Dear County and District Superintendents and Charter School Administrators:

Reminder of Legislation and Guidance: Immigration Enforcement Rapid Response

All children in the United States, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, have a right to a public education.

As Bay Area educators, staff, students, and families navigate the fear and uncertainty brought by threats of immigration raids, I want to commend the bravery of our educators and school staff who are following existing laws and procedures to make sure that every child’s right to a public education is protected.

Let’s be clear: Immigration enforcement has no place in our schools. I sponsored Assembly Bill 49 (Muratsuchi) and Senate Bill 98 (Perez) to keep immigration enforcement off our school campuses and to make sure that families are notified in the case that any immigration enforcement agents are present on a school site.

As a reminder, the California Department of Education (CDE) has issued a toolkit to support local educational agencies to follow existing laws regarding the rights of students from immigrant families. Our Schools: Resources for Including Immigrant Families provides family-facing posters that communicate assurance of all schools’ obligation to provide every child with access to education and a safe learning environment, regardless of immigration status, as well as guidance for best practices when immigration agents are present on school sites. We encourage all California schools to make these resources visible and accessible to families.

The Our Schools toolkit is currently available in English and Spanish on the CDE Resources to Include Immigrant Families web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/pf/if/immigration-toolkit.asp.

The guidance in this toolkit reflects existing law and responds to the realities that one in two children in California have at least one parent who is an immigrant, one in five children in California have parents whose immigration statuses differ from each other, and 93 percent of the children in mixed-status families are U.S. citizens.

For further information about resources to include immigrant families and their students in California schools, please visit the CDE Including Immigrant Families web page at https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/pf/if/.

Sincerely,

Tony Thurmond
State Superintendent of Public Instruction