Tucson Unified Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said the change to federal policy has been causing unnecessary anxiety and fear amongst a lot of parents and families.
“Unfortunately, we're worried about the impact not just on students’ mental and overall socio-emotional health, but also their ability to focus in the classroom and come in every day, ready to read and ready to engage and ready to focus on their academics,” he said.
The district, which serves about 40,000 children, is training staff to recognize valid judicial warrants and follow guidelines for interacting with law enforcement. The governing board also updated its policy to strengthen requirements for notifying parents if an officer seeks to interview their child.
But Trujillo says there may be situations where law enforcement officials do present the appropriate judicial warrant to detain a student.
“Taking a student into custody is a traumatic event, not only for the student, but for the family and for all the other students that might be watching,” Trujillo said.
“If such a situation were to take place on our campus, we would respectfully ask the law enforcement officials to wait in a private area, like a front office or a lounge area, while we, the people that love and care for the students most, retain the student and bring the student up to that front office.”
Trujillo said at least for now, schools aren’t a focus of federal immigration enforcement in the region.
TUSD compiled a list, below, of community resources for immigration support.
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