Residents urge Charlotte County School Board to keep schools free of ICE enforcement and bolster ELL supports

At a Feb. 10 Charlotte County School Board meeting, several residents urged the board to adopt policies that would limit immigration enforcement actions in schools and strengthen English-language-learner (ELL) services. Maria Lara, president of Charlotte Harbor LULAC, told the board that "public education be made available to all children, regardless of citizenship or documented status," and invoked the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe to underline that principle.

Myrna Cherry, education chair for the local LULAC chapter, described scenes she said were caused by ICE presence and urged the board to protect students’ sense of safety: "I speak of masked men, armed men invading classrooms, interrogating children, and arresting others." Patrick Eaton, president of PFLAG Port Charlotte, told the board he had been alerted to an appearance of ICE agents at Gulf Gate Elementary and said attendance among some students dropped as families kept children home.

Speakers tied their concerns about enforcement to potential harm to learning. Alex Pritchard, a retired teacher and administrator, said the presence of armed, masked officers would undercut students’ sense of security, invoking Maslow’s hierarchy: when students do not feel safe, he said, they cannot learn effectively.

Not all commenters framed the issue the same way. Mark Sorusco criticized some public statements about ICE as inaccurate and defended law-enforcement officers who "put their lives on the line every day," then raised separate concerns about the district’s textbook review process. The board did not debate a formal policy at the meeting but several speakers — including Richard Patrick, vice president of the local NAACP branch — asked the board to draft a policy clarifying "when and where ICE will be able to conduct any searches in our schools" and to review ELL procedures to ensure coordinators have necessary tools.

The public comments portion preceded a public hearing and a series of routine board actions. Board members thanked speakers and noted follow-up would be provided when appropriate; no formal district-wide policy on federal enforcement was adopted at the Feb. 10 meeting.