How students can report school ticket sales: Free event on 1 December

Illinois schools are prohibited from using fines to discipline students. But in recent years, according to a recent investigation by the Tribune and ProPublica, schools have worked with local police to issue students with fines for minor infractions.

Instead of fining students outright, school officials report the student’s behavior to the police, and the officer then charges the student with violating a municipal ordinance.

As a result, students across the state faced costly fines and other serious consequences for locker room fights, smoking on campus, skipping class and other school-related infractions that the principal previously handled.

[ Read the ticketing investigation “The Price Kids Pay” ]

U “The Price Children Pay” reporters from the Tribune and ProPublica found that local police have issued more than 12,000 tickets to students in dozens of school districts across the state in recent years. Reporters found that black students were more likely to receive tickets at school than their white peers, and found that failure to pay fines could lead to debt collection and even garnishment of wages or back taxes.

Now, at a free event hosted by ProPublica in partnership with the Tribune and the Journalism Association, student journalists can learn how to report on ticket sales on their campuses. The virtual event will take place on December 1 at 3:30 p.m.

[ Register here for the Dec. 1 virtual event ]

Tribune reporter Jennifer Smith Richards and ProPublica reporter Jodi S. Cohen will explain how they discovered and documented ticket sales in schools and how student journalists can write stories on the topic. Cohen and Smith Richards will show how to search public records and highlight best journalistic practices to report on the issue.

Registration is available at propublica.org/events. Find all stories published in the series on chicagotribune.com/tickets.