‘School Is A Safe Place For Your Students’: Jurupa Unified Reiterates Commitment To Immigrant Community

The Jurupa Unified School District Board of Education last week received a presentation on district policies and procedures for handling immigration enforcement actions.

“We just want to reiterate to our parents and our community that school is a safe place for your students,” Monty Owens, assistant superintendent of pupil services, said at the July 29 meeting. “We’re going to protect their right to receive their education regardless of immigration status.”

According to state and federal law, students have a right to a free public education regardless of their or their parents’ immigration status; the right to attend a secure, safe and peaceful school; the right the be in a learning environment free from discrimination, harassment, bullying, violence or intimidation based on national origin or immigration status; the right to participate in any program or activity offered by the school without discrimination based on national origin or immigration status; and the right to privacy and confidentiality regarding personal information.

“None of that has changed, and we will continue to support and follow that as long as our students continue to show up to school,” Owens said. “Even though there’s been a lot of things on the news and things happening in different communities over the summer, we just want to make sure our parents know that school is the safest place for our students during the school day.”

Owens said that the district does not collect nor retain any information regarding immigration status or social security numbers. He further stated that it was district policy for schools to not release any information to immigration officers without a parent’s express written permission unless the official has a legal court order, judicial warrant or subpoena. In those cases, Owen said, there is a process that the school must follow to release the requested information.

“We have a flow chart that all of our offices and all of our site administrators know to follow,” he said. “The principal will notify the district staff and parents about the request to speak with the student or to enter a school site, the principal will request the documents from the officer — such as a warrant, subpoena or court order — to authorize access to the student at the school site, and the principal will wait for instructions from the district staff or legal counsel on how to respond to the request.”

Owens said that even in those cases, school officials would only comply with an immigration officer’s request if the district’s legal counsel determined that the district was legally required to do so.

“We take this very seriously,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that we protect our students as best we can legally.”

Owens also told the board that the district is going to be proactive in its outreach to students missing school due to fear of immigration enforcement actions to ensure they’re aware of the steps the district is taking to ensure the safety of immigrant students and their families.

“It’s really about building the relationships and the trust so that they know that when we say that this is the process, the protocols and the policies, they can feel assured that that’s what we will do,” Superintendent Trenton Hansen said.

In an effort to better support immigrant students, families and community members, the district has put together a page of resources on its website that can be found here. Owens said that as the district receives more information from the state, the page would continue to be updated with the most current information available.

“It’s a changing and evolving situation that’s continuing,” he said. “We just want our parents and families to know that we’re here to support them in Jurupa, and we look forward to having our students in school.”