After the federal government stepped up enforcement of immigration regulations in recent weeks, administrators at Warren Township High School District 121 turned their attention to the district’s related policies at a meeting Tuesday and answered questions raised by the residents.
“We are experiencing a high level of questions in the community from general community members, students and family members about how we’re approaching this,” Superintendent Daniel Woestman said.
Woestman said questions are primarily about how the school is going to handle immigration enforcement, but since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 the district has also tried to calm fears about the safety of LGBTQ students, as well as curriculum changes and diversity initiatives in the district.
“At this point, we’re still waiting to see what the Department of Education puts out, and that happens in a couple of months,” he said. “But the immigration topic is timely. People are asking about it on a day-to-day basis, and we’re not waiting on approaches to be published by any federal agency right now.”
If a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer came to the district, the officer would need to provide a federal warrant to gain access to the district and its information, Woestman said.
“When any law enforcement, or any partner agency comes to our door, they have to have some type of supportive document.” he continued. “Oftentimes, that’s some type of warrant that’s signed by a federal judge.”
Woestman added that there are exceptions for local law enforcement, including the Gurnee Police Department and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Any warrants that are shown to the district get processed through the superintendent’s office, he said, so “you don’t have a security guard or a receptionist processing that and trying to make a decision.”
He added that all of the district’s staff members, including “frontline employees” like security guards and bus drivers, have been told of the district’s processes and procedures, and that they have made efforts to inform community members of them as well.
“I’ve received a few phone calls, and most of them were fearful that ICE was going to come and take children from the bus stop, and we assured them that that’s not going to happen,” said Sandra Moran, the district’s director of multilingual services and family engagement. “This institution is a safe haven for all of us.”
One of the concerns the district has is trying to help students who have received notice that they will be deported, including seniors who want to receive their diplomas before they are sent out of the country.
“Letters are starting to go in, and families have to go back to their home country,” Moran said. “Some of them are seniors. Is there a way we can help them graduate?”
Woestman said that while the district has a procedure in place if ICE agents show up at the school, he hasn’t heard of that happening anywhere in the country.
“What we’re working through continuously is the emotion around the possibility,” he said. “Our job is to support students, so if a family is concerned, what we’re trying to figure out is how to make sure that student doesn’t fall behind.”
The district emphasized the need for impacted families to create an “emergency plan,” with administrators walking families through examples of such preparations.
“We’re really stressing the family emergency plan, in case there is an emergency,” Moran said. “We want to make sure that if the parents are deported, the students know what to do next, or who to go to if this happens.”
The district is also providing emotional support for students who are impacted either directly or indirectly by the issue.
“You can’t tell by looking at someone, or speaking with someone, if this is impacting them,” Woestman said. “It’s impacting many of our families in different ways — some directly and some indirectly — and you don’t know unless you hear their stories.
“The message that we’re trying to give staff is that if a student needs support, we have a whole structure in our student services teams,” he said. “They can walk a kid down to meet with and talk with a counselor or social worker.”
