Opinion and Commentary By Donna Westfall – December 19, 2024
As far as I’m concerned, the sooner Trump/Vance and their team dismantle/eliminate/abolish the Department of Education the better. Maybe then Trump and team can figure out how to get our children properly educated (and at the same time teach our students how to love our country and love to learn).
While that is in progress, our California Senate wants to make it virtually impossible to eliminate illegal aliens from our classrooms. Let’s look at Senate Bill 48 and Democrat Lena Gonzalez that introduced it on December 17, 2024 and wants it passed by January 16, 2025:
“SB 48, as introduced, Gonzalez. Immigration enforcement: school sites: prohibitions on access, sharing information, and law enforcement collaboration.“
“Existing law prohibits, except as required by state or federal law or as required to administer a state- or federally supported educational program, school officials and employees of a school district, county office of education, or charter school from collecting information or documents regarding citizenship or immigration status of pupils or their family members.”
I find it ironic that info and docs regarding citizenship/immigration is to be prohibited to ICE along with things like 1.) informing parents of their children sexual identification is prohibited, 2.) informing parents of their child’s sexual orientation is prohibited without the child’s consent or 3.) that the test scores are so dismal in our state – 38th in math and 33rd in reading for 2023. When will education become the focus of public education again? When will our California government leave the parenting to the parents and make it a priority to educate our children?
Getting back to illegal/alien children in our public school system, which taxpayers support, certainly having language barriers are an additional cost to schools. Overcrowding another consideration.
“This bill would prohibit school districts, county offices of education, or charter schools and their personnel from granting a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, or other federal official engaging in immigration related investigation or enforcement, permission to access a school campus without a judicial warrant. The bill would require a local educational agency and its personnel, to the extent possible, to have the denial of permission for access witnessed and documented. The bill would also prohibit a local educational agency and its personnel from disclosing or providing, in writing, verbally, or in any other manner, the education records of or any information about a pupil, pupil’s family and household, school employee, or teacher to a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, or any other federal official engaging in immigration related investigation or enforcement, without a judicial warrant, and regarding a pupil’s educational records or personal information, without the written consent of the pupil’s parent or legal guardian. By imposing additional duties on local educational agencies, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.”
“Existing law, the California Values Act, generally prohibits California law enforcement agencies from investigating, interrogating, detaining, detecting, or arresting persons for immigration enforcement purposes. Existing law provides certain limited exceptions to this prohibition, including transfers of persons pursuant to a judicial warrant and providing certain information to federal authorities regarding serious and violent felons in custody.”
“This bill would prohibit California law enforcement agencies from collaborating with, or providing any information about a pupil, pupil’s family and household, school employee, or teacher in writing, verbally, on in any other manner, to immigration authorities regarding proposed or currently underway immigration enforcement actions when the actions could be or are taking place within a radius of one mile of any school site. To the extent this bill would impose additional duties on local law enforcement agencies or officials, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.“
“This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.”
Other things to consider. In 1975 a lawsuit was brought in Texas by Tyler Independent School District when it started charging $1,000 a year for unauthorized immigrant students . That the school district could deny students if the parents could not prove their US citizenship papers with their US birth certificate.
The court ruled it was unconstitutional because it went against the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Law. Superintendent James Plyler was involved in the lawsuit against 4 immigrant families. One court after another upheld the decision. Taking this into consideration, I wonder how Trump and company will solve this problem.
However, according to CEO Erika Donalds of OptimaEd said, “These children have put an unmanageable strain on our education system. So it’s affecting the abilities of serving the needs of American children.
California seems intent through their Democrat majority in our legislature to keep California in a state of high poverty, high unemployment, high taxes and on and on. I just wish some miracle would happen at least in educating our children that they would yearn to go to school and learn to the best of their ability so that they could grow up and make this state and this country a better place.
