The Learning Curve: Another ICE Arrest Near a School

On Wednesday, the Chula Vista Elementary School District sent out a letter to parents notifying them that ICE had arrested an adult outside a school. The person arrested was a parent dropping their child off at Camarena Elementary, according to a school official.  

Wednesday’s arrest is not the first time ICE has arrested a parent near their child’s school. In June, an Oceanside parent was arrested just blocks from their child’s school.  

Now, another child is grappling with the reality of losing a parent. 

In the letter, Chula Vista Superintendent Eduardo Reyes, grimly referenced the potential impact such arrests may have on families: “We also recommend creating a plan that allows us to care for your student in the event you are unable to pick them up or drop them off due to unforeseen circumstances.” 

Like other school districts, Chula Vista has adopted policies that require school officials to deny ICE agents entry to school premises without a warrant. But that’s pretty much all officials can do.  

“We can only go by the law,” Reyes told me.  

What they can do, he added, is do their best to care for students.  

“Our job is to protect and educate every single student, regardless of who it is or where they come from, and to ensure they have a safe and welcoming environment,” Reyes said. 

District officials have resources and partnerships in place to support students should one, or both, parents be taken by ICE agents, he added. In a community as diverse as Chula Vista that possibility looms large. 

It’s unclear what prompted the arrest by ICE, or whether the person had a criminal record. But as local arrests have rocketed up more than 400 percent, according to some reports, the number of people arrested without criminal records has similarly skyrocketed. Immigrants arrested by ICE in San Diego County without criminal records now dwarf those who do have one.  

In any case, arrests like this have a corrosive effect on schools, Reyes said. That’s especially true when it comes to attendance, a prerequisite for student learning. One study found that immigration raids in Central Valley decreased school attendance by nearly a quarter. 

That’s Reyes’ big worry, especially since his school district is one of many already grappling with structural enrollment decline that’s stretching budgets thin.  

“We have to focus 100 percent on if kids are safe physically, mentally, emotionally,” Reyes said.  

End of the tuition free era? The Trump administration’s rescission of a policy that classified schools as “sensitive” areas ICE agents should avoid opened the door for the increased enforcement in and around schools. But it may have only been the beginning.  

Educators have become increasingly worried that administration officials may try to take away the right to a free education that students without legal status have historically been guaranteed. That guarantee came from a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision. But if a new case challenging that ruling were to make it to today’s Supreme Court, it could very well find a sympathetic audience. 

Educators are especially anxious because the move isn’t unprecedented. Flipping that right has been floated by the Heritage Foundation, and was even included in Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump term. Despite disavowals of the controversial document during the campaign, the administration’s actions bear a striking resemblance to those Project 2025 laid out. 

“This would have tremendous negative impacts,” Megan Hopkins, chair of the education department at UC San Diego, told CalMatters. “For starters, we’d have a less educated, less literate populace, which would affect the economy and nearly every other aspect of life in California.” 

Trump Unfreezes Remainder of Fed Education Funding 

After nearly a month of limbo, the Trump administration announced in late July that it was unfreezing billions in federal education grants. The announcement came less than a week after a portion of the funds was unfrozen.  

The frozen grants amounted to more than $50 million in funding for local K-12 school districts and helped pay for everything from after-school care programs to teacher training to migrant education.  

San Diego Unified Superintendent Fabiola Bagula wrote in a statement to KPBS that “It is unfortunate that important education funds were held up, and so much uncertainty was unnecessarily caused; we’re happy it’s finally over.” 

The decision to freeze the grants was part of Trump’s broader attacks on public education, which he’s claimed is engaging in “radical indoctrination.” In a statement sent to media outlets, an Office of Management and Budget spokesperson said an early review of the funds determined the programs have been “grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”  

Not everyone shared that view, including Trump allies on the right. A slew of Republicans pushed back against the decision, writing in a letter to the administration that the funds finance programs that “enjoy longstanding, bipartisan support.” That was likely influenced, at least in part, by the fact that many of the schools that would have been hardest hit by the freeze were in Republican areas.  

A Whole Lotta San Diego County Schools Are in Fire Hazard Zones 

Southern California is no stranger to wildfires. Every year, residents hold their breath as fire season approaches. That’s particularly true in more rural areas, where dry, hot weather frequently give way to blazes.  

But it turns out schools all across the county – from rural to urban areas – are located in areas at risk of wildfire, according to a recent EdSource analysis.  

Overall, 141 San Diego County schools are in areas classified by state officials as high or very high fire severity zones. That’s nearly 18 percent of San Diego County schools, well over the nearly 13 percent of schools statewide. Those schools enroll 99,117 students, putting the number of San Diego County students who attend a school in a high or very high fire severity zone higher than that of any other county in the state.  

What We’re Writing 

As I reported a couple weeks ago, over the past 10 years, enrollment at district-run schools has dropped significantly. Enrollment at charters, however, has gone in the opposite direction. Over the same period, the number of students attending charters has shot up by more than 40 percent. That massive increase has been driven largely by the growing popularity of virtual schools. 

Related: One of the toughest things about the enrollment decline schools are facing is that they have so little control over it. The trend is driven primarily by slowing birth rates and out-migration. Still, some school leaders are taking steps to push back. Here are a couple of ways they’re doing it. 

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