Back-to-school preparations for the academic year that began Thursday in Los Angeles were like no other \u2014 and more ominous.<\/p>\n
One teacher training explained how to recognize various types of federal officers who handle immigration arrests or \u201ckidnappings,\u201d as participants were told \u2014 and also how to distinguish between these officers and bounty hunters wearing cop gear purchased on Amazon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the agencies are masked, and all of them refuse to identify themselves, right?\u201d said the presenter at the headquarters of the United Teachers Los Angeles union, which hosted the training. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019ve experienced on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2025 school year opened Thursday morning with many of the usual rituals: Balloons at the schoolhouse entrance, crying 5-year-olds with nearly crying parents and teenagers who are nearly too cool for school but thrilled to see friends and even eager to meet their teachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy children are interested and excited to start school and get the usual assortment of school supplies and new shoes,\u201d said Judi Bike. But their \u201cfavorite new school shopping is backpack shopping\u201d for a child from a low-income family, \u201cusually through the Baby2Baby student program,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In the background, however, is deep concern about whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will use school sites to target immigrants without legal status as they walk with children on the way to or from campus. Federal authorities have said no place is off limits as they maneuver to reach President Trump\u2019s goal of 1 million deportations per year.<\/p>\n
These fears were heightened Monday when federal agents reportedly drew their guns on and handcuffed a 15-year-old boy with disabilities outside Arleta High School in a case of mistaken identity. Federal officials said they were looking to apprehend a suspected MS-13 gang member and instead nabbed the person\u2019s cousin. Federal authorities said they apprehended the actual suspect later in the day.<\/p>\n
Campus patrols<\/p>\n
The presence of immigration agents so near a school \u2014 and the detention of a student \u2014 was on the minds Thursday morning of volunteers organized to patrol streets near schools.<\/p>\n
At Maya Angelou Community High School in South Park, as students filed in lugging full backpacks, volunteers circled the perimeter of campus in their own cars, affixed with red and black stickers that read: \u201cProtecting Communities From Ice and Police Terror.\u201d <\/p>\n
History teacher Ron Gochez wore a red shirt with the words \u201cAll Power to the Teachers,\u201d and surveilled the sidewalk and streets. <\/p>\n
He would soon need to teach \u2014 but his attention before and after school would be on making sure students were secure, Gochez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are already patrolling in their cars. Teachers are gonna be showing up and patrolling on foot around the school,\u201d Gochez said. \u201cFor us at the high school, it means being vigilant. \u2026 If we were to see anything, we\u2019d contact not just our school, but other schools in our immediate neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other educators at Maya Angelou also have signed on to the effort. <\/p>\n
History teacher Ricardo L\u00f3pez said he felt obligated to take on patrol shifts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first day. \u2026 I\u2019ll do it for the students,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cWe gotta find a way to resist, to actually make change.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fifteen other faculty members posted themselves in front of the school holding signs signaling support and encouragement: \u201cEveryone Is Welcome Here\u201d and \u201cThis Is a Safe Space for Immigrants.\u201d <\/p>\n
Students also were welcomed via a red carpet at the entrance. <\/p>\n
The inviting atmosphere was working for Bonnie and Haley, two juniors. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pretty safe,\u201d Bonnie said. \u201cWe\u2019re not super worried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students joined up with friends to make up for missed time during the summer. Wearing carefully selected first-day outfits, they hugged in reunion and coordinated meetups after school while the safety patrol kept watch.<\/p>\n
Tiers of school protection<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s first day of school features three tiers of protection for students and their immigrant families.<\/p>\n
L.A. school district-organized efforts have established a watch zone around at least 100 schools thought to be at highest risk because of their large Latino populations. These include schools where older Latino students walk to school without their parents. <\/p>\n
The teachers union has organized a second tier of faculty observers \u2014 ideally at least five to seven per school \u2014 to watch for immigration enforcement activity and alert a network of participants if they see it. The teachers are to observe and report only, Gochez said.<\/p>\n
The third tier involves groups such as Uni\u00f3n del Barrio that are prepared to gather community members at a scene and provide hands-on support, or, if necessary, obstruct the efforts of immigration agents, even if they risk arrest by doing so, said Gochez, who also is a Uni\u00f3n del Barrio leader.<\/p>\n
Volunteers patrolled outside schools of all grade levels. <\/p>\n
At 93rd Street Elementary School in Green Meadows, Ingrid Villeda, the community school coordinator, and colleague Olga Calacuayo, the school\u2019s Title I Coordinator, began conducting safety checks well before the morning school bell. <\/p>\n
At 6:45 a.m., the pair patrolled several blocks around the school\u2019s perimeter for signs of immigration agents. They noticed two empty cars that looked suspicious to them and reported them to Uni\u00f3n del Barrio\u2019s tip line.<\/p>\n
Villeda said she plans to do the same route each morning before school.<\/p>\n
About 7:35 a.m., school administrators \u2014 clad in bright orange vests and carrying matching orange \u201cknow-your-rights\u201d fliers \u2014 greeted the volunteers standing outside the school gates. <\/p>\n
The volunteers then busied themselves escorting students and their parents to campus within about a three-block radius of the school. <\/p>\n
Among the volunteers escorting students and parents was Diana Holbert, a former children\u2019s pastor at Westwood United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n
As Holbert made dozens of trips across South San Pedro Street and back, she said she could sense the fear in the body language of parents and children, who kept their pace fast and their eyes forward. <\/p>\n
When Holbert heard about the volunteer opportunity, she immediately joined the effort. She said she felt strongly that these children need to be protected \u2014 even if that meant putting herself at risk of arrest. <\/p>\n
She shrugged. \u201cI\u2019m 78 years old. If it happens it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
Educators are worried<\/p>\n
Educators throughout the Los Angeles region are expressing worries about their students and their immigrant families. <\/p>\n
\u201cImagine … leaving your home in the morning and not knowing if your parents or your t\u00edo or t\u00eda is going to be there when you get back, or your grandparents,\u201d said Pomona Unified School District Supt. Darren Knowles. \u201cKids have enough to worry about as it is. I remember walking to school as a kid, and I worried about … the bully. I worried about the dog in the neighbor\u2019s yard and … other fears that my mind would create.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pomona\u2019s schools opened Tuesday, and the attendance rate was a little lower than last year\u2019s first day, Knowles said at a Wednesday event held with other local leaders to call attention to the importance of good attendance. <\/p>\n
Getting to school, the educators and officials noted, leads to better learning, better health and even better life success. But they didn\u2019t suggest that arriving on campus \u2014 and focusing on learning \u2014 would be easy for many worried families.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to teach children when they\u2019re afraid,\u201d said Debra Duardo, superintendent of the L.A. County Office of Education. While schools continue to be relative havens, educators have been forced to devise protocols about what to do when immigration agents are near a school or attempting to enter campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something unprecedented,\u201d Duardo said. \u201cThe fear is real, and it is having a direct impact on student attendance and student enrollment.\u201d<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen if some families will opt out of in-person school. Online enrollment rose in the spring semester for L.A. Unified after Trump re-entered office. Early this week, it was running about 7% higher than last year, despite overall lower enrollment, said L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho.<\/p>\n
Mistaken identity outside Arleta High<\/p>\n
In the Monday incident outside Arleta High, family members persuaded officers that the boy was not the person they were looking for and the officers released him. A Department of Homeland Security statement Wednesday praised the family for cooperating.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mother of the 15-year-old, who is cousins with the alleged MS-13 gang member, was on the scene and worked with Border Patrol,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThe mother informed Border Patrol that they are often confused for each other. She helped give Border Patrol the information to help apprehend him later in the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce again, our agents keeping streets and the American tax-payer safe from criminals and we will keep doing so until the mission is accomplished,\u201d said U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino in a social media post. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back-to-school preparations for the academic year that began Thursday in Los Angeles were like no other \u2014 and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":145616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,4471,2385,78208,50358,7612,6285,8618,86220,2961,224,2444,5337,4531,6566,11645,15689,86221,86222],"class_list":{"0":"post-145615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-child","11":"tag-day","12":"tag-educator","13":"tag-family-member","14":"tag-fear","15":"tag-federal-agent","16":"tag-immigrant","17":"tag-l-a-school-year","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-times","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-officer","23":"tag-place","24":"tag-school","25":"tag-student","26":"tag-teacher-training","27":"tag-tier"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115028275594482294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}