Connect & Redirect to Respect Program
Last Revised: September 26, 2025
- Issue Areas
- Justice and public safety K-12 education
Program overview
Reducing violence: Connect & Redirect to Respect (CRR) was a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) program which used social media monitoring to reduce incidences of violence involving CPS students.
Offering support services: Students were identified based on their social media activity which was tracked by the Chicago Public School’s Office of Safety and Security (OSS). They looked for posts involving weapons, indicating gang involvement, or starting conflict on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Snapchat, and Yik Yak.
Personalized intervention: Once identified, students met with a CPS Network Safety Manager to discuss the situation. If cases were more serious, the Chicago Police Department’s Gang School Safety Team (GSST) would meet with the student. GSST does not discipline or prosecute students, and instead focuses on redirecting behavior and stopping retaliation. As part of interventions, students were offered wrap-around services and may be referred to CPS social-emotional programming or community based organizations.
Continued check-ins: After interventions were completed, CPS Network Safety Managers regularly met with students as part of follow-up services. This helped ensure students refrained from re-engaging in risky behaviors and could obtain further support as situations change. The frequency and duration of check-ins depended on student need.
- Strategies
-
School climate and student behavior
- Location
-
Chicago (IL)
A single study of Connect & Redirect to Respect in Chicago (IL) suggests that the program is a promising strategy for decreasing student involvement in violent incidents, decreasing school misconduct, and increasing attendance.
A 2019 quasi-experimental study found that students at schools which implemented CRR had fewer misconduct incidents, lower rates of out-of-school suspension, and a higher school attendance rate relative to individuals at non-CRR schools. CRR school students were also less likely to be shooting victims when compared to control group students, though this result was not found to be statistically significant.
Prioritized older students: This program was originally implemented in schools of all ages in the Chicago School District. Elementary schools engaged in significantly fewer interventions relative to high schools and middle schools. As such, given limited resources, CRR should be implemented primarily in high schools and middle schools. Not only are these students likely at a higher risk of engaging in violent behavior, but they are also more likely to have and frequently use social media accounts, enabling the CRR program to be more effective at identifying risky conduct.
Designate experts to do searches: Prior to CRR implementation, many schools reported having staff examine student social media accounts to identify potential conflict. However, staff reported difficulty staying up to date with changing social media platforms. Having designated individuals to monitor social media, as exists in the CRR design, ensures that those tracking student social media know how to use the platforms and can keep up with evolving trends. This better enables schools to identify potential violent behaviors.