Districts share plans if immigration officials show up at schools

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By Yesenia Robles, Chalkbeat

As reports spread Tuesday that schools are no longer off limits to immigration enforcement, school leaders in the Denver metro area had just shared plans for how to respond if immigration agents show up at schools.

DSST, the local charter school network with schools in Denver and Aurora, shared its plan with families last week.

Over the past several weeks, the Denver and Aurora school districts have been sharing information and training staff on how to respond.

“We’re trying to create an inclusive community,” said Danielle Felder, director of external affairs for the DSST network. “We wanted to offer as much security as we could.”

District and charter network protocols for what to do are similar.

Building managers must gather information from agents, including asking for a warrant, before calling the district’s legal team or security team, or both.

Aurora and Denver’s plans suggest ICE will have to wait outside the school. Or “if it appears the officer is cooperating, you may ask them to wait in an appropriate area of ​​the front office,” Aurora’s guidance states.

If ICE has a valid warrant, DSST’s plan says the school’s hallways will be cleared and the building will be placed on hold, meaning everyone will stay in classrooms until ICE has left the building. Parents of any affected students will be contacted immediately.

“We will not encourage mixed-status families or undocumented relatives to come to the school or otherwise interfere,” the plan states.

DSST’s and Denver’s plans remind staff that parents should be encouraged to update their emergency contact information and suggest that emergency contacts include a person who is not an immediate family member.

The school’s communications to staff and families include resource lists and links to other community organizations, including “Know Your Rights” booklets and information on how to create a family emergency plan.

The communication to Denver, Aurora and DSST school leaders reiterates that schools cannot and should not ask about a student’s or family’s immigration status. Aurora asks staff not to guess which families need resources either.

Denver’s communication also asks schools to encourage families to opt out of the school library by filling out a form. According to the DPS statement, public authorities can request a school’s library without a warrant or other legal justification.

Felder said DSST also wanted his plan to reassure its staff, which includes Dreamers and people in the country on visas.

Unlike during the first Trump administration, Felder said school leaders feel more prepared this time around.

After Trump took office in 2017, the Aurora school board voted on a resolution in May. Community organizations worked with parents and students to write it and asked the board to adopt it.

That resolution included a request for the district to translate a February 2017 memo that outlined how to respond if ICE agents showed up at a school or requested information. The current memo dated 5 December 2024 is an updated version of the 2017 guidance.

The 2017 resolution also asked the district to ensure there is a protocol in place to support students if a parent or guardian does not show up to pick them up from school for any reason, and calls on the district to provide, that family contact information is updated every year.

The resolution was intended as a statement of support for the diverse community of Aurora.

In the current school year, more than 86% of the Aurora district’s students identify as students of color, up from 82% listed in the 2017 resolution, and the district serves more than 40% students who are learning English as a new language, up from 36% in 2017.

Aurora has been mentioned as a possible target for early immigration enforcement due to national media attention on crime linked to Venezuelan gang members.

This year, the Aurora school board has been silent. Neither the Denver nor Aurora school boards have voted on any new resolutions to support immigrant students or other marginalized students who may have concerns about policy changes under the new presidential administration.

A session at the Colorado Association of School Boards last month had school leaders also thinking about how they can prepare to serve students and families if a major immigration crackdown takes place in the community. Schools haven’t shared much about plans for those scenarios.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at (email protected).