Hi, it’s Lily Altavena helming the newsletter on the national desk today. In my first few weeks on the job, I’ve been trying to ask folks in education what issues they think I should cover. Their first response usually goes something like this: “Well, there’s a lot.”

There is. This week, the big story is about ICE upending norms around how enforcement activity is conducted near schools – and the real effects of that activity on education. 

We also have news about a lawsuit with implications for magnet school admissions policies, a new report on the high costs of cutting U.S. Department of Education staff, and a spotlight on impending school closures in Philadelphia.

The surge in ICE activity in Minnesota has had sweeping effects on schools: Leery families have kept their children home. Students of color and immigrant students are carrying identification.

And, as one superintendent told Chalkbeat, students have witnessed traumatic events going to school: In one instance, he said, a bus full of students peered out the window to see an abandoned car in the road, one of many reported to be scattered around Minneapolis, their drivers presumed to have been detained by ICE agents.

Two school districts in Minnesota today sued the Department of Homeland Security, requesting a judge bar enforcement activity at schools or within 1,000 feet of school property or bus stops without a judicial warrant.

The attendance rate in one Twin Cities-area district, Fridley Public Schools, dropped by nearly one-third during the enforcement surge, according to the complaint filed in federal court today.

The lawsuit also claims that managing the effects of the crisis costs a lot of money, beyond the mental toll the calamity has taken on the community: $573,000 per month spent by Duluth Public Schools on emergency planning, according to the suit.

At the center of the suit is the sensitive locations policy, rescinded by DHS last year, which for decades limited immigration enforcement around vulnerable places such as churches and schools.

ICE is acting unpredictably – and getting closer to schools – superintendents and legal experts said. The recent incident where agents went on the grounds of Minneapolis’ Roosevelt High signals an “attitude shift” in what agents consider OK, said Keith Armstrong, an immigration attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania.

“It seems like there is a change in attitude where previously it would have been sort of unthinkable for ICE to, even with the rescission of the sensitive locations memo, it would have been pretty unthinkable for ICE to really try to do something that brazen,” he said.

Last week, students across the country, including in Denver and Detroit, protested the recent campaign of federal immigration enforcement. The fear they’ve felt is not just over a hypothetical situation, students said. It’s based on real events, affecting their friends and peers.

“They took our alumni, they took our peers at Western [International High School],” said Hailee Hallman, a senior at Cass Technical High School in Detroit who helped organize the protest there.

Some walkouts didn’t have the support of school administrators or local politicians. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott wants an investigation of a walkout led by students in Austin. The state Education Department is threatening to wrest control of districts over protests. And in Florida, the state schools chief warned, “We will not tolerate educators encouraging school protests and pushing their political views onto students.”

Read the full story here.

Efforts to increase diversity at selective high schools are facing new legal scrutiny. The U.S. Supreme Court has twice declined to weigh in on whether there’s any problem with using race-neutral factors, like geography or income, to create more racially diverse student bodies at magnet schools. But this week a federal appeals court said Philadelphia’s admissions overhaul may be racially discriminatory, reviving a parent lawsuit that had seemed dormant. The outcome could have implications for admissions policies in other districts, as conservative legal activists continue their fight to bring a K-12 admissions case to the Supreme Court.

Snow days might not mean much lost learning. With snow and ice blanketing much of the country, some districts, including New York City, pivoted to remote learning to avoid students missing out on education due to the weather. But research finds that snow days — coordinated absences when everyone misses school — don’t really hurt learning. Student learning was hurt more when schools stayed open in conditions that made it hard for some students, especially those from low-income families, to get to school. 

School closure decisions are always excruciatingly painful and spark intense community backlash. Districts like Chicago and Seattle have simply put these decisions on hold rather than deal with the fallout. 

The School District of Philadelphia is taking the opposite approach. Late last month, the district rolled out a plan, months in the making, to close 20 schools starting in 2027. Nearly 5,000 students would see their schools close and another 2,800 would move to new locations designated by the district. Ultimately, 1 in 3 traditional public schools would be affected in some way by the plan.

It’s notable that the district is not claiming that the plan will save money. Past school closures rarely yielded the promised savings. Most school districts try to minimize layoffs by reassigning teachers, yet personnel represent one of the biggest costs. 

Instead, district leaders say the closures will allow for more robust class offerings and otherwise improve the student experience — something that often suffers when schools are underenrolled. 

Already, community members are saying the proposal has revived memories of school closures during the education reform era. Some schools that community activists saved more than a decade ago are on the chopping block again.

In an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, researchers from the University of Chicago Consortium noted the far-reaching impacts of Chicago’s school closures of the same era. The researchers’ message for Philadelphia, and by extension any school district considering closing schools, is that the process matters.

But the reaction in Philadelphia so far shows that’s much easier said than done. Each school represents a community, a history, a legacy. Consider the reaction of Philadelphia City Council Member Isaiah Thomas to the district plan. He’s the influential head of the council’s education committee and found his own middle school on the closure list. Citing the school’s strong alumni network and culture, he said he could never support its closure.

“If you’re a Philly person, you understand,” he said.

District officials say they used objective criteria to identify schools for closure. Unlike previous closures, officials are not considering academic performance. Even so, concerns are mounting that the closures disproportionately affect already disadvantaged communities. And some students would move to worse performing schools. 

Past research on school closures suggests they often hurt students academically — unless the students move to a higher-performing school.

That was Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington in his state of the schools address. 

High schools are building up services promoting college prep, mentoring, and career counseling for students in vulnerable communities to get them to graduation. Chalkbeat Philadelphia took a deep dive into a school where leaders are taking an aggressive approach to graduation for students who face significant barriers throughout their high school careers.

That’s how many staff members would have been left at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights had the Trump administration’s full layoffs gone through, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. 

As of Nov. 2025, about 446 staff members remain at the Office for Civil Rights, down from about 575 in 2024.

The GAO report estimated that paying the salaries and benefits of workers targeted by the layoff attempt cost between $28 million and $38 million.

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