ABSTRACT
Stressed, Overworked, and Not Sure Whom to Trust: The Impacts of Recent Immigration Enforcement on our Public School Educators
Stepped up immigration enforcement policy in the past year has had a negative impact on our public K-12 schools. Students and their families have been affected by the increased threat and enforcement of detention, deportation, and community raids. Missing from the discourse, however, are the educators who work closely with students from immigrant backgrounds. To date, there is scant research on how these harsh enforcement policies have affected teachers, administrators, and school staff. In this study, we find that public school educators nationwide have been deeply impacted by the trauma experienced by their students and school communities. Educators who participated in this study report (1) experiencing symptoms that are consistent with Secondary Traumatic Stress, (2) being overworked as they strive to assist their students whose families are being targeted by immigration officials, and (3) feeling a sense of breakdown in community at their schools. This investigation illuminates how ramped-up immigration enforcement is harming educators, and consequently, students and school communities across the country. This report is the second of two studies conducted on schools across the nation and a subset of educators who were further surveyed and interviewed on this topic.
This working paper was presented at a forum, “The Impact of Immigration Enforcement Policies on Teaching and Learning in America’s Public Schools,” in Washington, DC on February 28, 2018.
To see more about the other research presented and agenda, go HERE.
To review the larger national survey on the impacts of immigration enforcement on students, from the perspective of public school teachers, click HERE.
In compliance with the UC Open Access Policy, this report has been made available on eScholarship:
