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Just a week before LAUSD students returned to school, Los Angeles teachers went out into the streets and demanded strong protections for immigrant students and their families.
Hundreds of educators, along with United teachers in Los Angeles (UTLA), have flooded downtown LA, gaining signs, chanting and demanding behavior from the district.
“As educators, we have an obligation to be there for our families and our community, and we are just at district headquarters to make that statement,” educator David de la Cruz said.
The meeting teacher explained how fear permeated the daily lives of many students
“We come out of the fear of summer. The students are at home, not in the neighborhood. We want to make sure they come back to school,” said Alex Orzoko. “We want to make sure they feel they can return to some sort of normalcy.”
There was a simple message at the heart of the rally. Protection must be a policy, not a symbolic one.
“We need to ensure that the district provides a safe campus, ensure that all students are back and have access to safe passage to and from school,” Orozco said.
In a statement to the NBCLA, a LAUSD spokesman stated, in part:
“We will never abdicate our professional and moral responsibility. All children who care for us are protected. All children are supported.”
The first day of school is August 12th. But for many teachers, the fight to protect their students has already begun.
“We love them. We’re here for them. We’ll do everything we can to secure our first day at school.
According to LAUSD and UTLA, of the 557,352 LAUSD students, approximately 30,000 are immigrants and 7,500 are undocumented.
In early June, at the start of the ice attack in Los Angeles, LAUSD principal Alberto Carbafro set up security-like perimeters on all graduation sites to protect students and their families.
The Department of Homeland Security said 2,792 undocumented migrants were arrested in the LA area, with most arrests occurring between June 6 and June 22.
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