Safe Passage workers honored for protecting CPS students on walks to and from school

Glenda Rivera’s teenage son was shot while walking just across the street from his high school in Hermosa.

Rivera’s son survived. But eight years later, when her daughter enrolled in the same school, Rivera felt that she needed to do something to protect the children in her neighborhood from violence on their way to get an education.

So she joined her local Safe Passage team, donning a neon vest and standing guard every morning and afternoon as local students walked to and from class. She has now worked for Chicago Public Schools’ Safe Passage program for seven years and counting, she said.

“I felt that the only voice I had was to join Safe Passage and ensure that (students) are safe,” Rivera said in an interview with the Tribune. “It’s a relief to see parents wave at me and say, ‘Thank you,’ because you feel at ease.”

Standing outside for hours on troubled city blocks during rain, snow or sunshine, Safe Passage workers provide a friendly face for Chicago Public Schools students during their walks back and forth from school. The workers also act as informal security for the students as they escort them through gang boundaries and other potentially violent areas, monitoring and reporting threats while attempting to deter criminal activity.

After her morning shift on Wednesday, Rivera traveled to attend a rally honoring the role that Safe Passage workers play in their communities.

Wearing their neon yellow uniform vests, about 1,000 Safe Passage workers filed into the Isadore and Sadie Dorin Forum at the University of Illinois Chicago at noon. There, they were praised by local elected officials and were given free sandwiches for lunch as Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” played from the auditorium speakers.

“Every day, I see Safe Passage’s workers in and about the West Side of Chicago, pouring their hearts out,” said Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th. “Rain, sleet, cold, whatever, they’re out there. You all are out there taking care of our young people, taking care of our kids. So we thank you.”

The city launched Safe Passage in 2009 after Christian Fenger Academy High School sophomore Derrion Albert was beaten to death on his way home from school.

At its inception, Safe Passage served just 35 schools. The program’s reach has vastly expanded since, particularly after a mass school closure in 2013 resulted in more CPS students having to walk between neighborhoods and across gang lines to get to their daily classes.

The Chicago Board of Education’s vote to close 49 public elementary schools that year, marked the largest single school closure in the city’s history. As children were shuffled to new schools in unfamiliar neighborhoods, security concerns and parent backlash prompted the city to significantly scale up the Safe Passage program — to the tune of a funding increase of nearly $8 million and the hiring of roughly 600 additional workers.

As a new school year begins, nearly 1,200 Safe Passage workers will guide students on their routes to 191 schools, according to CPS officials. The number of schools the program serves has increased by three since the previous school year.

“One of the things we hear over and over again from our families is how much of a difference this makes in our children’s lives,” said Jadine Chou, chief of safety and security for CPS. “Children feel a sense of safety just by seeing their Safe Passage workers. … Essentially, it transforms what’s going on on the streets.”

All of the workers are trained in security protocols and deescalation strategies, she added.

Streets where Safe Passage operates experience a reduced incidence of violence even at times when the workers are not physically present on the block, according to studies by external researchers unassociated with CPS, Chou said.

A 2019 study in the Journal of Urban Economics found that schools that had the program for more than two years showed a significant crime reduction, with an approximate 20% decline in violent crime along the Safe Passage routes during the hours when the workers are on the streets.

CPS spokesperson Sylvia Barragan said the expansion of the program to three additional schools this year is due to individual Local School Councils deciding to introduce Safe Passage at their locations. Since the program’s inception, more schools have opted into Safe Passage every year, Barragan said.

“It’s beyond safety and security. It’s also that community aspect of just building relationships,” Barragan said.

CPS has allocated $15 million of its budget for the 2024-25 school year toward Safe Passage, according to Barragan.

Though CPS funds the Safe Passage program, workers are employed and managed by different community organizations from the neighborhoods where the program operates. Among the over 15 organizations represented at Wednesday’s rally were Teamwork Englewood, Westside Health Authority, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Little Village-based nonprofit Enlace Chicago and youth mentorship program Saving Our Sons.

A key factor for Safe Passage’s success is that it employs workers who live nearby in the community and are “invested in supporting the children who live where they live,” said Chou.

Tamar Manasseh, founder and president of Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings , said Wednesday that the Safe Passage program should continue to be expanded and strengthened, with more assistance from law enforcement in cases of criminal activity. In certain neighborhoods, she said, children could benefit from Safe Passage escorts to parks or other public places even when school is not in session.

The Black community in Chicago has long seen the benefit of having adults be physically present to watch out for the children in their neighborhood, Manasseh added. The presence of Safe Passage workers on the street or parents watching from porches or street corners can be “one hell of a deterrent for crime and violence,” she said.

“That’s what I grew up with. You couldn’t go outside and play if there wasn’t an adult watching,” Manasseh said. “What I learned is they’re not just watching you to make sure you don’t step into the street, or you don’t hit other kids. … They are actually protecting you. They want other adults or people who may come to argue, they want them to see someone’s present, someone’s watching over this kid.”

Englewood resident Tollie Rowry has worked as a Safe Passage escort in his neighborhood for 13 years. Before the program was instituted, he said, no local students ever felt safe on their way to school, with shootings and child abductions occurring nearby.

“They didn’t feel safe, I know they didn’t,” Rowry said. “That’s why they want (Safe Passage), that’s why the mayor wants this program. This program works.”

Denise Evans helps escort students every day to the Ralph H. Metcalfe Community Academy in West Pullman, which is close to her own home. Her favorite part of working with Safe Passage is greeting children with a smile in the morning, she said.

“Just speaking to them in the morning, giving them a ‘Good morning,’ ‘Have a great day,’ whatever, that just brightens their face when they go into the school,” Evans said. “Giving them a positive outlook that life can be better, it’s gonna get better for you.”

Though most Safe Passage workers the Tribune spoke to said they’d never encountered a serious incident while on the job, Cecilia Brown recalled hearing constant gunshots while walking students to and from school in Englewood. In Grand Crossing, Kimberly Smith said she has had to protect elementary school girls from predatory advances from men who follow and catcall them.

The hardest part of the job, Brown said, “is standing outside in the rain, standing outside in the snow.” Yet none of that deters her, as “the main thing is to make sure the children are safe,” Brown said.

In his speech to the many hundreds of Safe Passage workers gathered on Wednesday, Mayor Brandon Johnson recalled the influence of the program during his own time as a CPS teacher at the former Edward Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts in Cabrini-Green.

The young people in his classes faced “enormous” pressure when crossing the street on their walks to school, as they were passing through the dividing boundaries of gang territories, Johnson said. Safe Passage workers were there every single day to help his students get their education without harm, he said.

“I feel better every day when I send my children out and when families send their children out, because I know there’s a room full of people who love this city,” Johnson told the crowd. “We call them Safe Passage workers.”