Hispanic students in the Charleston County School District (CCSD) are falling further behind with no small thanks to fears surrounding immigration after President Donald Trump took office in January, according to school and community leaders.
“The Hispanic community is improving, but needs to be improved even more,” said CCSD trustee Kevin Hollinshead. “We had a large amount of Hispanic people keeping their children at home when Trump first took office out of fear they would get snatched up by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement).”
District Super-intendent Anita Huggins stressed that students and families do not need to fear ICE raids in Lowcountry schools.
“Like school districts throughout the country, Charleston County School District is working with law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels to ensure we follow established laws,” she told the Charleston City Paper. “We understand that no student can be removed from our properties without a court order compelling us to allow such an action.
“We have reviewed protocols and expectations with our principals and district staff to maintain a safe, secure and supportive learning environment for every child who walks through the doors of our schools.”
But CCSD trustee Carolina Jewett, a Hispanic woman, said the possibility of raids is a legitimate fear.
“As a Hispanic woman myself, maybe I have a little bit more of a bleeding heart for them,” she said. “I don’t have the exact same fears, issues or problems, but that doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t go out to them and there isn’t more I wish I could do or say.
“Raising awareness as to what their rights are is going to be very important for them to know what they can do and where they can feel safe,” Jewett added. “It’s important for them to understand that they should feel safe in schools, and that’s something [Huggins] has been really striving to communicate to them.”
Absenteeism, homelessness and more challenges
While most Hispanic students have returned to classes since Trump’s inauguration, missed classes harshly impacted students who were already behind.
“Chronic absenteeism is a direct-impact issue for the achievement gap, and to have it become even more of a complication for a community that already struggles is so sad,” Jewett said.
Hollinshead chalked it up to other major challenges facing students, some related, others not — more than 450 families in the district are homeless, and of those, the vast majority are Black or Brown families.
“That number has grown tremendously,” he said. “We need to start working from the bottom up. A child cannot effectively learn at school if they’re worried about where they’re sleeping that night. It does psychological damage to the child.”
Hollinshead added the school board is looking at new ways to address issues like these.
“When I was on the school board six years ago, their way to address this was to put someone in a hotel for a week. That’s all they could do,” he said. “Now, we have a division that actually works with nonprofits that actually helps to get people adequate temporary housing.
“I’m trying to find a way to get the nonprofits and government entities to work together to build a facility that can work as transitional housing for these families,” he added, saying it could even provide mental health counseling, drug counseling and job counseling where needed.
Jewett said the issues are layered, and it’s difficult to find solutions for everything at once.
“As a society, it’s going to take all of us to help in order for things to get better,” she said. “It can’t just be put onto one or two organizations.”
Leaders hopeful for solutions
Community leaders discussed challenges and solutions at length with parents and neighbors during a Feb. 12 special public meeting.
“The meeting went great,” Hollinshead said. “We had the faith-based community out there, and they were expressing their concerns about the achievement gap and what goes on in their neighborhood and what they would like to see.
“I told them I think we need to get back to the grassroots of education,” he added. “We need the district back involved with some of the daycare centers … and trying to do visits with them to see how they are engaging with their younger kids.”
Hollinshead said he was happy with Huggins’s hands-on approach to addressing these difficult challenges facing their students.
“We need to start working from the bottom up, and I think the superintendent understands that,” he said. “It was a very good first outing for us, and we’ll do another one in about six months. We’ll do more sessions with other leaders to grow on top of that, too.”
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