For months now, Almi Abeyta, the superintendent of Chelsea public schools just north of Boston, has been bracing herself for an immigration policy change that could affect schools.
Back in November, following the victory of President Donald Trump, who had emphasized his goal of mass deportations throughout his campaign, she fielded questions from families and educators about whether schools faced any threat of deportation actions.
In December, Abeyta started putting together resources on immigration laws as they relate to education, and her 6,000-student district directed families to local Know Your Rights sessions so they could learn about their legal protections while in the country.
In January, she paid attention to the news while doing her regular work as a superintendent. Then, on the evening of Jan. 21, one day after Trump took office, his administration announced it had rescinded the policy of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that considered schools to be protected areas against immigration enforcement.
Despite her preparation, Abeyta still felt caught off guard.
“We weren’t expecting any of this to happen so incredibly quickly,” she said.
Abeyta is among the school and district leaders across the country suddenly fielding questions, fine-tuning protocols, and keeping whole communities informed about what schools can do regarding immigration enforcement following the removal of the memo that named schools among the federally protected areas or “sensitive locations.” Leaders interviewed by Education Week spoke of the chaos of a quickly changing policy landscape, and the responsibility to get ahead of absenteeism driven by fear.
On Jan. 22, meetings with principals and community leaders filled up Abeyta’s day. She and her communications director had to quickly get talking points out to school clerks, the district’s parent information center, and family liaisons, all of whom posed questions about what would happen next.
“I started my superintendency in January of 2020, and we all know what happened in March of 2020, a couple months later. This is very reminiscent of that,” Abeyeta said. “It’s like you’re just all consumed with making sure you’re giving the right information out to your principals.”
Leaders use lessons learned to guide their communities
Navigating immigration policies as a school or district leader isn’t necessarily a new experience. Some educators can take lessons learned from their past experiences as they guide their communities now.
Lara Evangelista was a teacher, assistant principal, and principal in New York City public schools before the Homeland Security sensitive location memo first took effect in 2011. She later worked as a deputy superintendent in the district and now serves as the executive director of the Internationals Network for Public Schools, an organization that helps schools design programs and services for immigrant and refugee students.
Schools have always had a responsibility to ensure immigrant students and families knew their rights, regardless of any memo in place, Evangelista said.
“It’s not like deportations weren’t happening, and we weren’t experiencing it before the Trump administration,” Evangelista said. “I was a principal during the Obama administration and had experienced families and students being deported at that time, too.”
Legal experts point to federal protections that have existed for decades and continue to exist for undocumented students and families, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act that protects students’ records, and the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe which enshrined undocumented students’ constitutional right to a free public education.
Still, some state leaders have already begun taking steps to undermine the Plyler decision.
During the first Trump administration, some school districts across the country set up protocols around what to do should U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers show up at schools, Evangelista recalled. But back then, Trump’s rhetoric regarding immigrants largely focused on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Now, with his calls for mass deportations across the country and the removal of the sensitive locations memo, the threat of immigration enforcement officers arriving on campus feels more palpable for some, Evangelista said.
Family engagement is key for academic progress, experts have said. But when arrests and deportations do happen within a school community, they can harm the sense of safety and belonging families and students hope to get from schools.
In 2017, for example, an ICE agent followed a parent from the drop-off at Hampstead Hill Academy in Baltimore to his home, where he was arrested. The father of three, who was also expecting another baby, was undocumented.
“Anytime anything like this happens, it is shocking, and in a school community that knows each other and respects each other and connects with each other, it’s very normal to feel a sense of helplessness,” said Matt Hornbeck, the principal at Hampstead Hill, who worked with community organizations and local politicians to help immigrant families cope with their fears.
This time around, Hornbeck said his school and the 76,000-student Baltimore City district is “better prepared” to support students and their families.
“Baltimore City is doing a very good job at communicating with principals. We have detailed guidance on how to help parents make an emergency plan, and how to respond if [ICE] officers were to appear at the school,” Hornbeck said. He declined to share specific details to ensure the security of his students and their families.
Since the Trump administration’s immigration directive first came out, the school has hosted a few listening sessions with students and parents. Hornbeck has discerned a rising level of concern among families. In staff meetings, Hornbeck has asked his teachers to reinforce a message with their students: “We love you, we want you in school—we have lots to learn.”
In a 2018 ICE raid at a tomato farm near the O’Neill public school district in Nebraska, parents of local students were detained, and later, deported, said Amy Shane, a former superintendent there.
The district of about 800 students had opened schools for those children to make sure they had a safe space to wait. Most students who showed up were young, dropped off either by a guardian or an older sibling. Shane said the kids were reunited with their parents by the next day; some families left the area when they were deported.
Shane recommends that school districts now stay in touch with the families who might be at risk of deportation.
“Have each family make a list of people that they are OK [with] to pick their children up. Also, have a power of attorney ready because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Shane said, referring to the practice of temporarily signing guardianship rights over to a trusted individual, who can make decisions about a child on the parent’s behalf.
In Massachusetts, Abeyta and her team synthesized district protocols into brief documents to help principals react quickly to various scenarios.
“We tried to make it simple. I used to be a principal. I don’t want a long document with a ton of detail. Just tell me what to do as simple as possible,” Abeyta said.
Families also received information on district protocols, and school leaders have directed families to community resources, including organizations that can offer legal advice.
“I tell my leaders, this is fluid, because the advice could change and then we will go back and regroup,” Abeyta said. “We’ll probably have to revise some of these documents, and I’m used to that because that’s what we did during COVID.”
Emotions run high as leaders offer support to fearful families
The fear of deportation isn’t just restricted to families with undocumented members, school leaders told Education Week. Some immigrant families, even those with legal status, are worried about being mistakenly detained.
Kristy Zaleta, the principal of Rogers Park Middle School in Danbury, Conn., plans to meet with her school counselors, special education teachers, and school resource officers. The educators will look out for signs of distress and mental health challenges among students, as well as keep track of any uptick in absenteeism.
School counselors, she said, are already fielding student concerns about their parents stepping out of their houses, even to go to the grocery store.
“We’ve heard stories of how they’ve gotten here, and what they’ve been subjected to, and it’s just another level of stress on the children,” Zaleta said. “It just seems … more in our faces this time.”
Zaleta said she’s had more intense and frequent meetings on immigration law with district leadership in the past week than she’s had in the past 11 years working in the district.
Like school districts nationwide, the Danbury district has briefed principals on what to do if ICE officers show up at their schools. The briefing included directions for the front office staff, school secretaries, resource offices, and building administrators.
For instance, the principals were briefed on the differences between a removal, arrest, and a judicial warrant, Zaleta said.
Parents have also made their own arrangements to ensure their children can be picked up by a trusted guardian or family member, in the event of an ICE raid, she said.
Some district leaders, meanwhile, find themselves navigating multiple intense situations at once.
In Southern California, districts are in the process of enrolling students displaced from the wildfires, said Ruth Perez, deputy superintendent of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which oversees 80 districts in the area. Educators there are now also navigating concerns from families wondering if schools are in fact safe from any deportation efforts.
“I cannot imagine what it’s like for a child to be concerned about their parents being arrested because they’re undocumented and at the same time having lost their home,” Perez said. “But as educators, we have to be prepared to help our children.”
The county has put together tool kits that districts across the country can use as guidance for developing their own immigration protocols, Perez said.
Back in Massachusetts, Abeyta is leaning on her friends, community, and fellow superintendents.
On Jan. 23, two days after the announcement that the sensitive locations memo was rescinded, Abeyta participated in an instructional round at one of her middle schools. It’s an activity she plans to continue to do in these days of uncertainty and continuous questions.
“I’m going to be with our principals and our assistant principals as we talk about instruction, and I’m going to go visit this building and ground myself in why I do this work,” she said.
