CPS and DCFS failed Laquan McDonald

The fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was the final chapter in the story of a series of failings by taxpayer-funded agencies that are supposed to help at-risk youths.

That’s the conclusion of a two-month Better Government Association investigation that examined the educational and social service agencies serving troubled kids like McDonald, who suffered physical abuse while in foster care, had emotional and other mental health issues, and had been involved with drugs and gangs.

“He was ruined at a very young age,” said Bruce Bornstein, a Chicago attorney who long represented McDonald in juvenile court proceedings related to foster care.

“There is no way you can come out unscathed . . . the system lacked the appropriate services to deal with the issues,” he said.

Among the BGA’s findings:

• The city schools McDonald attended had some of the lowest academic ratings, and two were later closed because they were so bad.
• The psychiatric hospital he was sent to by child welfare officials was the subject of a scathing report detailing physical and sexual abuse there.
• The Chicago Public Schools system placed him in a small, private school for children with emotional disturbances, but the district failed to collect any performance measures on the facility and others like it for years.
• The last school McDonald attended is highly rated but child advocates believe it didn’t have the resources needed to help students with complex behavioral issues.
• The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which was responsible for McDonald’s well-being when he was a foster child, was “nonexistent” when it came to ensuring McDonald was adequately placed in schools.

Neither DCFS nor CPS would talk about McDonald, but DCFS officials acknowledge the agency needs to do a better job making sure foster children get in good educational settings.

CPS released a statement that said only, “We are committed to serving our students with the greatest needs.”

Ben Wolf, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has pushed for greater accountability at DCFS, said too many foster children wind up in the worst schools and eventually drop out.

“In general, most schools don’t know what to do with foster children,” Wolf said.

One CPS social worker who reviewed McDonald’s school records said she was appalled at the lack of involvement by DCFS, saying, “It was nonexistent.”

As has been reported, McDonald was sexually and physically abused while in foster care — while living with people he was not related to — under the supervision of DCFS.

Meanwhile, many foster parents, whether relatives or strangers, live on the South and West sides of the city, Bornstein said.

“The public schools are not equipped to deal with emotional issues that [foster children and other wards of the state] face . . . that is just the reality of it,” Bornstein said.

From kindergarten through fourth grade, McDonald attended Lathrop Elementary School in North Lawndale on the West Side.

In 2009, CPS board members voted to phase out Lathrop, and it was closed in June 2012. “Year after year, Lathrop has failed to give its students access to the quality education they need to succeed academically,” according to a CPS explanation of why Lathrop was closed.

In 2008, while in fifth grade, McDonald transferred to Austin’s Hay Elementary School. McDonald’s “individual education plan” — a course of action for kids with learning or behavioral issues — focuses on what was characterized as aggressive and defiant behavior, including leaving his classroom without permission, according to the CPS records obtained by the BGA.

At the time, Hay was rated a “Level 3” school — the lowest academic rating possible, meaning Hay was among the bottom third of CPS schools for test scores and attendance.

In 2011, in seventh grade, after McDonald threw a chair at a teacher, the school called in a state crisis team. McDonald was sent to Hartgrove, a publicly funded inpatient psychiatric hospital on the West Side.

That year DCFS released a report done by experts at the University of Illinois at Chicago that detailed chaotic and grim conditions at Hartgrove. In June 2011, DCFS stopped sending children under its care to Hartgrove.

Soon after, McDonald was transferred to Montefiore School, a West Side CPS facility for students with severe emotional issues.

During the years that McDonald was there — for part of 2011 and 2012 — the Rev. Robin Hood, a Local School Council member, said that CPS was draining the school of students and resources so that it would eventually be shut down because it was so costly. The school had only 21 students in September 2011, down from 70 students in 2005-2006.

This year, CPS is closing the school, meaning CPS will no longer have any in-house therapeutic day schools, which combine education with counseling for kids with serious emotional problems.

After graduating from eighth grade at Montefiore in June 2012, McDonald was placed in UCAN Academy in Humboldt Park.

Run by a nonprofit, UCAN has a good reputation. But while CPS has monitored individual student performance at such private schools, the district acknowledged it doesn’t look at data from such schools in the aggregate, so it can’t really say how well they’re performing.

This year, CPS is implementing a performance scorecard for privately run, publicly funded therapeutic day schools.

McDonald’s high school attendance at UCAN was frequently interrupted by stints in the Cook County juvenile detention center, a jail for kids. In fact, his transcript from the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years show that the only grades he got were from the juvenile detention center, which has teachers and classes.

Bornstein said McDonald did fairly well. He received A’s in English 1 and general music, and C’s in U.S. history.

For the first time, McDonald’s school records mentioned academics. An assessment put him reading at a third-grade level, CPS records show.

In September 2014, for reasons that are not clear, McDonald enrolled in an alternative school on the South Side called Sullivan House.

CPS gives alternative schools a stipend of about $8,000 per student, plus extra money for students with special needs. UCAN and other private schools get $38,000 to $40,000 per placement from CPS.

Cherilyn Thomas, vice president of educational services at UCAN, admits sometimes she is bothered when students leave for alternative schools, which often have less support.

Private therapeutic day schools have a psychiatrist and other specialized clinicians on staff, while alternative schools often do not. Sullivan House’s principal, Tom Gattuso, declined to comment.

Thomas said that when she saw McDonald’s transfer come through she was hopeful.

“He was charming and would likely find someone to talk to,” she said.

Even though the alternative school might not have the intense support, the program, paid for by DCFS and run through the Alternative Schools Network, provides each participant with a dedicated adult mentor.

McDonald had just made it through his 30-day probation period at Sullivan House when he was killed in October 2014 while holding a knife, shot by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, even though McDonald appeared to be walking away from him and wasn’t posing an imminent threat.