Immigration enforcement escalated in San Francisco during the summer. Now, educators are worried that ICE fears will creep into the classroom.
by JESSICA BLOUGH August 15, 2025
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As San Francisco students and families head back to public schools next week, teachers are starting the year with a new worry: How do you prepare your students for the possibility of immigration agents showing up on school grounds?
And has the district done enough to prepare teachers?
“We’re trained for school shootings, for situations where our life could be on the line,” said Daniel Alonso, a fifth-grade teacher at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in the Mission. “What does that look like if there’s a potential immigration raid?”
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Several educators said they are taking it upon themselves to prepare for the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at schools, particularly after the Trump administration reversed a national policy that kept ICE off school campuses just hours after his inauguration in January.
They have distributed Know Your Rights red cards in classrooms and coordinated between their colleagues on how to move students and lock doors if ICE comes to campus.
Diana Diaz, who works in after-school programs through the Beacon Initiative, which supports low-income and immigrant students at public schools, said her team has discussed how to respond if a student’s parent is detained by ICE.
Her staff members have the Rapid Response Number saved in their phones so they can report any ICE sightings immediately.
Administrators received a brief legal training from the district on how to follow policies dealing with law enforcement. But teachers say they have not received any training directly from the district, a sticking point in ongoing contract negotiations. United Educators of San Francisco wants specific language guaranteeing access to such training for all teachers.
“There’s things that have been posted. There’s feelings that have been shared, but when push comes to shove, quite literally, what is the district willing to do?” said teachers’ union president Cassondra Curiel. “Our members are looking for instruction.”
In San Francisco, ICE has been detaining people who come to immigration court, but the city has yet to experience raids like the ones at workplaces or stores that have occurred in Southern and Central California.
Just this week, the Department of Homeland Security detained a boy who was waiting outside a high school in the Los Angeles area.
The school district does have policies in place. It is a sanctuary district, in a sanctuary city, in a sanctuary state, and has a six-point FAQ on how to approach encounters with ICE.
“We are engaged with city, state, and community partners to help [district] students, caregivers and staff to be prepared and know their rights,” a district spokesperson wrote in a statement to Mission Local. “We have and continue to provide information to school staff on how to handle immigration concerns.”
At the most recent school board meeting, Superintendent Maria Su took a moment to reaffirm the district’s commitment to immigrant students and emphasized that families should not share immigration status with the district.
The district does not keep any kind of record related to the immigration status of students. She said the district would work with leadership in California and San Francisco, as well as nonprofits, to support students and staff through fears around immigration.
“I want to be crystal clear: San Francisco public schools remain committed to providing a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment for all students and their families, regardless of immigration status,” Su said.
District employees and officials are not allowed to help immigration enforcement. They are also instructed, by a statewide law, not to allow ICE to enter a school without a judicial warrant and explicit permission from the superintendent.
Still, teachers worry about what to do if ICE agents do not comply. They worry that parents will stop their students from attending school due to fears about immigration enforcement.
“It’s really anxiety-filling to go from a place where you’re making lesson plans and cutting decorations out and stapling shit on walls to creating a go plan for an evacuation or hiding,” Curiel said.
“We are looking to the district to communicate something that encourages families to feel like they can bring their child to school and know that we’re going to hold the line, whatever that is.”
Immigration fears can directly impact student attendance: A Stanford University study published this summer found that an immigration raid in the Central Valley caused a 22 percent decrease in student attendance because parents feared that they would be separated from their children during the school day.
Notably, over the course of two months, that 22 percent held steady, indicating that the impact of immigration enforcement can last beyond its immediate effects.
Rates of absence were higher for younger students, who are more likely to have an undocumented person in their household, said Tom Dee, a Stanford researcher and the author of the study.
“It’s a harbinger, a leading indicator of the disruption that’s occurring in families experiencing these raids,” Dee said. “There could be spillover learning consequences.”
The district is worried about attendance generally — during a recent press conference, representatives said attendance has not recovered to its pre-pandemic rates and cost the district about $18 million a year. But the connection to immigration enforcement was not mentioned.
The responsibility to quell fears from parents can fall on the educators themselves.
Diaz at the Beacon Initiative said that last school year, she led a workshop with families on how the school and her program was protecting students from ICE on her own initiative.
They went over how security and monitoring at the school’s gate works, and how to call the Rapid Response Number to report or confirm an ICE sighting.
Over the summer, even the sight of an unmarked van outside campus could terrify parents.
“It can reduce stress and anxiety for them to be informed,” Diaz said.
MORE ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
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JESSICA BLOUGH
Reporting from the Tenderloin. I’m a multimedia journalist based in San Francisco and getting my Master’s degree in journalism at UC Berkeley. Earlier, I worked as an editor at Alta Journal and The Tufts Daily. I enjoy reading, reviewing books, teaching writing, hiking and rock climbing.More by Jessica Blough
