Some families scared to send children to school
With the increased spotlight on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) presence in Minnesota, it seemed pertinent to see how our local community is responding to it and what presence of the taxpayer activities has been locally.
TCU Schools
Tri-City United Schools Superintendent Kevin Babcock said, “First of all, they’re (ICE/CBP) not allowed on our school property and for sure aren’t allowed in the buildings. Any correspondence with that goes through our administration. Our staff is told not to interact. So if somebody was to see someone close to the facilities to go right to principal administration. I reached out to all three of our local police departments. If we know of somebody close to our property, we’re going to let them know, and they are going to reciprocate that… If they are directly right by our school we will just go into ‘secure,’ which means kids will be in their classrooms and there will not be any outside recess, so on and so forth. Kids will just be in the building and, more or less, in the classrooms.”
Babcock says that scenarios for ICE/CBP surrounding a school bus property that there isn’t much they can do about that, even if they are doing so illegally. “The tricky part becomes the parents that come to get their kids (at the school). We have some people that are watching out for kids getting off the bus but they are not supposed to surround the busses. That’s a tricky situation when you are talking about federal agents.”
ICE/CBP has not been on or directly by school property that Babcock was aware of but they have been in nearby areas. “I know when they were in Lonsdale, we stayed inside for recess,” said Babcock.
“We have a cultural liaison, and she has been working very closely with all of our families in our district, as far as if they need something,” said Babcock. “What we need to do, we provide it, or what we have been doing is providing a little different type of transportation. We have some people that are wanting to drive some kids to school. So, there are people that are helping and we got some resources in that way. Of course, we have the county, if it comes down to food. We’d make sure that our kids have food.”
“We have kids right now that are going to online (school) for parents fear and safety of their kids leaving the house, it’s scary. Let’s just put it that way,” said Babcock. He says that the district has 12 students doing online right now and an additional 10 students considering doing online schooling that are still attending in person but are also afraid. “It’s quite a few when you talk about a district our size,” he said. “And that’s the only ones that I know of. There could be more.”
“The biggest thing is that we’ve had some parents removed, that have been taken. It’s the same with some of the other school districts and superintendents that I know,” said Babcock....