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Hi, it’s Lily on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Today’s big story is about the ongoing repercussions for schools from the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Red states are targeting teachers over anti-ICE protests while in the Twin Cities, schools are stretching to take on new roles to support students.
Keep reading for more on career aptitude tests for high school students, one district’s plan to coax families back to neighborhood high schools, cuts to TRIO programming, and the education world’s Epstein connections.
The Big Story
As federal immigration officials continue a massive push to increase deportations under the Trump administration, the weight of keeping students safe has fallen on schools and teachers in numerous ways. Fridley Public Schools outside of Minneapolis has built a framework on the fly for a massive support operation in response to a surge in ICE arrests in the region.
Families need food delivery or can’t make rent because they’re hiding out of fear they’ll be arrested. Schools need to be monitored, in case agents encroach on school grounds. Students need virtual education, a program Fridley launched in just four days.
While the district’s superintendent said she is “cautiously optimistic” that a promised drawdown of ICE will happen, she said the role of schools has never felt more clear or more strained: To keep students safe.
And some teachers say that’s what they’re trying to do as students walk out of class en masse to protest ICE.
Republican policymakers are turning up the heat on educators over the wave of anti-ICE protests. Texas’ attorney general has launched investigations into multiple major school districts, suspicious of staff members facilitating demonstrations. The president of the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers said teachers are largely not helping students put on protests, rather helping keep them safe with precautionary measures such as safety vests.
The Texas investigation is just one of the ways GOP policymakers across the country are pushing back on the protests by targeting school staff.
A common refrain from opponents of the protests: Students should be in school, learning. Teachers unions argue that educators want to be in the classroom, but they also believe the pushback they’re seeing is fueled by political ire, not a concern for education.
More National News
Schools could be a critical link in fighting measles outbreaks. As students in South Carolina came down with measles in December, health officials couldn’t reach schools for outbreak investigations over the holiday break. That communication gap may have delayed quarantines and fueled one of the largest measles outbreaks in decades in the U.S.
Students are coming home sick from the Dilley Detention Center in Texas. In an interview, Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik shared how district officials have navigated the ICE surge in the Twin Cities. As Department of Homeland Security officials say the surge will wind down, the district is also managing the fallout, including academic concerns.
Research finds that very good teachers turn into pretty good teachers when they move to the highest-need schools. A so-called Talent Transfer Initiative boosted test scores at high-poverty schools. But scores would have risen more if those teachers had remained as effective as they had been at their original, better-resourced schools.
Local Stories to Watch
Students in a journalism class at Brooklyn's High School for Global Citizenship on Sept. 11, 2025. Some parents are pushing for all high schoolers to take career aptitude assessments. (Seyma Bayram / Chalkbeat)
New York City parents are calling for more career aptitude testing for high school students. City schools offer extensive career education options, but students get little help navigating the complicated system or figuring out what they might like to do. At the same time, there’s little research on whether career assessment tools are accurate or effective.
Philadelphia wants to coax families back to neighborhood high schools. As part of the district’s school closure and consolidation plan, leaders want to absorb smaller schools with specialized programming into larger schools as honors programs. But some families say they deliberately sought out small schools and may leave the public school system rather than be pushed into large neighborhood high schools.
A Colorado religious school is suing because school leaders expect to lose state funding. Riverstone Academy billed itself as the “first public Christian school” in the nation and appears to have been designed as a legal test case, one of several nationwide. It hasn’t lost state funding yet, but the school is suing over state laws that require public education to be secular and threats to “claw back” state funding.
Tennessee lawmakers are pushing ahead with a bill to require schools to track students’ immigration status. The controversial bill is written as a trigger law and would only go into effect if the Supreme Court overturns the Plyler decision. Indiana lawmakers, meanwhile, want to require local governments to cooperate with immigration enforcement, a change that may have implications for schools.
Spotlight on …
Epstein’s education connections
One thing that’s clear from the Epstein files released so far is that a lot of people with money and connections were in the orbit of the disgraced financier.
That includes people from the K-12 world. The New York Times reports that former New York City schools chief Joel Klein met repeatedly with Jeffrey Epstein in 2013. That was years after Epstein had been convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
At the time, Klein was running Amplify, an edtech company that has since become a major purveyor of curriculum and assessment tools. Klein told the Times he met with Epstein at the request of a friend who wanted to know if he should hire Epstein for estate planning. But they appear to have discussed a shared interest in education. Epstein at one point emailed a contact in the tech world to say: “Im meeting with Joel Klein on monday, any edutainment games that you like already out there.”
As Epstein used philanthropy to launder his reputation, he donated to schools and youth programs, including a Washington, D.C. charter school, in addition to university donations. Some of this giving has been public knowledge for years, but recently released files show the scale of Epstein’s network.
Meanwhile, the school portrait company Lifetouch has found itself caught in the fallout from the Epstein files. Epstein had a longstanding friendship with investor Leon Black. Black was the CEO of Apollo Global Management when the investment fund bought Lifetouch parent company Shutterfly.
This happened a month after Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, and there’s no evidence anyone outside Lifetouch had access to student pictures. But that hasn’t stopped at least 10 school districts from canceling their contracts with Lifetouch and others from putting those contracts under review, NBC News reports.
“No Lifetouch executives have ever had any relationship or contact with Epstein and we have never shared student images with any third party, including Apollo,” the company said in an email.
Did You Know?
44,000
That’s how many students have lost assistance to help them get to college, The 74 reports. The Trump Administration cut $40 million in grants for TRIO, a federal outreach program that helps prospective first-generation college students with financial aid, college visits, dual enrollment, and more.
Quote of the Week
“That’s not cool, man.”
That’s South Carolina Sen. Shane Massey, a Republican lawmaker, responding to reports that homeschool parents were misled and used money from the state’s voucher program.
Homeschool parents aren’t supposed to use vouchers under the law, according to News from the States. But around 1,000 South Carolina families used taxpayer dollars for home education last school year.
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