Update on local ICE incident
(Spanish) Dear MSD families,
As I shared with you in an earlier message, school officials became aware yesterday that one of our high school students was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The student was off campus during the lunch period. Out of respect for student privacy laws, we cannot share identifying information or details about individual students.
Later last night, the student was recognized as an American citizen and returned to their family. We are grateful for this good news.
We care deeply about our students and their safety. The experience of an emotional event such as this one can have an impact on all of our students. I’d like to share some of the ongoing, strong safety practices we have in place in all our schools:
- We keep our doors to the building and our classrooms in a locked position.
- We do not allow anyone who does not have business in the school to enter during the day.
- We provide active supervision during transition times and outdoor activities.
- We only release our students to adults who are approved to pick them up.
These are the actions that we do every day to maintain safe learning environments for all of our students.
It’s also important that our schools have current emergency contacts and backups for all students. Emergency contacts would ideally include trusted family members, neighbors or friends who could pick up your child in an urgent situation. Listing at least three emergency contacts (in addition to guardians) is considered best practice.
You can update your information online. Need help? Watch this short video for instructions. If you need assistance, please contact your school.
We invite our entire community to wrap around our children to help them feel a sense of safety and belonging in our schools. We are working with our strong team of school counselors to be available for any student who may need support in processing what happened yesterday. We are immensely grateful for our team of staff and their response to these events and every day on behalf of our students. Our goal is to keep our schools running as a safe and predictable routine, which is in the best interests of all of our students.
Dr. Kourtney Ferrua
Superintendent