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Twin Cities districts and charter schools this week began offering students the option to attend classes remotely for the foreseeable future, as increasing numbers of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents have been showing up at Minnesota schools, bus stops, day care facilities and other community hubs.
While districts typically announce shifts to online learning — for severe weather, for example — as publicly as possible, outreach to families with safety concerns is largely being handled behind the scenes. School administrators are reaching out directly to parents to let them know they can keep their children home, according to district emails being circulated by parents and educators.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a former Minneapolis School Board member, joined other Minnesota officials in demanding that ICE leave the state.
“I’m a public school mom of a seventh-grader. Renee Good was a mom from our community. And since she was killed, kids have had to run from chemical agents and bear witness to their teachers being tackled by masked federal agents,” Flanagan told The 74. “We have legal observers at parent drop-offs and pick-ups because kids and their parents are terrified of what these masked agents might show up and do.
“Schools should be a place where kids feel safe, but with ICE running rampant and acting lawlessly across Minneapolis, it’s just not the case right now, and it’s heartbreaking.”
Minneapolis, St. Paul and the state of Minnesota sued the federal government Monday, charging that the mass deployment of immigration agents violated states’ rights under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
Minneapolis Schools Shut Down for 2 Days in Wake of ICE Clashes, Fatal Shooting
Some 2,000 federal agents were present in the Twin Cities on Jan. 7, when a violent skirmish broke out in front of Minneapolis’ Roosevelt High School and Good, a 37-year-old mom who had just dropped her 6-year-old off at school, was shot dead in her vehicle. That’s more than twice as many police officers as are employed by the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul combined.
On Sunday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she had ordered “hundreds more” agents to the state, referencing allegations of fraud in a COVID-era child food distribution program. Though the majority of those charged or convicted since 2022 are U.S. citizens — some of East African descent — President Donald Trump blamed the state’s 80,000 Somalis for the scandal, calling them “garbage.”
The acknowledgement that federal agents may be focusing on targets beyond undocumented immigrants came as no surprise to Twin Cities residents, who have spent recent days reporting on the detention of U.S. citizens, including a number of Oglala Sioux on and near tribal lands within the city.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that fraud is rampant within the state’s social service apparatus, including publicly subsidized child care. Claims of day care fraud are based in part on video shot in recent weeks by a right-wing influencer who visited several centers after hours and filmed himself being turned away from others.
Parents and teachers have reported a heavy ICE presence at Minneapolis-area day cares — in particular, Spanish-language immersion programs. Residents in some neighborhoods have set up babysitting co-ops for families of preschoolers scared to use their regular centers or for parents who want to care for their own kids to enable immigrant care providers to stay home.
Minneapolis Public Schools did not respond to requests from The 74 for details for this story, and posted a single line on its website saying distance learning was an option. In emails to district staff shared with media outlets, administrators said students choosing to attend online would be taught by their usual teachers, in real time, with their in-school classmates, through Feb. 12.
In St. Paul, the district has asked impacted families to contact their child’s principal for help enrolling in its existing online school. Several charter schools were communicating in closed forums with families and teachers.
Speaking anonymously so as to not identify their community, an administrator in a suburban district with a heavy ICE presence explained that school systems are forgoing the blanket communications they use for snow days and other closure announcements because families are afraid they will draw attention to themselves or their neighbors by responding. By contrast, personal communication from a trusted teacher or principal seems more likely to reassure parents that their kids can safely learn online, the administrator said.
On Monday morning, Minneapolis’ Anthony Middle School was locked down after receiving a bomb threat. Principal Mai Chang Vue told families in an email that several districts had been threatened.
Roseville Area Schools canceled field trips because “federal enforcement activity across the Twin Cities metro area has created unpredictable and rapidly changing conditions in several areas,” Minnesota Public Radio reported.
The moves come in the wake of the violent altercation between federal agents, educators, parents and students on the grounds of Roosevelt High School the same day Good was killed in an encounter with ICE three miles away. Students were tear-gassed, and school staff reported a special education assistant was detained.
On Monday, Roosevelt students who came to class in person walked out to protest ICE’s presence.
After the Jan. 7 shooting, schools were closed in Minneapolis and several suburban districts. A number of school systems, including St. Paul’s, also instituted transportation safety plans. Administrators in some districts reported 30% to 35% of students were absent last week.
Students in most Minnesota districts have yet to return to pre-pandemic academic achievement levels, according to an analysis in the Minnesota Reformer. The news site reported that of the 155 districts enrolling at least 1,000 students in 2019, just six had returned to or surpassed their 2019 proficiency rates by the end of the 2024-25 school year.
“Districts really want to serve these students in person — that’s generally the most effective,” said Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts. “But they also want to be there for their students, offering an option for them to not fall behind, to keep up with their instruction.”
In 2023, the association lobbied for a number of changes to state distance-learning laws that have given schools the flexibility to allow students with safety concerns to attend school virtually this week. Before COVID-19, online schools — then often of shoddy quality — had to earn state approval to operate, and temporary school closures were governed by rules addressing severe winter weather.
So-called snow days are still subject to “e-learning day” rules, which require districts to make up lost instructional time after closing for five or more days. But the 2023 law allows districts to offer remote instruction to their own students on a case-by-case basis, provided they address the needs of children with disabilities and English learners. They are not allowed to enroll pupils from other districts in their online classes.
“This will really be the first time [the new protocols] will be in widespread use by districts,” said Croonquist.
On Jan. 8, Minnesota Education Commissioner Willie Jett reminded education leaders of the new flexibility, noting that districts were free to use “supplemental” online providers to serve students: “Minnesota law and binding guidance from the Minnesota attorney general affirm that schools must remain safe spaces for all students, regardless of immigration status.”
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