To the editor:<\/p>\n
Imagine your child being interrogated in school by a masked, armed stranger in uniform about his family, living arrangements, citizenship. Your child has no idea who this agent is. He knows something is terribly wrong, but no one from school is there to protect him. Kids have heard about friends\u00a0\u201cdisappearing in the night\u201d and are terrified it will happen to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Your child doesn\u2019t know he has the right to remain silent because district leadership has forbidden teachers to discuss this with students. In fact, teachers were warned they could face disciplinary action for doing so. Kids no longer feel safe in school and choose to stay home for fear they will be detained. Teachers feel threatened with termination if they come to students\u2019 aide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If ICE allows school to contact parents before questioning students, imagine the trauma children experience when their parents are removed in handcuffs! Students are being set up, used, lied to in order to \u201ccapture\u201d parents who are most likely documented and in our country legally. Most students are U.S. citizens.\u00a0Their parents are hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding, community members, our neighbors. However, because English is not their primary language and their skin is black or brown, families are targeted and treated like criminals.<\/p>\n
Children feel abandoned by every adult in the school. We all thought our kids were safe.\u00a0The principal is deemed \u201cin loco parentis;\u201d obligated to protect all children in all situations. The superintendent and school board members claim they have our children\u2019s best interests at heart. But they refuse to take a stand against ICE and then allow them access. They claim they must adhere to \u201cthe law.\u201d Where is their backbone, their outrage over students & parents being accosted? Where is their commitment to our community? \u00a0Where is their sense of right and wrong? Has anyone on the leadership team written to legislators to protest against ICE access in schools? \u00a0Or is this \u201cnot their problem\u201d because their child isn\u2019t targeted\u2026 (yet!).<\/p>\n
Parents may be unaware that ICE is allowed to question their children in school. It is imperative to spread the word immediately.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I beg everyone to safely share this information with relatives, neighbors, congregants, co-workers, EVERYONE.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t close your eyes to this injustice. Now is not the time for silent obedience. Do not abandon your moral obligation to children and allow such abhorrent manipulation. The superintendent and board members were elected by citizens of Lee County to protect students and keep them safe. Yet, they have turned deaf ears to this community\u2019s cries for help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The superintendent\u2019s goal is to improve learning. How can children learn if they are too afraid to attend school?<\/p>\n
I am appalled by the leadership\u2019s lack of response and silent complicity. Shame on them!<\/p>\n
Jill Pellis <\/p>\n
Retired public school principal<\/p>\n
(National School of Excellence)<\/p>\n
Fort Myers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: Imagine your child being interrogated in school by a masked, armed stranger in uniform about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-156455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}