A Tucson Unified School District task force created to support staff, students and their families is moving toward expanded training on how to respond if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears on or near school campuses.
Prompted by a staff-led movement for more training on what to do if ICE appears on campus, at a bus stop, or on a bus, the district created the Immigrant Support and Response Task Force composed of administrators and staff.
At the March 10 Governing Board meeting, students pushed a petition signed by thousands asking for guidelines including a plan similar to a lockdown or fire drill, funding for training, a script for front-office workers and grade-level training for students. Staffers at about 40 of the district’s 88 schools signed the petition.
“Any time we hear from students it’s a good thing. We’re talking about adults all the time and we fail to realize these kids are going through something,” board member Jennifer Eckstrom told Arizona Luminaria. “I think it’s important we listen to them. They want to be trained and they need to know their rights. They are teaching their family members.
“Students are leaders in their family and our community. We fail to realize that sometimes,” she said.
Members of Pueblo High School’s MEChA student group addressed the board last week, supporting the petition, asking for training and discussing their experiences seeing ICE near city bus stops adjacent to their school.
The MEChA students participated in the board meeting as part of a student field trip and at least five spoke out during the call to the audience. Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán was founded in 1969 and is a nationwide student-run organization promoting higher education, culture, and Chicano history.
The Pueblo students told the district, students do not have school bus transport. Students walk, drive themselves or rely on SunTran city buses to get to and from school, they say.
“Students do not need to be walking to school with fear of border patrol agents around or worry which route to take because ‘oh ICE is spotted on this road,’ ” Pueblo High senior Itza Esparza told hundreds gathered at the meeting, before the room erupted in applause. “I feel like school should have been a safe spot, a safe haven. You go to school, that’s where you get your education, not where you have to learn how to hide from ICE, how to hide from all this, just to stay safe because ICE should be out of those areas. Period.”
Tucson Education Association, the labor union which represents teachers and most other classified employees, is a partner on the task force with members representing high school and elementary campuses.
Immigrant and refugee donation drive
Support students and families with donations of non-perishable food items, clothing, sanitary products and laundry supplies.
Thursday, March 19
11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
TEA office — 5447 E. Fifth St.
The task force’s focus is customizing plans for each school in cooperation with administrators, said TEA President Jim Byrne.
The school-tailored ideas include examining campus safety layouts and elementary-level messaging for students and families.
“It’s creating trauma-level information related to immigration, meaning ‘here’s the system that our kids and their families are afraid of and involved in. This is what they’re experiencing,’” Byrne said. “They need a toolkit to respond to students. It’s knowing what resources and support structures are in place: I understand. I hear you and I want to honor your feelings.”
As mom to an elementary student, Eckstrom sees the need.
“There are ways to talk to our students. I know they are feeling what adults are feeling,” she said. “Counselors, also, need to be involved in that process.”
Task force members acknowledge that logistics vary widely from campus to campus.
For example, Miles Exploratory Learning Center just south of the University of Arizona, has steel-bar fencing and a gate to buzz in visitors. But about five miles southwest, Cholla High School has a guard shack that’s set back from the road and a less-physical barrier.
“There’s all those different access points,” Byrne said. “We’ve got to have something better in place.”
The task force meets again later this month and the board gathers March 31.
Last month TUSD offered staff ICE training, prompted by staffers. As of last week (it is currently spring break), the district says ICE has not been on a campus this school year, spokesperson Karla Escamilla said.
About 80 percent of the district’s 35,000 students are non-white, including 65% of students who identify as Latino.
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