Our schools are ‘sacred spaces,’ too, and we must be ready to protect our students

After the November election, there was a lot of attention given to Timothy Snyder’s first lesson in his book On Tyranny: Do not obey in advance.

But now that we’re several weeks into a new administration, and the president has already issued executive orders that attempt to erase the identity of trans and nonbinary people and has rescinded the sensitive locations guidelines for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that prevented immigration raids at schools, hospitals, and churches, it’s time to turn to Snyder’s second lesson: Defend institutions.

The federal administration and state legislation are threatening many of the students I teach at my Philadelphia high school: immigrants and trans people. President Donald Trump has promised to arrest, detain, and deport millions of immigrants, and the Pennsylvania Senate recently introduced legislation to deny the humanity of trans and nonbinary people by enforcing cisgender norms, names, pronouns, and facilities.

Our institution, the School District of Philadelphia, has excellent policies that call on all employees to defend and respect all of our students — particularly our most vulnerable — and to uphold U.S. Supreme Court mandates that immigrant students be given access to public education, as well as banning discrimination against transgender people.

In 2016, the district adopted Policy 252 with the guidance of local organizers from the Attic Youth Center. It requires all employees to respect and use the preferred pronouns of our trans and gender-nonconforming students, and to provide safe spaces for them to use the bathroom. I’m extremely grateful we have this policy, but is it being implemented?

In January 2017, teachers and organizations such as Juntos and Teacher Action Group brought a petition to the School Reform Commission with nearly 1,000 signatures and backed by 41 local organizations to demand a sanctuary schools policy protecting our students from being questioned or seized by federal agents. To its credit, the district listened, adopting the “Welcoming Sanctuary Schools Resolution” in 2021, and by developing the “Safe and Welcoming Schools Procedures” we have on the books today.

I’m proud to work for an institution that has such policies, but they will do no good unless all employees, including teachers, paraprofessionals, office staff, school security officers, and even bus drivers, receive training and refresher workshops on proper use of names, pronouns, bathroom access, confidentiality, and what to do if ICE were to show up at our school.

In this vacuum of information from the district, some teachers and schools have started sharing “Know Your Rights” information to help protect their students and families from ICE enforcement. This is in line with district procedures indicating “schools will distribute Know Your Rights flyers.”

But according to several teachers and an administrator at a recent community webinar on sanctuary schools, the district is, at the same time, preventing schools from sharing this information, or from inviting local immigrant advocacy organizations into their schools to speak, by requiring permission from an assistant superintendent.

These schools have had to cancel their “Know Your Rights” trainings. When will permission be granted to share basic information about our constitutional rights?

I give our institution a lot of credit for establishing Safe and Welcoming Schools and Policy 252, but now is not the time for confusing directives. It’s not enough to just post policies on the district website or to leave it up to staff who may or may not be aware of these policies, let alone be equipped to handle a situation.

If we, school employees, are all prepared and supported by our school site and district leaders, it will go a long way to preventing or mitigating the harm political actors intend to inflict on our students.

I hope it’s enough, but I know we must act locally and with the tools we’ve built together in our school system and communities. In the words of Snyder:

“It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. … Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended.”

Our institution — schools, students, families, and staff — needs district leadership to stand up publicly, and proudly announce that we are committed to the safety of our immigrant, trans, and nonbinary students, to retrain staff in proper implementation, and to give our students and families the assurance they need to send their kids into our care.

If we wait until the state passes anti-trans laws, or ICE shows up in our classrooms to arrest our students, it may be too late. These policies matter right now.

Thomas Quinn is a civics teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. Members of the Teacher Action Group contributed to this piece.