Chicago Public Schools chief Ron Huberman says he’s got a strategy to end senseless shooting deaths of public school students. Thirty-five million in stimulus dollars will help fund the plan.
Unfiltered: Ron Huberman Addresses the City Club of Chicago
Huberman says his biggest mission this year is to stop the gunfire that killed 34 students last school year, and injured nearly 300.
All of this occurred off school grounds, but Huberman says the solution can come from inside schools.
He says the district can predict some 1,200 students who are high risk of becoming victims, and offer them help.
HUBERMAN: If we can solve for this group of 1,200 kids at the top, and trying to change their behavior I would make an argument again here that we are going to almost wholly solve the youth shooting problem. That is a massive statement to make.
The District’s solution includes using stimulus money to hire mentors who will work 16 hours a week with high-school students and their families. The students will also be offered jobs.
Huberman says CPS found the predictors by digging back into 5 years worth of data. They looked at students’ credits, behavior and attendance.