by Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Illinois legislators on Wednesday passed a law to explicitly prevent police from ticketing and fining students for minor misbehavior at school, ending a practice that harmed students across the state.

The new law would apply to all public schools, including charters. It will require school districts, beginning in the 2027-28 school year, to report to the state how often they involve police in student matters each year and to separate the data by race, gender and disability. The state will be required to make the data public.

The legislation comes three years after a ProPublica and Chicago Tribune investigation, “The Price Kids Pay,” revealed that even though Illinois law bans school officials from fining students directly, districts skirted the law by calling on police to issue citations for violating local ordinances.

“The Price Kids Pay” found that thousands of Illinois students had been ticketed in recent years for adolescent behavior once handled by the principal’s office —........

© ProPublica