Some school districts in Illinois, primarily suburban districts with a high percentage of Hispanic students, are reporting an increase in the number of students who are not coming to school, presumably because their parents are afraid of raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, WLS-TV (ABC affiliate) reports.
South Elgin, Illinois (David Wilson/Flickr Creative Commons)State Superintendent of Schools Tony Sanders met Friday with district leaders from Aurora and Elgin, two suburban communities with a high Hispanic student population.
“I’ve been in many schools this last week, and I’ve talked to many superintendents that have seen a decline in attendance this week, especially among our Latino population, who are fearful of sending their child to school,” the station quoted him as saying. “They’re hunkering back at home. They’re not separating as a family.”
“Kids that are not in school will not learn,” he said. “And you know, post the pandemic, we’ve seen already a decline in attendance. We don’t need to see a further decline in student attendance based on threats and fears.”
Similar reports are coming out of California, with parents expressing fear of ICE raids at their children’s schools. Parents are simply keeping kids home, NBC News reports from the San Francisco area.
“We’ve heard children saying bye to their friends already because they don’t know if they’re going to leave back to where their parents’ birthplace might be even though their children might be born here,” the station quoted one school board member and a mother as saying. “It causes a lot of stress for students.”
