We need to ensure schools remain safe places for all students. As Trump ramps up his plans for mass deportation, enshrining our schools as sanctuary schools is a key to ensuring immigrant students feel safe at school. 

The Education Justice Coalition of Vermont has partnered with multiple immigration rights organizations and individual advocates to create an updated Sanctuary School Model Policy. We are encouraging students, educators, school support staff, families and community members to ban together to pass this policy!

This policy will protect the rights and well being of immigrant students by: 

1) Limiting information sharing to ICE 

2) Restricting ICE access to school campuses 

3) Prohibiting any school staff from collaborating with ICE 

4) Ensuring schools provide resources and information for immigrant students and families. 

 Next week, we’ll launch a whole slate of resources to support this work. For now we’ll share some key resources to help you get started:

• Sanctuary Schools Toolkit: A guide for parents students and stakeholders in local school districts and NEA guide for advocating for great public schools - For folks organizing to pass a sanctuary schools policy 

• Vermont Language Justice Project Know Your Rights videos - To share widely with all students and families

• School Crisis Playbook: Deportation Response - For school leaders working to implement policy 

• American Federation of Teachers Deportation Defense Guide - For educators and school support staff wanting to prepare themselves (a brief guide!) 

• You can see Winooski in the news here and here who is working to pass a sanctuary schools model policy.