“Half my students were gone”: How Trump’s immigration agenda is disrupting education

Students in Boston -area schools are afraid to come to school in fear of deportation efforts by the White House .

The topic of ICE has come up “every single period I’ve taught,” one middle school teacher said in early February .

The White House's immigration-enforcement-first agenda has given rise to legitimate apprehension and waves of misinformation.

Some school districts were preparing for these scenarios even before Inauguration Day .

False rumors of ICE raiding Massachusetts schools in late January unleashed fear in the community.

School districts in Massachusetts have sent reassuring messages to the communities and publicly declined to cooperate or share students’ records with ICE .

Worcester School District , the second largest in Massachusetts , told bus drivers not to cooperate with ICE .

Some districts are training teachers to differentiate between ICE and other law-enforcement agencies.

Others are printing out “red cards,” pocket-sized pamphlets describing a person’s legal rights to refuse to open the door.