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Parent asks Whitehall-Coplay board about ICE visits to campuses; superintendent says district consulting solicitor
Summary
A Whitehall-Coplay parent asked on Jan. 27 what the district's plan would be if ICE visited schools; Superintendent Shiffert said the district is developing procedures in consultation with its solicitor and will meet with principals before finalizing guidance.
Kimberly Day, a parent of a second grader at Steckel Elementary and director of a Pre-K Counts program, asked the Whitehall-Coplay Board of School Directors on Jan. 27 what the district’s plan would be if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were to appear on a school campus.
“Just given the recent events from last week, given, President Trump order of immigrants and everything being taken out of the country or wherever they may go, my question is to all of you what our plan is for those in the event that ICE were to somehow present themselves on campus whether the high school, elementary schools, middle school, wherever,” Day said.
Superintendent Shiffert responded that the district was working on a plan but had not finalized procedures. “It has been on the forefront of our mind. But with it being so recent, we've been working in consultation with our solicitor to develop what our plan and procedures will be,” he said, adding that principals would need to be made aware and that he planned to meet with the principal group the following Wednesday.
Shiffert said the district will follow legal stipulations about what ICE may and may not do and that the administration would determine, with its solicitor, what is appropriate to communicate publicly. “I'll be following their guidance and had some conversations with attorney Gilsbach even prior to our meetings,” he said.
The board did not adopt a formal policy or new written protocol during the meeting. The superintendent characterized the work as ongoing planning and said the communications to families would be determined after legal consultation and after internal procedures are developed and reviewed with building leaders.
Other public-comment items at the meeting included requests for information about district spending and transparency, which the administration said it would follow up on after the meeting; those comments were separate from Day’s question about ICE visits.
