Donald Trump is now president again. Asylum seekers, refugees, and transgender people immediately began to feel his impact.

How can educators respond—in both blue and red states—to his presidency?

Based on my 19-year community-organizing career and my 23-year high school teaching career, here are some ideas:

• As of the second day of his presidency, schools are no longer off-limits to ICE officers. School district officials everywhere can no longer delay providing training to administrators, classified staff, and teachers on how to respond to them if they enter school grounds or student drop-off/pick-up zones. If your district, like ours, has not provided this support yet, you can read up on strategies here.
  
• Given widespread research on how fear of a family member’s deportation can negatively impact student mental health and academic achievement, and the fact that there may be over 4 million students with an undocumented family member, districts everywhere should be providing professional development to its counselors and teachers on how to provide support to these students. If your district, like ours, has not yet provided this kind of support, you can read up on some ideas here and here.
  
• A polarized atmosphere in many communities can transfer over to inside a school’s four walls. One way to reduce the chances of this happening is creating something like what we did at our school, The Empathy Project. Students from English-language-learner classes presented their personal stories in a “speed-dating” style to English-proficient students, with strong encouragement for them to ask questions (except ones about legal status were off-limits). These conversations reduce the odds of student conflict and can enhance a sense of community and connection.
  
• Incorporate problem-based learning in classes, with a focus on grappling with community challenges. Teachers can facilitate lessons in which students learn the importance of having to work together—even with classmates who seem different or who have different priorities—to achieve solutions. These examples of “active citizenship” can be models for student future behavior in public life and, perhaps, for adults now.
  
• Incorporate lessons on the danger of zero-sum thinking (which appears to guide much of today’s political discourse) and model in your classroom that power is not a finite pie—that the more it’s distributed, then the more opportunities are created for everybody. Invite student feedback and act on it (I have my classes complete a weekly Google Form), model accepting responsibility for mistakes, and demonstrate more inquiry and less judgment.
  
• Start or support a gay–straight alliance, gender–sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) at your school. The Centers for Disease Control has identified “3.3% of U.S. high school students identified as transgender, and 2.2% identified as questioning.” There are over 17 million students in American high schools, which means over 850,000 students fit in those possible transgender categories, and they need our support. And, teachers, if you have any reservations about using students’ preferred pronouns, get over yourselves. I have always had a policy of calling students by whatever they want to be called, including pronouns. I’ve called students “Prince,” “Hot Wheels,” and “Kobe.” Come on, they tend to not have much agency in their lives—why not call them whatever they want to be called?
  
• When teaching about large-scale traumatic events affecting specific groups of people—Native American genocide, the Holocaust, the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans, slavery, etc.—make sure to include lessons exploring how people who were not members of those groups responded to those events in different ways and how they are remembered by history.
  
• Publicize the actions taken by Trump and his administration, including and especially as they related to education, and what you think of them provided you have the administrative support to speak freely or, if not, you’re willing to deal with any potential negative reactions. As educator Paul Bruno commented several weeks ago, his administration will be taking so many actions in so many areas, it’s possible that his education actions will get lost in the chaos.
  
• Get involved in your teachers’ union or associations. These kinds of “mediating institutions” are bulwarks fighting for democracy. These institutions “mediate” between individuals with little power and government or other larger entities such as large corporations. Schools in many communities have historically acted in similar ways, and you might want to read a previous post, With Trump in Office, Schools Should Ask Themselves These Questions, for ideas on what that looked like in the past and what it could look like today.
  
• When the “American Agitators” movie is freely available, which should be soon, use it in your classroom (if you feel like your local political environment will allow you to do so). It’s about legendary organizer Fred Ross Sr. (mentor to Cesar Chavez) and his son, Fred Ross Jr. I had the privilege of working alongside Fred Jr. during my organizing career. I haven’t been able to help create the accompanying classroom guide because of time constraints, but I know some top-notch educators are almost done with one.

These 10 ideas are just drops in the bucket, and I welcome hearing more on Twitter (now X) @Larryferlazzo, on BlueSky larryferlazzo.bsky.social/, or via email at lferlazzo@educationweek.org.

A previous version of this post appeared on my Websites of the Day blog on January 21, 2025.