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Over 30 community members attended a Roaring Fork School District (RFSD) board meeting Wednesday evening, and many asked for board action after Border Patrol agents were in Glenwood Springs High School (GSHS) last month.
On March 20, RFSD facilitated a career expo at GSHS with the help of the Carbondale-based nonprofit Youthentity, which invited Border Patrol agents to participate, along with other law enforcement agencies. The school district did not review the list of participants ahead of the event.
Several current and former students of GSHS complained Wednesday to the board about the presence of Border Patrol agents, including Glenwood Springs High School alumna Martha Nila.
“Having Border Patrol at a school is extremely irresponsible, uneducated and wrong,” Nila said. “Now is a good time to enforce more education on each other, to understand how this is problematic, as well as to reassure impacted students and families that this will never happen again. It's the time to build new policies and training to assure that the public agreement is followed.”
Some speakers requested mandated anti-bias training for staff and a renewal of the district’s safe haven resolution, which was passed in 2016 and promises students will be free from the threat of deportation at school.
Members of Latino advocacy organizations also spoke at the meeting, including Alex Sanchez, the executive director of Voces Unidas.
He noted that some community members wrote statements to the board who did not understand why the presence of Border Patrol agents was concerning for many Latino families.
“Perhaps those individuals have never experienced extreme poverty that forces a human to abandon their own home country and risk their lives in hopes of finding freedom, opportunity and dignity,” Sanchez said. “Maybe some of them have never had a member of their family taken away in the darkness of night or rounded up after work, leaving children at home alone without a parent after a deportation raid. Unfortunately, too many in our community have.”
District officials did not directly respond to any of the speakers, which is customary in district meetings.
However, Superintendent Jesus Rodriguez issued an apology on March 21, the day after the career expo.
In the letter, Rodriguez proposed a series of actions the school district could take to address community concerns
He added the district would share more information soon regarding next steps.
Four out of the five school board members and Glenwood Springs Principal Paul Freeman also issued apologies about the presence of Border Patrol agents at the high school career expo.
Maureen Stepp is the one board member who abstained from signing the board’s apology letter.
