A school district in Texas used to have a standard practice of keeping the names of two adults on file who are authorized to pick up a student. Now, after an immigration raid in that district’s community, the school system requires each family to keep the names of 10 authorized adults on file. That’s an example of how some school administrators have put plans in place to ensure that school children aren’t left stranded if their parents are detained by federal immigration authorities.
For more information about how educators are planning for the possibility of a local immigration raid, see an article posted yesterday at edweek.org, “Schools Urged to Prepare for Immigration Raids,” written by my colleague Catherine Gewertz. The article reports on an Oct. 24 panel discussion at the Council of the Great City Schools’ annual conference in Houston. One of the panelists was Rosa Maria Castaneda, a research associate at the Urban Institute who co-authored a report last year about the impact of immigration raids on children.