School kept automatically enrolling freshmen into JROTC after investigations targeted the practice: Report

A Chicago high school continued automatically enrolling as high as 96% of its freshmen in a military-run training program even after two investigations and systematic changes that were meant to stop the troubling practice.

The Chicago Public Schools Office of Inspector General first looked into enrollment problems with the school district’s Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps in 2022. Investigators found at least eight schools were shepherding 90-100% of incoming students into the U.S. Army program that’s offered at 37 of the city’s high schools.

A Chalkbeat review in 2021 had found that hundreds of students at several predominantly Black and Latino high schools were automatically being enrolled in JROTC. Some parents criticized the practice as pushing kids from under-resourced communities into the military. The schools often pushed kids into JROTC as a replacement for physical education classes to avoid having to hire a gym teacher. JROTC instructors are funded by the federal government and CPS.

After the 2022 investigation, the inspector general’s office said the district should offer physical education classes to all high school students and only place teens in JROTC if they submit a signed parent consent form. CPS also began monitoring proper submission of consent forms. The year after the overhaul, the IG’s office reported JROTC enrollment plunged.

But officials soon noticed an outlier: Enrollment of freshmen in JROTC had remained above 90% at one of the schools originally highlighted. In fact, the school routed an even higher percentage of kids into the program in the 2023-24 school year, up from 93% to 96%. The only freshmen enrolled in PE instead of JROTC that year were five special education students.

That’s according to Interim CPS Inspector General Amber Nesbitt’s office, which released its annual report Wednesday detailing the top investigations it conducted last year.

The school was not named in the IG’s report.

A deeper look found the school had enrolled at least 90% of its freshmen in JROTC for six consecutive years.

The IG’s office interviewed students who said the program continued automatically appearing on their class schedules, though some said they were told they didn’t have to take JROTC. Two students said the school told them they’d have to take JROTC their sophomore year if they didn’t their freshman year. Another said “she was told she had been placed in JROTC ‘for my health.’”

Two parents also said they were unable to reject JROTC for their kids on a consent form, the IG’s office said. One talked to the instructor at the school and said they didn’t want their child participating, but the student was enrolled anyway.

The school’s principal insisted to investigators that families were told at freshman orientation and open houses that PE was an option. The principal said the school scheduled students based on course availability and didn’t think they needed to hire another PE teacher.

The office said its review of the school led to findings of more systemic problems and a new set of recommendations that have prompted CPS to implement its second corrective plan for JROTC in two years. In response, CPS ensured all high schoolers are automatically enrolled in PE and can only participate in JROTC if they submit a parent consent form. Those are now being collected in the spring of the previous school year. Auditing of JROTC enrollment has been moved out of the JROTC Department.

Those appear to be working.

This academic year, 44% of freshmen at the school enrolled in JROTC, down from 96% last year. The rest — more than half — are in PE classes. That remains the highest percentage of new students enrolled in JROTC in the district but still represents a significant decrease.

“We’re not here to dictate who chooses what, but making sure that choice is legitimate and consensual,” Nesbitt said in an interview.

“[We] hope this situation has been fixed,” she said, adding that her office would continue monitoring JROTC enrollment levels, but that “we’re satisfied with the progress we’re seeing.”