Immigration enforcement on the schoolhouse steps

Hello from Erica and Kalyn on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Last week we said good-bye to our reporting intern Wellington Soares. You’ll find his last stories —?on AI and student privacy —?below. During his time with us, Wellington wrote about everything from cellphone policy to disaster recovery. He approached every story with enthusiasm and care. We look forward to seeing what he does next.

Our big story this week looks at the implications if President-elect Donald Trump rescinds a long-standing policy that limits immigration enforcement at or near schools.

This will be our last regular newsletter of the year. Chalkbeat goes on break next week. If you have valued the stories we’ve brought you this year, we hope you’ll consider a year-end donation.

See you in 2025!

The big story

For many years, federal officials have limited immigration enforcement in or near schools. School leaders and immigration rights advocates have argued that families should not be afraid to send their children to school and that students have the right to feel safe in their classrooms.

Now there are reports that President-elect Donald Trump could rescind the policy that treats schools as “sensitive” or “protected” places soon after taking office. This won’t necessarily represent a sea change. Schools have not been the targets of immigration raids, and even under the policy, agents sometimes arrested parents right after they dropped off their children at school.?

But Trump has promised to significantly scale up enforcement, and many advocates worry that even occasional arrests near schools could send shockwaves through communities and keep children out of class. They also worry that minor interactions with law enforcement, including school police, might expose families to immigration consequences.

Some school districts are reiterating that they won’t cooperate with immigration authorities. And lawmakers in California are considering bills that would go even further in keeping agents away from schools.?

The Trump administration could threaten the funding of uncooperative districts or challenge so-called sanctuary policies in court. But advocates say states can claim some legal authority in these situations. Districts should adopt clear policies about how they’ll interact with immigration authorities and what information they’ll share, advocates said, and then make sure all school staff, from the front desk clerk to the superintendent, are trained.?

Read the full story here.

Photo credit: David McNew / AFP

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More on schools and immigration

Educators around the country who work with immigrant students are preparing for the possibility of increased enforcement. In New York City, the International Network for Public Schools supports 17 schools that exclusively serve newly arrived immigrants. Leaders with the nonprofit network are helping families understand their rights but also urging them not to be afraid and keep sending their children to school. In Colorado, school leaders heard from a Nebraska superintendent who saw 500 students disappear from his schools after a raid on a local food processing plant. He said schools should be prepared to help students who have no parents to go home to.?

And college counselors are weighing how to advise students with undocumented family members, or who may be undocumented themselves, about filling out financial aid forms. For the time being, their personal information is protected by law and not filling out the form could mean forgoing a college education.

More national stories

Teachers increasingly are experimenting with ways AI tools can make their jobs easier. But educators who enter student information into AI programs risk running afoul of privacy laws, and many districts aren’t offering training to help teachers navigate these uncharted waters. Experts and advocates say teachers should review their own districts’ privacy policies as well as the terms of use of any platforms they’re using and be extra careful about entering student information. Check out more tips for protecting student privacy in an AI world.

Acclaimed writer, activist, and professor Nikki Giovanni died last week at 81. In this First Person perspective, teacher Abigail Henry describes Giovanni as her second Black teacher — after her father. “Giovanni’s writing was my own traveler’s guide to understanding and responding to anti-Blackness. I looked up the references in her poems and began to teach myself the Black history I was not learning in school.”

Local stories to watch

• Memphis Superintendent Marie Feagins still has her job, for now. The school district’s top administrator has been in her role less than a year and was chosen after a protracted and troubled search. Citing alleged “professional misconduct,” a group of board members signaled their intention to fire Feagins, a move that surprised even some of their colleagues. One point of contention: whether Feagins had backed up claims that other district employees were misusing overtime pay. After a meeting in which community members turned up in large numbers to support Feagins, the board has postponed its decision.?
• Indiana has adopted new high school diplomas that lay out three pathways: work, college, or the military. The initial diploma proposal included significant work requirements as part of a push to bring more career training into Indiana high schools. Some critics said that plan would discourage rigorous coursework and make it harder for Indiana high school graduates to go to college. The revised high school diplomas allow students to layer additional requirements on top of the base diploma depending on their interests and plans.?
• New York City has dropped a $1.9 million proposal to use an AI-based reading tutor. The decision comes a day after the city’s comptroller said the city’s Education Department needs better policies on technology use, including to protect student privacy, as well as more reassurances the tutoring tool, Amira, is effective. Some schools were already using the tool, and it’s not clear whether they’ll continue.

Photo credit: Ariel J. Cobbert for Chalkbeat

Did you know?

22.6%

That’s the percentage of the college-educated workforce that comes from a historically disadvantaged background —?and it’s higher than the share in the teacher workforce.

Teachers used to be more diverse than the degree-holding workforce. But the most recent data analyzed by the National Council on Teacher Quality finds that just 21.1% of teachers come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Research finds that students of all races benefit from having teachers of color, yet efforts to recruit and retain these educators may be slowing. Increasingly, college students of color are either forgoing teaching entirely in favor of other fields or not staying in the classroom if they do. Teacher turnover rates are higher for educators of color.

“We worry that the gap could grow larger, and so that’s why we think it’s really important to pay attention to it now,” the NCTE’s Heather Peske told The 74.

Quote of the week

“Many Republicans are going to second-guess how much they want to double-cross the governor and how much they want to fight him, because he's proved that he's willing to push all the chips in on this.”

That’s Genevieve Collins of the Texas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group backing education savings accounts. The Texas Tribune reports that voucher proponents are optimistic they’ll pass a universal program after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott helped to defeat a number of anti-voucher Republicans in primaries earlier this year. Voucher opponents hope that this new coalition might still fracture once they get into the details, as happened in Tennessee last year.?