At East End charter school, students deserve a safe space
Monica Rhor says in a climate that feeds anti-immigration rhetoric and raises the threat of ICE raids, one teacher’s viewpoints threaten children’s sense of security.
A school is supposed to be a safe haven — a place where students can learn unfettered by any worries skulking outside the front gate. So what happens when the thing you fear most is ushered into the classroom?
In the case of Eastwood Academy High School, it means that families who once saw the East End school as their best option are now reconsidering. It means that kids who graduated with fond memories of caring teachers and a family-like atmosphere are now scared for younger siblings at the Houston Independent School District charter.
Even a welcoming place such as the East End, Houston’s earliest Mexican-American enclave, is not exempt from the anxiety and uncertainty stoked by President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. In this political climate, where rumored ICE raids send families into hiding and a stadium filled with MAGA supporters chants “send her back” about an immigrant congresswoman, it takes very little to shatter the veneer of security.
In this case, all it took was the hiring of a teacher whose social media feed was a litany of antiimmigrant posts.
For a school that is 96 percent Latino, many undocumented, the news was panic-inducing. Not, community members emphasize, because of one man’s politics. They have no issue with other Eastwood teachers’ conservative views.
The new hire, slated to teach several AP courses, is different. His Twitter account, now suspended, seemed to target the very kinds of kids he’ll be teaching.
“Build the wall,” he wrote on Jan. 3. And again on Jan. 4. And on Jan. 10. And on Jan. 14 — with three exclamation points.
“Why, Mr. President,” he wrote Jan. 25 after Trump agreed to end a government shutdown without billions in wall funding. “Why would you let them win and destroy our great country. I voted for you to build the wall. never surrender. I’m definitely disappointed in you.”
Evelyn Rivera, a 2016 Eastwood graduate, noticed the tweets when the new teacher used his personal handle to respond to the school’s July 3 welcome message. It made her queasy: “Some of these kids go to school w/ the fear of coming back to empty homes,” she tweeted. “Now they have to spend an hour in a classroom with a person that supports that twisted agenda? Sick.”
Word spread quickly. Daniel Santos, who teaches at nearby Navarro Middle School, heard about it: “He has views that manifest into cruel policies for our students. How will students feel safe in that classroom?”
So did Ronaldo Salgado, 22, an Eastwood alumnus and recent UH grad: “We have a sense of family and community here. We watch each other’s backs. If someone comes in who is against us that puts us on high alert.”
A Change.org petition calling for his removal has nearly 300 signatures. A note on the school’s Facebook page has more than 100 posts. It says
HISD does not inquire about immigration status and commits to providing a welcoming environment for all families, but notes: “Please be aware that staff are hired without regard to political views and solely based upon the candidate with the highest qualifications for the position.
HISD employees have a First Amendment right to free expression but must comply with HISD policy and Board vision.”
That’s cold comfort for the Eastwood community, where many faculty members recall the terror and tears the day after Trump was elected. Students, worried that they or their parents would be deported, were crying. Teachers cried along with them.
Fresh fear over the teacher’s posts is expected. What is unexpected — and truly remarkable — is the way the Eastwood community has responded. They’re mapping next steps: filing complaints with HISD, setting up a legal fund for undocumented families, proposing “know your rights” workshops and sensitivity training, pondering whether to pursue a teacher transfer. On Aug. 8, they plan to mobilize en masse at a school board meeting.
They’re not trying to silence the teacher’s right to free speech on private time. They don’t want the right-wing to turn him into a poster child against “political correctness gone wild.”
They understand that educators even have the right to express personal beliefs in the classroom, as long as they don’t foist them on their students.
But just as teachers deserve protection under the First Amendment, students deserve to sit in a classroom where they feel safe and respected by their teacher. They deserve a school free from intimidation and discrimination.
My attempts to reach the teacher were unsuccessful. I wish I could have asked him why a person who desperately wants to keep immigrants out of the country would want a job interacting with them all day.
“I’m super pumped to be here and cant wait to get the year started,” he tweeted after his hiring was announced. “It’s going to be a great year.”
It still could be.
It might do this teacher some good to spend time at Eastwood, a 400-student school consistently ranked among HISD’s best. He could see first-hand the contributions of newcomers. He could see parents sacrificing. He could see Latino students go on to become engineers, lawyers and educators.
And, with a little effort, he might even see the light.