Richmond School District to Train Staff on ICE Raids Due to Falling Attendance

Updated at 12:15 p.m.

West Contra Costa Unified School District is launching a new mandatory training program to teach administrators to protect students and families from immigration raids.

The policy aims to curb falling attendance rates amid community concerns about increasing ICE presence on school grounds across the state. As part of the training, educators will learn how to recognize immigration warrants and respond if they’re valid.

It’s expected to go into effect after the school board gives it final approval on Aug. 6.

The district’s current policy, which was updated in December 2024, protects all students from immigration enforcement activity on school grounds and prohibits district personnel from sharing information relating to students’ immigration statuses.

But the updated plan, shared last week at the school board meeting, requires administrators to receive annual training on how to differentiate between administrative and judicial warrants.

Judicial warrants are formal written orders by federal or state judges that authorize law enforcement officers to make arrests, seizures or searches. ICE agents who present judicial warrants are permitted to search school grounds and records.

Administrative warrants, however, are issued by federal agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and do not authorize searches. Schools are not legally required to comply with administrative warrants and can refuse entry.

UC Berkeley Labor and Education Center’s Executive Director Brenda Muñoz said that while the district has good intentions, there are some potential issues that could arise from the new policy.

Muñoz, who specializes in policymaking and education, said differentiating between warrants “is very difficult to do if you don’t have a legal background.”

She sees a better solution in UC Berkeley’s protocol for dealing with ICE agents, which entails redirecting them to a central office where legally trained employees can verify their right to enforce.

The board at last week’s meeting announced that the district’s safety and emergency preparedness consultant, Michael Booker, is creating signage for school entrances, “so that families, students, staff, and law enforcement know our procedures.”

As part of these preparations, the board directed administrators to train faculty and staff on the updated policy, especially secretaries who are the first to communicate with outside visitors.

District officials have partly attributed decreased school attendance to fears of immigration enforcement.

“After Mr. Trump was elected, he made it very clear that immigration and deportation was a priority,” Board President Leslie Reckler told KQED. “And so, I think people were very scared.”

At a board meeting in April, the district’s director of positive school climate, LaShante Smith, presented data that showed attendance rates fell by 1% in February alone.

“There was a real shift in our political climate,” Smith said. “We did see the impact and the effects of students not coming to school as regularly as before.”

Aside from protecting students from unlawful enforcement activity, the training should curb the concerns that have prevented students from attending, according to Superintendent Cheryl Cotton’s presentation at last week’s meeting.

“We want to make sure that families know, students know, school is a safe place for them to be,” Cotton said.

But Muñoz said the new training is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to boosting attendance rates.

She said even if the student is a citizen, they could have undocumented parents who fear dropping their kids off at school.

“Of course, there’s a negative impact when their kid’s not going to school,” Muñoz said. “But there’s a higher risk if they were to get deported and their kid is left here without parents.”

The mandatory immigration enforcement training is slated to begin for administrators before school starts on Aug. 19.