Just minutes after being sworn in before a jam-packed crowd Tuesday evening, the three newly appointed trustees of Santa Barbara Unified School District’s Board of Education — Laura Capps, Wendy Sims-Moten, and Dr. Jacqueline Reid — found themselves shaken emotionally as a revolving dais of students, parents, and educators described campus life since the November 8 presidential election of Donald Trump.
The stories were striking: grade-schoolers with undocumented parents wondering if their families are going to be torn apart; nonwhite kids yelled at by fellow students to “Go back to where you came from!”; political disagreements turning violent; an increase in female and male students being groped by classmates; and, in general, a lot more racial slurs and hate speech getting thrown about.
“A school should be a place of learning, not fear,” said Eder Gaona-Macedo, executive director of Future Leaders of America, who arrived in the states from Mexico without legal documents before gaining citizenship and an advanced degree from Columbia University. He and the other public speakers and dozens in the audience urged the board to approve a resolution declaring the district a safe zone for all walks of student life and to uphold federal law guaranteeing a free K-12 public education to all children, including those brought to the country without legal status.