{"id":509114,"date":"2026-01-11T19:01:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T19:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509114\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T19:01:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T19:01:21","slug":"how-san-diego-county-districts-are-keeping-ice-out-of-schools-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509114\/","title":{"rendered":"How San Diego County districts are keeping ICE out of schools \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Across San Diego County, school district leaders have been bolstering their systems for how to deal with immigration enforcement, spurred by rising arrests in local communities and by new state laws and legal guidance.<\/p>\n

After months of escalating enforcement actions, some near local schools, new legislation aims to protect children at school and create plans for what to do if their families are targeted.<\/p>\n

By March, school districts across California are supposed to implement new guidance from the attorney general, including by clearly marking non-public areas and codifying a system for refusing access to immigration officers.<\/p>\n

So far, progress toward those goals varies. But some local schools have gone further.<\/p>\n

In Oceanside Unified, where most students are Latino and about one in every eight students is learning English, leaders have recently begun giving front-office staff at schools much more training in what to do when immigration officers arrive, and how to track such encounters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you document?\u201d said Jordy Sparks, the district\u2019s executive director of diversity, equity, inclusion and student supports. \u201cWhat do you record? We have a script that basically front office staff can walk through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AtAt schools such as Mission Elementary, where students are seen walking to class on Dec. 18, 2025, Oceanside Unified has been working to label non-public areas that are off-limits to federal officers. (John Gastaldo \/ For the San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

The district requires staff to fill out and submit a form \u2014 first rolled out in 2018 but updated over the years \u2014 any time they interact with law enforcement. It hasn\u2019t yet had to use them, because there have been no incidents of enforcement on campuses so far.<\/p>\n

The district has also put more security in place. Visitors must be buzzed in by staff in order to enter past the front office. Front-office signs have been updated, and signs have gone up to identify areas restricted to students and staff.<\/p>\n

Sparks said there\u2019s training for all schools and all staff around areas like awareness building and education code. But there\u2019s also an optional training led by the district\u2019s immigration response team, which he\u2019s on, that delves further into what staff can do as community members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are opportunities for you to look out for your school community in the actual physical geographic area of your school \u2014 organizations locally that you can partner with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Many local educators have been getting involved in such groups. Across San Diego County, a growing number of teachers have joined efforts to patrol neighborhoods<\/a> for immigration enforcement activity in their time off work.<\/p>\n

Sparks said Oceanside Unified had historically done a lot of work to educate families about their rights.<\/p>\n

But in the last year, it has also begun working more closely with community organizations that are already working to help families make preparedness plans, he added \u2014 \u201cmore preventative and proactive work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SchoolSchool counselor Juan Orozco and teacher Dawn Miller, both with the San Diego County Office of Education, conduct patrols around the community of Lincoln Park on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (Alejandro Tamayo \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

School leaders have been on heightened alert ever since President Trump took office early last year and rescinded a longtime policy that prevented immigration enforcement at schools.<\/p>\n

California lawmakers responded this year by passing a spate of legislation that aims to limit federal officers\u2019 access to schools, protect students and their families from the administration\u2019s broader immigration crackdown and create plans for what to do if families are targeted for enforcement.<\/p>\n

State law bars immigration officers from entering a school without a judicial warrant, subpoena or court order, and staff cannot disclose information about a student unless officers have one.<\/p>\n

As part of the new legislation, Attorney General Rob Bonta\u2019s office issued a 59-page document of updated guidance that schools must adopt by March 1. Under it, schools must clearly mark non-public areas and not allow agents of immigration enforcement access to those areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cImmigration enforcement threats have led immigrant families to ask whether it is safe to send their children to school,\u201d the guidance says. \u201cAlthough California cannot control the actions of federal immigration enforcement agencies, federal and California laws empower schools to welcome all students and to reassure them of their educational rights and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparks said some of the changes in guidance are things that districts have already been doing, including on student confidentiality, data sharing and access to private or sensitive areas of the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s board policy that most school districts have in place already, so it\u2019s just a matter of how strongly it\u2019s enforced,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For a number of districts, much of the updated guidance largely reflects what they\u2019re already doing.<\/p>\n

San Diego Unified, by far the county\u2019s largest district, says it is already doing much of what the attorney general calls for, but staff are closely reviewing to see if they need to make further changes.<\/p>\n

\"FabiolaFabiola Bagula, center, the superintendent of San Diego Unified School District, speaks about the arrest of a parent by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) near Linda Vista Elementary School at a press conference outside the school the following day, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (Michael Ho \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Vista Unified planned some minor policy revisions as part of its regular updates this month, said Shawn Loescher, assistant superintendent of business and operations support.<\/p>\n

San Dieguito Union High School District\u2019s policies and practices have been aligned with the new guidance for years, particularly on law enforcement access and the handling of student records, said spokesperson Edwin Mendoza. Ahead of the March deadline, the district is focused on \u201crefinements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Not every district has found implementing the new guidance such a straightforward update.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Grossmont Union High School District, an East County high school district with a large immigrant and refugee population, school board meetings generally play host to straightforward votes where members of a conservative majority rarely openly disagree with each other.<\/p>\n

But last month, debate over the district\u2019s policy on how to handle immigration enforcement \u2014 drafted to comply with the updated state guidance \u2014 led to a rare public debate over policy.<\/p>\n

Trustees debated how to balance support for students and for law enforcement, while also making sure not to place too much of the onus of compliance on individual district staff. They ultimately decided to table the draft policy and pushed a vote to a later date to address concerns from the board members.<\/p>\n

\"GrossmontGrossmont Union High School District board trustees Chris Fite, Jim Kelly, Scott Eckert, Robert Shield and Gary Woods during a board meeting at Grossmont High School on Thursday, July 17, 2025, in El Cajon. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Scott Eckert, who brought the proposed policy before the board and said he had worked with staff on its language, said that the goal was to ensure students and staff knew there was a plan in place to take care of them should federal immigration officers come to their school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not anti-ICE, that\u2019s pro-student,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grossmont spokesperson Collin McGlashen said district staff were incorporating feedback from the \u201cthoughtful\u201d board discussion and hope a draft will be ready for the Jan. 15 meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe attorney general\u2019s guidance has been carefully reviewed as part of this process,\u201d he wrote. \u201cStaff training on the updated policy will follow shortly after final adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Oceanside, Sparks thinks families can find reassurance in knowing they follow federal laws such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which regulates access to students\u2019 records, along with state law and school policies on what can be shared with law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, if there\u2019s a subpoena involved or a judicial warrant, that would be something we consider,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we just try to reassure them that nothing\u2019s immediate.\u201d<\/p>\n

School officials also remind families of physical barriers, including signs, cameras and the protections afforded by front-office staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just assuring families that once your kids are at school, there\u2019s a whole other layer of safety that\u2019s in place, in terms of their information and also their physical safety,\u201d Sparks said.<\/p>\n

Experts have cautioned that fears of immigration of enforcement can hurt school attendance. A 2018 survey from the UCLA Civil Rights Project found that 84% of respondents said students had expressed concerns about enforcement.<\/p>\n

Patricia Gandara, a UCLA professor and co-director of its Civil Rights Project, previously expressed concern to the Union-Tribune<\/a> that fear could depress attendance but also said families do put trust in their children\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n

Sparks argues that trust can help ensure the opposite result: Families depend on their school community\u2019s awareness to safely navigate back and forth between work and school.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople feel like schools are safer places for students to be, and families have to work,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have to go about their daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Across San Diego County, school district leaders have been bolstering their systems for how to deal with immigration…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,5295,407,409,1370,728,50,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-509114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-san-diego","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-top-stories-sdut","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115878014803251114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509114","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=509114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}