In a circumstance that has become the norm in police departments across America over the past four years, Forest Park’s department has been operating short-handed. Budgeted for 38 sworn personnel, the force has been as skinny as 31 officers in 2021. Now, Chief of Police Ken Gross says his department has 34 officers in place and three more are being trained to join the force shortly.
Gross recently said he is hopeful of one more hire this year, which will bring the department to full force.
There are two overriding factors in short-staffed police departments across the country. One was the intense and deserved response many Americans felt toward policing after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Undoubtedly, it has made being a patrol cop a more difficult and less desirable job. But the challenges raised by protesters and reformers about how police engage with citizens, specifically citizens of color, are fully valid and we have seen some progress in forcing more community-based policing and added accountability for officers.
But combined with the COVID-19 pandemic that followed, it led to many early retirements of officers and a dearth of candidates applying to become police officers.
Gross acknowledges that the events of 2020 “decimated the profession.”
Now, though, in Forest Park, the number of people taking the test to become officers has slowly recovered. Back in 2017, 51 people took the Forest Park test. In 2022 the number was just 16. In February 2024, 39 individuals took the test.
This is good news for Forest Park. A full roster of officers means less overtime, the ability to take on new projects, and some relief for the upper ranks, who have been forced into patrol duties at times.
We see positive changes in how this department engages with residents and visitors. That change agenda must remain intentional and reflect input from the community.
Overambitious at D209?
In 2022, Proviso Township high schools made a bold, but, we think, poorly-thought-out-decision to expand the International Baccalaureate program from just the Proviso Math and Science Academy and into both Proviso East and Proviso West high schools.
PMSA is a selective-enrollment high school. East and West are not. Those two schools, in fact, perform very poorly in state test results and need foundational improvements and rethinking. Spreading some frosting on top of those faults does not help most students. Right now, the school board is considering dropping IB from East and West because enrollment in that program is very low.
Our suggestion would be to continue IB for another year with the hope and expectation that this board will finally hire a permanent superintendent. It will be their job to make a recommendation on IB within a fuller and much more ambitious plan to rebuild East and West academically from the ground up.