Months after ICE raids, Fridley starts new school year with more kids, new concerns
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Fridley schools open their doors Wednesday to all students to start the new year. Leaders here, though, have been working for weeks to prepare to welcome back kids knowing the trauma induced by the surge of federal immigration agents into the Twin Cities last winter still lingers.
The north suburban school district saw some of the state’s highest levels of disruption to daily activities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents flooded the region.
Agents conducted raids near school buildings, sped through intersections where elementary students were trying to cross during arrival times, parked in school lots and followed and attempted to intimidate school leaders, district officials say. Hundreds of children stopped attending classes.
“There was a lot of concern about what do we do if and when the federal government shows up at our school and … how do we protect our kids,” Fridley kindergarten teacher and union leader Phil Boyd recalled. “We’re sitting and thinking about how do we protect our children from our federal government, which seems completely insane.”
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As Fridley schools return for the new school year, district leaders say the surge’s emotional pain remains and the financial damage caused by the ICE surge must be addressed.
Still, on the first day of school there is reason for hope. District leaders worried enrollment levels would drop as families were caught up in immigration raids or self-deported to avoid becoming the target of violence or being separated.
That hasn’t happened, said Brenda Lewis, Fridley’s district superintendent.
“Our families trust us. It’s exciting,” Lewis said of the higher enrollment. “Our hiring pools, too — we have so many robust candidates. In all of the horror that we saw last year and were subject to, like, people are choosing our district.”
Financial strain, legal battles and trauma
Lewis and other Fridley district leaders spent the winter personally patrolling district buildings on a daily basis to intervene in emergencies driven by ICE’s presence in the area.
Boyd, who said he still gets triggered by the sound of helicopters, said the trauma of living through the surge didn’t fully hit him until he started summer break.
“When I was able to sort of relax and be away for a minute, I realized, ‘Oh. I need time to rejuvenate.’ And every year you need some time, but this is different.”
District leaders are also involved in an ongoing court case, suing the federal government to keep ICE away from schools and redesignate them as “sensitive locations.”
“There’s no closure,” Lewis said. “We don’t have sensitive locations back. We don’t know, ‘Are they coming back? Are they coming back after midterms? It’s out of our control. And yet we have to be immediately responsive.”
The district is also still reeling from the financial impact of the surge.
When students were afraid to leave their homes, the district lost state and federal dollars from enrollment and school meals. They paid for emergency e-learning and door-to-door transportation for kids who wanted to attend class but whose parents didn’t feel safe transporting them.
The district has identified approximately at least $1.97 million in direct costs and revenue associated with the immigration-enforcement crisis. Lewis said that figure doesn’t include enrollment-related state aid losses, additional staff time, security expenses or mental health and academic recovery costs.
Jake Karnopp, who chairs the Fridley school board, said the surge felt like a “kick in the teeth” as it happened and will take a long time for the district to recover.
“We were seeing an upward projection” before the surge, he added. “Our test scores were increasing, our enrollment was increasing, our behaviors were decreasing, our attendance was getting better. We were on an upward trajectory of really improving our school district, and then this hit.”
Still, he remains positive about the future. “It’s going to take a while for those things to come back, but I'm very confident that they will come back because of the district that we work in.”
For this week, the mission is to try to make things as normal as possible for everyone in the new school year after months of upheaval.
“We're creating welcoming buildings that are open and caring and express … ‘This is a welcome environment for everyone who walks through the door,” said Boyd, the kindergarten teacher.
“We don't just pretend like it's over and done with and it didn't happen. We honor the experiences and the fear that we had,” said Lewis. “This horrible, unrational, tragic 12-week event occurred in our community, and yet our community just rose and said, ‘We're gonna protect.’”
