight, because if they get caught in the fight, they get a ticket to. And so people are afraid to defend their friends. So it makes everyone. Yes. So a lot for a teenager to take in high school students. And also for really for sharing your story for sharing your son's story or family's story tonight and letting us know what that hearing experience was like in McHenry. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. And we're going to move next to the pose Lee family. Mr and Mrs pose Lee, and their sons. There's Mr pose Lee, their sons Jeremiah and Josiah. I think they're here as well. Thank you all for being here today, being here tonight. So Jeremiah and Josiah, you both got tickets after a fight in the school bathroom. You ended up getting disciplined by the school, and then also ended up with tickets, you later got the tickets, where you ended up having to go to a police station for a hearing. We know you have a lot of concerns about the ticket and the hearing process, and you've all said that the tickets were completely unnecessary. And your school district actually has stopped since the story ran about what happened with you. Your school actually has stopped issuing working with police to issue tickets. Josiah let's start with you if that's okay. I think you talked and you told me that you really wish that after that incident in the bathroom that you wish that the school had talked with you and the other students if they had just brought you together to discuss what happened that day. What, how do you think the whole situation could have been handled better. I feel like that we probably shouldn't have went to court to begin with because I didn't feel like the situation needed to go that far. If we all would have just sat down and had a talk, or we're all parties involved. And after the talk, get each side of everybody's story, see how it started what happened what led up to it, and eventually solving that problem so it wouldn't continue to happen. And where we all ended off just shaking hands and just being done with it knowing that we won't have to deal with that again. That would have been a better option to go with. In my perspective. So yeah. I've never, you know, your family has had an experience the place that justice, you know, justice system or this quasi judicial system in in the past. Mrs posing Mr pose Lee, you've described your concerns about the ticket and the hearing process and how this situation was handled. Can you share those concerns with with us. It's a two part question but the concerns you had about all that as well as your concerns about how the tickets might affect your children going forward. Yes. First of all, good evening to all and thank you for having us. There was a great big concern on the behalf of me and Mr pose Lee first of all, it was very shocking and surprising to me, as my son stated. The incident that took place. Before went to the municipal course you would think it would have been broken down and allow the children to decipher this with the adults inside of the school. One of the biggest concerns that I have right now, even with the, the children being ticketing right now at this point for my son, Josiah and Jeremiah they are, you know, they are students with great grades. They are ABC students. They're on the band team. Well, Josiah is on the band team, Jeremiah is looking to join other sports. My concern is that being ticketed inside the school. How will this impact them moving forward. Josiah. He, he is basically looking to go to college for engineering will that ticket impact him stop him from going to college or going to the college. That he select of his choice. So those are some of the concerns that we have as parents of other concerns that we had moving forward with Josiah and Jeremiah being inside the school and basically just after the fact they stated that they moved the laws of ticketing children, our children still have tickets. Are they going to wipe their record clean. So these are some of the questions that I have concerning my children, but will they be able to move forward without the strife. I and Jeremiah both have big plans, but a lot of the African American people in the community inside these school systems are not understanding that these tickets are stopping us from moving forward, as well as when you get ticket, how some children respond to the ticket as they should because they don't have the right resources. If I was a parent that didn't understand or didn't know how I would have missed that point of advocating for my child as well. We also need to know in the school systems that we do have services for the children and that the children do have rights in the school. For instance, I did not know about Jackie Ross and the community. I knew a friend that told me about Jackie Ross the school doesn't have these things in a handbook or the rule book that allows you or show you that if your child get in trouble. So these are some of the options that can take place or can happen and put some parents who allow the ticketing to go on and left the the facility left the schools left the area where they lived in because they didn't know how to handle the ticket they didn't know how to fight the ticket. So they just moved on. You mentioned Jackie Ross were fortunate she is going to be on our panel later tonight that she's a lawyer, and she'll be able to talk about her, her work and representing students who have gotten ticketed. Mr. Posley is there anything you want to add about what happened when you went, maybe about what happened when you went to fight the ticket or anything that really, you know, left an impression on you. Well, yeah, once again, you know, I feel like basically what my son was was basically saying is that, you know, you given tickets, but are these kids really learning. Are they really understanding what what what happened it ain't so much now about ticket but we had a fight at school. Are you all coming back for us later. The school did not sit the kids down did not talk about the situation did not have these kids shake hands. Hey we walking away we squashing this. And you know what, I also want to reiterate one the other family say miss Baker, they missed a huge opportunity of these kids can learn these kids can grow from this now we teaching them something other than just giving them tickets. Why are the kids getting tickets and like another family say what are they doing putting this money in a pocket. You know, um, because I just don't see where, you know, given tickets made a huge difference. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe that's what that was supposed to be against the law to give the kids tickets. So, um, this is something going on that is not being said behind closed door so. Jody, I just want to step in a little bit to something that I'm striked me while we were in court as well was that the hearing officer that was speaking with us, one of the concerns that I had with Jeremiah. My son is diagnosed with autism, and during the time that we were talking with hearing officer. He was not receiving to the child he was not understanding his disability. My concern is, is the higher up officials are they aware of how to deal with children with disability. Jeremiah did not understand exactly the point that he was trying to come across or the question that the hearing officer was trying to ask him. So, um, Jeremiah kind of stunned a little bit and immediately he responded afterwards that he should know better. And he told him his he had one of the highest fines that was out there that night was $75. So my concern is when we're dealing with the court, the hearing officers and the schools, how, how are they into twining and educating each other. I mean, I understand everyone has a job to do, but even I, when I'm out there, I have to know how to deal with people with disabilities, people learning disabilities, physical mental disabilities. So, in this case, my son I felt like he was treated poorly because he didn't understand exactly what the hearing officer was saying so it's kind of like, okay, whatever you knew better $75, let's move forward. So that was a concern to is the higher up officials aware of how they're talking to the children. There was no shaking of hands, there was no apology. There was in nothing that was just slapped in the face with a fine and told them to go on about their business. And if they were to return the fine would either get higher, or either there will be more repercussions behind that it could be higher fine or either some type of time the answer. So, you know, with that being said, also, they said that the schools now officially are not given tickets anymore. So with that being said, they need to wipe these kids records completely clean and show us in writing that this has been, you know, totally taken away off their hands. So it won't follow them through the rest of their life. And they need to pay the parents back their monies that they pay for these tickets, moving forward that's that's how I feel. I remember you telling us that you went back you thought about not paying it and appealing it which is a whole process we can get into later. But ultimately you decided you really didn't want this to follow them you didn't want to be sent to and you went back to pay and it was a cash only payment right and you had to go get money and then go back and right and pay the ticket. Right. And it's almost like you're being forced to pay. You know, you don't have too many options. You know, so we actually heard that over and over again during the year of reporting on this when we would meet families they said well, I didn't feel like they had any choice. It was pay the ticket now or you're going to go into debt on this ticket. Is Jeremiah still still there I thought I would ask some a question if that's okay. Yes. Hello. Hi Jeremiah it's nice to see you. Nice to see you too. You could tell us how how you felt when you were at the hearing when you went to that, you know, police station to go in front of the hearing officer and discuss the ticket how that how that made you feel that day. Well, I kind of felt nervous because you know, I don't know what to really say about myself about what happened with the fight usually on. You know, I know. Usually, um, fight start. Where they on with Josiah getting jumped. Then you know I would just um, you know figuring out like where Josiah and you know, like, where Josiah going and you know I got jumped to and usually I thought we were just trying to figure out you know who started this gang affiliation first but you know, you know, I thought, you know, I thought the court would be over but you know. It was hard it was like you didn't know what to what you were supposed to say or do in that situation right it was like you didn't, you didn't know what was what you were supposed to tell him to tell the hearing officer, because I got a tough situation to be in. Yes. Well, thank you so much Jeremiah Josiah. Mr. Mrs. pose Lee thank you for for sharing this with us tonight for all four of you being here. We, we really appreciate it. Thank you for having us thank you so much. Yeah, it's been it's been excellent to hear from from families. I'd like to move us into the next portion of our of our evening and have our panelists join us on screen. And to you to we thank you so much for being here today as they're coming on I'm going to tell you a little bit about who's joining us this evening. We have Dr. Tony Sanders, who serves as the superintendent of Illinois largest sorry second largest school district, the school district you 46, which is located in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago school district you 46 serves nearly 36,000 students from early childhood through 12th grade across 57 different schools and programs big district. Thank you Dr. Sanders for being here. I'm David attorney. Mr. attorney began hearing and deciding cases for the city of Chicago in 1996, and since then his experience as an administrative law judge and hearing officer under the Illinois administrative adjudication act has grown to include currently serving in that capacity for 20 different governmental entities. We also have Jeffrey Aaronowski, who is executive director of the safe and healthy climate center at the Illinois State Board of Education. The center seeks to provide whole child supports by focusing on the physical social emotional safety and nutritional needs of children, and Jeff has worked at is be for 18 years. Lastly, Jackie Ross is a former special education teacher turned education attorney. She teaches education law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and supervises a free legal clinic for students from pre K through 12th grade who are facing issues in schools such as discipline, special education bullying and enrollment. Thank you all for for being here. So let's just start right now with Jackie. Jackie through the Loyola University child health clinic you've actually represented some kids, as opposed to these mentioned, who have been ticketed and been able to see the process firsthand. You have actually said that these practices are counterproductive. And can, can you tell us what you mean by that, in what ways do you see these practices as counterproductive. Thank you for having me and yeah, I'd be happy to speak about that. So, I would say that I think that school administrators tell themselves that, you know, enlisting law enforcement and using this process can scare the kids straight and really set the tone of we mean it get it together start behaving. But what it does instead is it pushes the student further and further away. They see this system, creating financial stress for their family, creating a ton of emotional stress for their family. And these teachers administrators that might have been people that they used to trust now are the total opposite. And they feel much like the state superintendent pointed out in her letter, it just makes them feel more unwelcomed in school, and probably much more likely to to misbehave in the future. You've mentioned before that there were, you know, sort of anecdotes that we included in some of the reporting that you found really troubling. Would you kind of mentioned what you found troubling, you know, kind of down in the in the investigation itself. Yeah, I would say the lawyer and me was most bothered by the story of the family who was living in the motel, and they were getting tickets for truancy. Let's set aside the fact that that has been illegal for a couple of years. And that family actually was entitled to federal law protections. Because they were living in a motel, they were considered homeless under the law or McKinney Vento eligible. And that means that they should have been getting supportive services from the school to help alleviate that that burden of not having disabled housing. And that can look like a school paying for a family's housing actually, it can look like a school paying for lift rides to get the child to school on time, or tutoring to make up for lost instructional time. So there was a huge role that the school should have been playing and they didn't, they were not recognizing it. They weren't playing they weren't being the support and in fact they were going in the opposite direction, and you know throwing this family into the deep end. And of course they don't say to the to the police when they're referring to family, they don't divulge the role that they're supposed to play in this, and that they haven't been playing that or following the law. And the hearing officers, you know, I don't think are well versed in school law or this federal protection so they don't know to question, well what is the school been doing. So the lawyer me really hate hated that story because, you know, I think I look at schools in their role as kind of developing and creating kind and empathetic citizens. And if the schools are not demonstrating fairness and transparency and accountability, if they are not modeling it themselves, then how are we supposed to expect this from our students. And then I think that the other story that really troubled me was the young man who had been drinking and he threw up at the bus stop and got to take it. And to me like that that could have been such a cry for help. It is developmentally appropriate for children to make mistakes. We know that like their frontal cortexes are not developed. They don't have sound decision making. And to respond by ticketing and finding and it's, you know, kind of subjecting these kids to like lifelong adult consequences for those childlike mistakes is just so upsetting and so goes against the mission of public school. We are punishing kids for being kids at a time when it is literally the worst time to be a kid. And I thought that was that was really, really upsetting. I'm going to ask you since we have you here to just speak to the lawyer in you again, and tell parents. What should they do a parent or guardian if their child is ticketed at school. What do you do. Well, if your child has an IP or a 504 plan I would say contact equipped for a quality. They are a statewide organization that are doing work in this area. And I used to work them I should have their number memorized, I will look it up and put it in the chat. If your child does not have special education plan they're welcome to call the free look legal clinic that I helped supervise at La Lola. And that number is 773-800-0338. And so I'm going to ask you to contact contacting the State Board of Education could be helpful going to the school board, basically all the things that Miss Baker mentioned doing I thought were incredible and let's just like keep putting full port press and make sure that lawmakers address this close the loophole and stop this practice. Thank you Jackie. Thanks so much and we are actually going to move on to an educator now. We are so lucky to have with us tonight Dr. Tony Sanders, Dr. Sanders is the superintendent of the second largest school district in the state. And their schools are across several different municipalities and we were, we did document ticketing in many of the schools in Dr. Sanders district which is Elgin you 46. Dr. Sanders, what was your first reaction when you learned that students were being ticketed overall in your district ticketed for various reasons, and specifically, we were able to document tickets related to truancy. So, if you could share your reaction to the tickets in general and the truancy tickets, that would be great. Absolutely. So, first of all, thank you for letting me be a part of your panel tonight I really appreciate it. And that was when you reached out to me Jody and you gave me a list of tickets that were issued across our school district. And it was a shock. It was shocked shocked to me as a superintendent of the state's second largest school district that we had police departments issuing tickets. Every year when we would present our student code of conduct to our Board of Education, I would reassure our board that our school resource officers were not involved in the discipline of kids. They were as a resource for students they were there to help keep kids safe, but that they were not involved in discipline. And it turns out, I unknowingly lied to my Board of Education. So when the report first came out when you first brought forward 47 tickets that were issued in our across our district for truancy. It was upsetting and then when I got the follow up list with all of the tickets were issued for a variety of offenses. So I set and called my team together to immediately address the issues for years we've had programs for exactly what Jackie was talking about a student shows up vaping the vaping pin or having had been drinking before they arrived at school or drinking during the school day we've had programs to serve those students without needing to ticket them. So the first thing we do is clarify to make sure that our administrators knew that ticketing is not allowed in you 46, especially for truancy, but that that, yeah, it was a major problem so it was a shock to me that we quickly try to address. I would like to note that across our district we do have 11 different communities we serve our five comprehensive high schools are located in areas so they're served by different police departments including the Elgin police department stream would South Elgin and Bartlett. And each of our police department reacted a little bit differently to the issue of ticketing so you would I think you pointed out in your story Elgin really never used ticketing as a as a method of adjusting student behavior, whereas other communities did and so it's something that we've worked with our communities and work with our local school resource officers also to address. This is an important point because this is such a local issue that one community or one police department in one high school might be issuing tickets and a high school just down the road and a different municipality with a police department that has different is not issuing tickets and because there's no federal law or guidance about ticketing there's no state law about ticketing at school, if you really see. And you really saw that we really saw that I should say with tickets where different towns different communities handle it differently from tickets being issued to how much the fines were so that's a really good point you were able to see it even within your own school district because it's across so many different places. Yeah, absolutely we're at it's very much a microcosm of the state when you look at you 46 and the disparity across our high schools and the impact that it had on students, unlike the city of Chicago public schools where it's closely tied to the city police department here it is across multiple municipalities. You mentioned some of the changes that you made. Can you talk about the student code of conduct and what you ended up doing with the code of conduct after this issue came to your attention. Absolutely so we've always tried to be on the cutting edge and on the forefront of restorative practices and trying to ensure that our student code of conduct is one that encourages the appropriate behaviors of good good behaviors. Certainly we do take action what if a student violates something that either violates the law or board policy. What it was we took a look at our student code of conduct and went through every one of the offenses to identify specifically which instances allows the administration to involve our local police department and when they cannot. And it's very much aligned to what the state law says so if a student brings a weapon to school. Obviously that is a reportable offense to the police. The SRO would be involved for a weapon being brought but something like vaping or obviously truancy or alcohol use. Those do not get reported to the police at all the police should not be involved again that goes back to the premise that our police should not be in our schools to discipline or meet at any form of discipline for students at all. They really should be there to help build relationships between the police department and our youth and to set good role models for our students. We just brought up the issue of a weapon in school as an example, and this came up while we were reporting and we had questions about it after. So I'm hoping you can help answer this question that as head of this very large school district. How do you balance the community's desire and the need to have safe secure schools. How does that with the need to ensure students are not disproportionately disciplined, and especially not with punitive measures like ticketing. So I think it's actually the referral process and the need and the desire to reduce referrals at schools when we've been very clear with administrators across our high schools and middle schools, and this is a point for much more discussion. We want to reduce the number of referrals and we know that referrals are disproportionate by race and by low income status. And I think in our, in our desire to address the, the number of referrals to the office ticketing became an easy way for administrators to not have a referral then to an office right there. I think the paperwork of it doesn't exist. The police department handles it my referrals as the principles go down, which is perceived as a good thing. Really the referrals should not be the metric that we're looking to really should be the discipline that results from it, whether that in the district that allows ticketing, whether it's a ticket or suspensions, the outcome should be really what we're measuring instead of the total number of referrals. Ultimately, we need to create environments that are safe and healthy and so in the wake of the brutal murdering of murder of George, George Floyd of course we had a lot of community feedback around SROs and schools. There was a lot of community conversation at our board level across our municipalities. And that was quickly replaced after you've all day with the call for us to increase the number of school resource officers. So I don't know that we've reached the right balance. I would suggest that in Illinois the evidence based funding formula that is in place, as long as the journal assembly continues to invest in it. We need to be shifting our resources over time to more social workers, more counselors, more psychologists, using that evidence based funding and slowly winning ourselves off of the need to have SROs in our buildings. Because if we're truly meeting the needs, the mental health needs of every one of our students, then the need to have police in our schools should diminish and I think that that evidence based funding formula will eventually get us to that place. So as it stands right now, thank you Dr. Sanders, as it stands right now, there are police in schools, and they are issuing tickets and our next panelist David eternal is the one of the people who actually hears the cases so once a child has been ticketed. They will appear at a local hearing or perhaps sometimes in a circuit court. So David as a hearing officer you rule on these cases at more like 20 municipalities in Illinois. And by the time the students are before you, they already have tickets for alleging that they violated an ordinance for their community and your job is to then follow the municipal rules. I have had the opportunity to see you go in, in many places and see a lot of cases that have come before you we've seen you deliver a fair amount of advice and counsel to kids from the bench. So I'm wondering, you know, you have a lot of experience doing this from your perspective is ticketing and then the subsequent hearing process the best way to handle student misbehavior at school. So two things first off Jody and Jennifer thank you for inviting me to be a part of this discussion and on the panel. You're right I have had a wealth of experience across a breadth of municipalities, and I do realize that every school every district has its own unique challenges with its students, funding, etc. I understand that it may be easy for a municipality to or a school to say, Alright, everyone gets a ticket. There's that solve a problem though. I don't know. I would rather a different approach. And I'm going to refer back to the, that old phrase back in the day. When I was in high school, if someone was caught with a pack of cigarettes, which I don't even know if kids smoke cigarettes anymore. But if someone was caught with a pack of cigarettes. They usually would receive a detention at in school detention, the more severe the the infraction it might go all the way up to a suspension week suspension it was a very bad fighter something along those lines. And I think a graduated approach would be a more helpful more more constructive way. What I, in other words what I'm saying is, let's say someone is caught, we'll talk about vaping because that is a very, very big issue in schools these days. Maybe the first time, there is a referral to an in school counselor as it relates to vaping nicotine things along those lines. Maybe if it happens again, maybe there's an in school detention. Okay, you could graduate up the level, the number, a number of infractions, until you decide to finally issue a ticket. Let's loosely call it let's say a three strike rule, the first offense for vaping, second offense for vaping, but then your third offense. Okay, we've, we tried to counsel you. We've had an in school suspension or detention accordingly now we're going to issue a citation. If in fact that municipality that school district feels in fact that citations might be helpful. Okay, but have a graduated approach. Additionally, some municipality some school district excuse me, will have peer juries, which I think can be very helpful depending on the fact type of violation. When someone appears in front of a peer jury, they're also receiving feedback from their own schoolmates their own peers, which sometimes can carry a little bit more weight than an adult. A peer might be actually stating things that that students parents have already said, but it carries a little bit more weight when it's coming from their, their fellow classmates that peer jury. So, those I think are different ways that it could be handled. I think what Superintendent Sanders also stated is, could also depend upon the type of violation. Right, for example, there's a big difference between vaping, as well as possessing a weapon in school. Alright, now that level of severity or that seriousness ratchets up a little bit. So, as opposed to a one size fits all. I think, while it's hard to have gray in the law all of the time. I think we need to make a best effort to do so. And by merely just issuing a ticket. I don't think it's going to have the desired effect that some schools and or municipalities would hope that it would have, and it could result then in some of the experiences that some of the families here have just spoken of Miss Baker, in regards to her daughter, going through almost 20 court sessions which I sitting on the other side of the bench I just I can't imagine that I'm not doubting her but that would be scary. That would be scary for anybody. If I'm if I'm mispronouncing any names my apologies. You spoke of something with regards to community services opposed to a fine if it's going to go that far to adjudication. I'm a big believer in community service. So fine is issued. Who's going to be paying that fine. Well what if the child's not working, what if it's a low income family, then what. Now once a matter comes in front of me, I have to deal with it under the law. I have to go back to the school and say, shouldn't be here handle it down below. Can't do that I've got the case in front of me I've got a citation in front of me I've got to adjudicate it. But the more options that are available on the bench, and the more you can tailor that to the individual child or the respondent, the better. And that's the point of realizing that I need to meet that student that person where they are in their life. I can expect them to meet me where I am in my life, or where I want them to be right now. But where are they in their life. Are they minority, are they not. Have they been, have there been troubles in school, are they being picked on visit isn't family economically disadvantaged if it is, if I'm imposing a $400 fine against a disadvantaged family. What's that going to teach the child. Not much. You're raising some really good questions about fairness you brought up peer juries and community service and you know the many possible outcomes. So, because you see so many different types of consequences across all the municipalities you serve, you know, you're saying what we referenced as justice by geography. Right in some places very high fines and no opportunity for community service in some places peer juries and things like that. Is that fair. And two, is it, is it your belief that by and large you shouldn't be seeing juveniles before you at all for ordinance violations. On the first question, is it fair. I currently know. However, any ruling that I make has got to be based upon the law, as it's written, if in fact the municipal ordinance does not give me the authority under their under their municipal codes to impose a community service. I'm stuck. In fact, it is just to find, for example, when this nepress was speaking with regards to the, the fighting situation. She said it was a $400 fine. Now I went online and I, well, she was speaking and I looked at their. Ordinances and for that would fall under their disorderly conduct. It's a flat fine $400. Well that really doesn't give someone in my position, the opportunity to realize that all cases are different. And each case must be analyzed on a case by case scenario. Now it's quite possible that maybe someone did get in a fight. Maybe they were the aggressor. The matters before me and maybe it was a push, as opposed to a five minute brawl fists of flying etc. And that municipality let's say only gives me the ability to impose a fine as opposed to community service. Well, should both of those fighting situations command a $400 fine. There's such a difference. And as every situation is different, sitting where I sit. It's nice to have the discretion to be able to impose a fine on some sort of a scale as opposed to a flat. I hate to call it a flat fee, but a flat fee that it doesn't do justice to the respondents. So that was, sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, I was going to say, because you're talking about how it doesn't do justice and there's so many varying fees. I was going to thank you for describing it from your side of the bench, as you said, and I was going to see if Mr. Analski from the Illinois State Board of Education could talk about it from, you know, the full statewide perspective. Thank you so much for Mr. Turner. Thank you for joining us and sharing your side of the bench perspective. Really helpful. And if we move now to Mr. Analski from the State Board of Education, the State Board has been focusing more on shifting school culture away from punitive discipline in general. And you do that through offering grants for training and issuing guidance and support to schools. I'm wondering with tickets when schools involve police in minor misbehavior and to be clear that's when the tickets are issued it's for minor misbehavior. We didn't see tickets issued citations issued for weapons. These were for, you know, vaping possession of cannabis or paraphernalia and sorely conduct but not not weapons just to make that clear because it's come up a couple times. But when schools involve police and minor misbehavior is that appropriate. And is that what you would consider a punitive approach to discipline. Yeah, and good evening and thank you for having us here. You know, I think I think sometimes it depends on the actual circumstance but I will say, and I think we all know that the key to solving disciplinary issues is not putative measures across the board. It's making sure that kiddos feel welcomed and included. I think we all know that there's a lot of things that are happening in schools themselves and their teachers and there's positive and healthy relationships between students and between staff and students. And quite frankly healthy relationships between adults in schools as well that that that lend themselves to modeling for students and so I think we'd be a hard press to find an appropriate use of ticketing for, I think what you're describing is minor, minor infractions again I think are limited resources at a local level but locally, and not just money but time effort communications is about is better spent on creating healthy learning environments and inclusive learning environments rather than punitive measures with a dollar sign associated with them. We've gotten a lot of questions in the chat and prior to this discussion about what the law says. So what what Illinois law says about ticketing in school. Is it legal, is it not legal, and how have laws around student discipline changed in recent years, you can add some clarity to that. Yeah, so to be clear, our discipline reform legislation that I believe passed in 2015 Senate bill 100 commonly called expressly prohibits the issue, the issuing of a monetary fine as a disciplinary consequence by school districts to students. And that is a zero tolerance policy against school districts and charter schools and other public entities or public schools to issue monetary fines. What we're seeing, however, and I think what you had uncovered in some of your research is that it's not schools necessarily in some of these instances that are finding the students. It's a referral to local public agency law enforcement agency for instance, and referring that to the municipal municipal courts for the issuance of a fine by way of a ticket. So be clear, school districts are not allowed under statute to issue fines as a disciplinary consequence would also say school districts are also prohibited from referring truant students to public agencies, including a municipal police department. And the consequence for that referral would be to issue a fine as well. So that is something that we have seen some school districts engage in in fact, really appreciate you and your team bringing up the state superintendents. You know message to all school districts, some months ago we did conduct a survey over the summer. We're looking at the results of that survey now many districts have told us. Yes, we have referred truant students to municipal police departments or yes we have issued a monetary fine as a disciplinary consequence. And one of the things that we've done is send a letter to each of those districts that indicated that they might be in violation of law. As some for clarity number one are we understanding right what you're saying what you're telling us, asking them to give us an assurance that those practices will immediately stop, but then offering our support. So to pivot off of punitive measures, but what can we do by way of offering what we have in around social emotional learning trauma informed instruction trauma informed thought processes by the way not just for students, but for staff as well who are experiencing trauma and also through their students eyes. What can we do to help you get to where you need to be so you're supporting your families and not being punitive. You're talking about the survey and the survey results and and the reporter the investigative reporter and me is immediately like well tomorrow morning I'm going to be asking you more about that and asking for those results so I know we'll be following up on that. So I mentioned Senate bill 100 and discipline and how the. It's the, you know, schools can't issue the fines to students that was clear and SP 100 but as we've discussed all night that it's, you know the schools are telling the police and then the police are issuing the tickets. Do you think there's a loophole in this law that's being used and and what do you do about that is is be advocating to change that law to tighten it up what do you want to happen was the agency wants to happen. I don't know yet or if you call it a loophole but it is a way to get around the basic requirements of what Senate bill 100 explicitly prescribes in terms of the school district's obligation towards its students and its families. I think what we're seeing is a disconnect between the Illinois school code which governs school law school actions and many variants of the municipal code and probably other provisions of criminal code or your civil code I should say as well excuse me. The extent that the general assembly would take up any changes on the quote unquote other side of the house the non education, you know statutes in the house that's certainly under their purview. You know we what we're looking for is what we can, what we can use in the school code which we have authority to implement to bring to bring relief and supports the families. Thank you so much. We were getting so many good questions that we're going to kind of shift into a Q amp a here. I think we really appreciate everybody's feedback. A lot of questions came in ahead of time, and, and we have those and are going to get some of those. You've also been asking some really excellent questions live. Again if you'd like to ask a question, you can just click the Q amp a icon at the bottom of your screen and submit it to us. And that's one other thing I want to point out right now is that we would love for you to fill out the event survey that's in the chat box. There's a link right now dropping into the chat box that will allow us to collect some feedback from you about how we can do this better. But let's move on to our first submitted question. And I think this is, this is a good one. We had several submitted questions about whether ticketing at school happens outside of Illinois. You know, Jodi and I documented what was going on here in the state, but we are very, very lucky that we have somebody who can answer this question for us. And who is the nationwide education equity coordinator at the ACLU has actually studied this a bit, and I'd like to invite Harold now to, to tell us what is happening outside of Illinois and whether ticketing is even a thing elsewhere. Oh, ticketing. Thank you very much for having me this is a really important topic. We've been working on this issue since 2013. So it's not a new issue. I've been chasing school districts and police departments for data on this. And we've worked all over the state of Pennsylvania. So as a baseline thing I would say that every state is different every state law is different in terms of whether this is permissible and consequences actually in a place like Pennsylvania are actually much more severe. So in Pennsylvania, a kid who gets a ticket is ordered on the ticket it looks like a traffic ticket literally looks like a traffic ticket. It's ordered to appear before a magistrate judge and adult court. So I didn't do juvenile system it's not an administrative judge. It's the lowest level of judge in the regular court system in the adult court system, which means that they're not they don't have a right to a lawyer they're not represented by public defenders. They don't go up they don't get the notice or their parents don't understand what it means, they can be tried in absentia. And the result is usually a fine it's sometimes a fine and and community service but if you don't pay the fine, then you are automatically referred to the juvenile justice system, which is has more severe consequences. Because it isn't the adult system. It means it is a criminal record unlike what would happen in the juvenile system. That is the system that we have in Pennsylvania. So, for example, if a kid who has been found guilty. Whether they pay the fine or not. If they're asked on an employment application college etc whether they've ever been convicted of a crime. They would have to say yes, if they were in the juvenile system. A delinquency is not considered a criminal conviction. And so these minor, you know, things that are sort of considered minor punishment by school officials and by law enforcement can have great consequences depending on the overall laws in that state and the system in that state that is the Pennsylvania system. And the other thing that we have found here and this is also true in other places is that generally you, there's not a lot of transparency with regard to the data that is kept, who keeps the data. We've been unable to get statewide data from the court system, but what we have found in the pockets of the state that we have where we have been able to get data one way or the other is this is a highly racialized form of discipline. It's impacting mostly black students. So you take second largest district in the state of Pennsylvania one out of 70s black students receives a citation, one out of every 400 white students receives a citation you take another midsize district in Pennsylvania and you find that black students are. The majority of black district, but black students are received citations at four times the rate of whites. We also find the same patterns with disability where students with disabilities in the same district receive citations at twice the rate of students without disabilities and most of those students with disabilities who receive citations for black students. There was something bigger going on here, and in a place like Pennsylvania, by definition, these are for minor infractions such as loitering typically harassment, disorderly conduct and littering. Those are among the more common and vaping is sometimes thrown at. You know, these things can have much more serious consequences in terms of the record that is left and how kids are dealt with, but I think it's important to note and the investigative work that's been done by all the journals actually confirms this is this is a heavily racialized form of impacting black students and that needs to be said. Yeah, I mean that that was a key finding of the work we did and we've seen some some other journalism around this. You know, including in Pennsylvania so thank you so much for sharing what you know, the little bit that you shared with us about the many things that you know about taking in Pennsylvania. You actually mentioned something that lots of people have asked about which is does this create a record for kids ordinance violations are considered quasi criminal. They're not criminal matters but maybe Jackie Ross can feel this one. Do any types of records get created that could follow kids, even beyond high school. Yes, and I think some of your reporting talked about this that it is kind of easier than you would hope to find students names, what the fine was, what they were accused of doing online. And then, Miss Posey spoke about this that there's this question of some colleges, you know, phrase questions like Have you ever, you know, been cited for anything other than a traffic offense. I think that there is an argument that if you have been cited for, you know, something like disorderly conduct that you would have to divulge that information on that application and it could impact whether or not you get into that school. And because it is only considered quasi criminal, you don't have a right to expunge the record. If you receive it as a minor like you would if it was like criminal. So it's a gray area. And yeah, it's really awful and I think that this, you know, several people have tapped into this that suspensions and expulsions. And the law around that is so highly regulated and there are so many eyes on it. That that is why this is being used, you know, it is, it is a lazy response to discipline, it is a hasty response to discipline that school makers can take advantage of it is a phone call. And so all of these protections that are put into place to protect kids with disabilities to protect black and brown students, those are all stripped away when it is such a behind the scenes process and that is the issue. I would just want to add that every state is different with regard to this and some of the consequences can be more severe. And that's the important thing to understand. And just just last week, Jodi and I actually were able to look in a circuit court public record and see students who had been ticketed while they were quite young. Lots of people have asked about fines as well. We noticed that there were some very large fines that were issued in some communities. So people really want to know where does the money go. And I'm actually going to toss that to Jodi. So she can tell you a little bit about what we found about where the money goes. The question was often also, does the money go to the schools, and the answer is no, the money does not go to the schools the money goes to the municipality. The city or the village where the tickets are being issued, and the process to run these local hearings these non court hearings the ones the families have talked about today at the village hall or the police station cost money. They hire someone to oversee the hearings. They, their staff to run them. So it's a system it's like a mini court so the fines that are being paid by the students or other people in the communities that are getting fine is they are going to the municipalities. We were also asked about an appeal process, can you appeal. Yes, if, if you're ticketed and you don't agree with the hearing officers rolling. There is a period of time, about 35 days I think you can appeal that rolling to the circuit court. We found that sometimes hearing officers like Mr eternal explain that to the people in front of them, and oftentimes that was not explained so there is a hearing process it does cost money to appeal so again there's not really an incentive to do so because the cost to appeal will be, you know, cost prohibitive as it relates to the fine, just like Miss Baker was was talking about earlier, other families it's like, you know at some point you, you know, paying so much to fight an ordinance violation ticket. I think that's a minor a minor matter. One other thing this is this is a question I think it's good for for Dr Sanders to take on. One of the things people have really wanted to know is, is whether we should be treating kids, any differently inside school versus outside of school so let's take the issue of like vaping, right, or or possessing If you were at the local mall, and you had a vape pen as a child, you could be ticketed by police should they see you there. What's the difference in school. It's a great question I think the differences is in a school you're surrounded by people who are there to serve and redirect you, whereas the mall does not have the staff to provide that level of support. So if it's in the community at a local mall. I can see where that might might be something for lawmakers to look at it as an exception. In the future, but as a school district, our role is to mentor support and redirect students and so I would see our role is want to do that, instead of issuing a ticket or meeting out some discipline. I hope that was responsive that that was responsive. Thank you. I was trying to unmute there. We just got a question that I would love Jackie to answer if, if you can. It's someone who who wrote kids are being sent to court and not allowed legal representation. This just sounds wrong. What kind of court is this. So I think Kaley are you asking in the municipal hearings. So they are allowed legal representation. It's not required. And the problem is that so few organizations provide this type of legal assistance and even fewer provide it for free. So it's a very different situation than being in juvenile court or being in criminal court. You know, I want to, it's always kind of nice to, to bring up some solutions if people see a problem. So for, for, for Jeff Aronofsky at is be, are there tangible steps that school districts could commit to taking that would reduce racial disparities and the things that we're seeing that that are so apparent in student ticketing. Are there things that that districts can be doing right now. Firstly, I would, I would encourage any school district that hasn't already to engage with our student care department student care at isbe.net, and we can refer school districts and in their teams to some of the programs that we have out across Illinois. We have a wonderful partnership allures Children's Hospital in and around resilience education in advanced community healing so the reach program that started off with the couple of dozen schools and went statewide this year. We have a lot of social emotional learning hubs that are spread out throughout throughout the state, really trying to equip adults to understand where kids are coming from, what happened the night before, what happened the morning before the morning of school, you know, kind of equipping folks to look at, you know, restorative measures, you know, someone was talking about, you know, peer juries and what what can we do in and around those areas. Also, we would encourage you encourage folks to talk to the regional offices of education. Over this last year, an additional $12 million was allocated to the regional offices of education throughout the state, specifically to address issues around truancy, especially after the pandemic as well. So there are state supports available there are regional supports available. We'd love to have some communication if folks want some more information on that. That's a good solution what what what other solutions are there does anyone else want to jump in there and and talk about other other solutions where do we go from here. So, we've been engaged in this issue on the policy front in various school districts and our recommend we've been asked for recommendation and our recommendation number one is to declare moratorium on the issuance of citations at schools. Now, in Pennsylvania, which is also true of many other states. So, what I think a lot of policing is for school districts that have their own police department. So, in Pennsylvania, several of the largest police departments are actually part of a school district. So it is simply an administrative authority matter for folks at the top of that district to say, this is not a form of discipline that we're going to prevent in that school district. If you have school resource officers. We tell those districts, well, you can make this a condition for having them there, or you can place this in the contract that you have or any kind of agreement that you have that this is not a practice that is permissible in our school I think that that most states that school officials can make decisions that could substantially can result in these citations substantially being cut back. It is not just something that law enforcement does the larger problem is that school policing is a lightly regulated or largely unregulated activity. And I can just jump in. You know, we've touched on this. The issue is, is the municipal code. I'm sorry, this, you know, the no discipline no fines for student discipline is under the school code right it does not restrict what the municipalities can do what the police can do. I think the easiest legislative lift would be to put into the school code that school districts are not allowed to refer students to municipalities for fines. So similar to what was passed with the truancy law and fines now it's not a perfect solution because we know from your reporting that it was still being done and we will have a responsibility to get the word out. But I think that that seems to be the easiest legislative lift, while at the same time, trying to develop more restorative practices, investing in social workers many other things that the superintendent was talking about. I guess, I think, oh, I'm sorry. I'm being told we're out of time but this has been so amazing, we're going to end with it going the finger being pointed I guess to the legislature based on what Jackie said what are they going to do next is there something that they can write into the school code. But I want to thank the family members who share their accounts today our panelists for this very engaging conversation which I think go on and on, but can't. So, and thank you to our audience for joining us and your very thoughtful questions. Again, this event has been recorded so you'll receive an email with the full video of today's event. We'll also post the recording on the ProPublica YouTube channel. And from all of us at ProPublica. Thank you for joining us and have a great rest of your evening and we hope to see you next time.