Across the country, students are being pulled out of math class and into the front lines of a political fight, as teachers’ unions organize resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement from inside the schoolhouse.
While young people are in the spotlight for finding a creative way to skip class, teachers’ unions are simultaneously thrusting K-12 students, schools, and communities into the middle of a political revolution.
This social contagion is leaving in its wake fear and chaos, missed class time, injured children, and the occasional mob action by teachers.
A trove of recently unearthed United Teachers Los Angeles documents exposes this agenda. The materials reveal how the Southern California teachers’ union intends to use schools as “forms of resistance” against ICE actions. The collection of plans includes rapid-response protests by union members, spending school funds on bullhorns and whistles, and using professional development time to train teachers and staff to create and distribute “door-hanger immigration kits.”
The plotting does not stop there; the plans also state that organizers want to “engage students in community self-defense” and offer them “service learning hours” to do so.
This anti-ICE training and mobilization is not unique to UTLA; it is a strategy being promoted by teachers’ unions nationwide.
For example, on Oct. 9, the Chicago Teachers Union posted to Instagram about how a Chicago Public Schools elementary teacher and union delegate quickly organized 100 parents and community members through “neighborhood safety chats” in response to alleged ICE activity in the immediate area. This was not organic; it was described as a preplanned reaction to any federal law enforcement actions.
In fact, the CTU provides its members with a “CTU Sanctuary Toolkit 2025” and an “ICE Safety Plan” in the event such situations arise. The documents instruct teachers and staff to put the school into a “soft lockdown,” use the all-call system to warn the community of potential ICE activity in the area, and stay off social media and phones.
However, the union’s social justice activism does not stop there. In late January, CTU members can be seen on video confronting Target store employees. The group demanded that the retail company sever ties with ICE and refuse to cooperate with law enforcement actions.
In December, Oregon’s largest teachers union, the Oregon Education Association, hosted trainings for 600 of its members. Despite the state having a literacy rate below 45 percent and some of the lowest test scores nationally, the union used the opportunity to train educators and school staff on how to “keep students and families safe” in the wake of federal immigration enforcement. The anti-ICE trainings focused on preparing for and responding to ICE officers near schools.
Like the CTU, the OEA does not limit itself to on-campus civil disobedience. In January, the OEA and the American Federation of Teachers of Oregon co-organized a rally in Portland to “fight back against ICE terror.” The protest eventually turned chaotic, leading to the deployment of crowd-control measures and children being tear-gassed.
These efforts to thwart immigration law enforcement are becoming normalized in the K-12 education system. Teachers’ unions are prioritizing social justice activism over the education of children. They are willing to use children, families, and schools to pursue political objectives.
If unions succeed in realizing their goals, these tactics will not stop. They will become standard operating procedure. Parents and communities need to demand that teachers’ unions stop using other people’s children and schools to pursue political power through publicly funded activism.
It is time to end teachers’ unions’ control over the education system.
Rhyen Staley is a researcher for Parents Defending Education, a conservative non-profit organization. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
Reprinted with permission from DC Journal by Rhyen Staley.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Whatever happened to educating our children? No wonder we are producing a bunch of useful idiots. Any of those teachers that participate in this type of action should automatically be fired,
If teachers unions move forward with organized efforts to interfere with law enforcement, I think it’s time for the Justice Department to treat them as the organized crime organizations that they are and start prosecuting the corrupt leaders.
It’s time to end teachers’ unions, period.
What happened to our nation, when did schools, paid and sustained by the taxpayer became the tool of the left, when did teacher instead of working for the child’s benefits became a political agitator, paid by a taxpayer, should they not be agitating on their own time and dime? They no longer teach and it shows, but indoctrinate, funny, how they oppose church but engage in the same methods to produce believers, they have no right to use children for their purposes and if they want to be a political body let Soros pay them, not one of them would do this without being paid, so much for the integrity, time to look at qualifications, abilities and mental state.
It has been long overdue in disbanding unions in general. There was a time for such organizations but not any more: they are no more than leaches on societies rear end. President Trump needs to get a bill passed that allows any union member to disavow union membership with out being harassed by said union. I had to at one time join a union, not by choice, and the only people they protect are the ones that can’t or won’t do their job and should have been fired to begin with.
It’s a shame our educational system has sunk to such lows that the children in this county are reaching standards third world countries are at, future democrates at this rate. I wish Trump would suspend any federal tax dollars to any state allowing this behavior to continue, this is not where I want my tax dollars to be spent.
It is a shame to believe that teachers are willing to put innocent children on the front lines against the law. This is almost no difference like when Iran used its children to clear minefields for its troops during the Iran-Iraq war. Of course, Iranian children were to receive many rewards in their heaven for being killed. There would be no reward for any student if killed or maimed, just the continued turmoil by the Leftist Democrats to distort all truth.
Agendas and those that pay for them is business as usual. Unfortunately for those paying union dues have no idea other than it’s a condition of employment. Those that perpetuate unions are usually exempt from those mandates they’ve place on their minions. Killing a union is impossible due the that age old mantra that the dark ages of employer abuse will rear it’s ugly head. Fear is a formidable tool that’s used universally but unions wear it well.
too bad. Unions were at one time necessary for negotiating fair wages, but like everything the left touches, it has become twisted. Go back to your original purpose.
Anything and everything lefties touch or are involved with turns to $H*T.
In addition it ALWAYS WASTES thousands, millions or billions of taxpayer’s money. gets people hurt or killed, is always anti-America, brainwashes children (which is their MAIN GOAL), is PURE EVIL, and IS ALWAYS America-LAST and Illegals-FIRST
The unhinged cowardly teachers are using the children as shields just like the Islamic terrorists do.
Trump should do to the teachers unions what Reagan did to the air traffic controllers.
Fire every one of them and insist that schools be privatized!
The Federal government needs to end teachers unions and, nobody is forcing them to work for us or ruin our kids! They simply delight in having the almost untouchable ability to poorly raise our kids!
END all Unions or specific ones No More
Yup, they gotta go! They are Anti-American. They give College Degrees a bad rep!
Yes it is past time to end government employee unions, including teachers unions.
Unions, all of them, are communist organizations. Like Islamism, communism doesn’t belong in the United States.
The Teachers Union is a P.O.S.!
The teacher’s union in AZ has been very vocal and demanding for several years. As with most unions, they have become a powerful and demanding group that no longer puts teaching our kids as their priority. Yes, get rid of the unions…all of them.
It’s such a shame that this generation of children can’t read or write but can be used to protest things they really know nothing about!
NEA, and others, have lead to the destruction of America
These teachers unions are a major force toward the decline of the American society and a major threat to the survival and stability of our country. In conjunction with today’s Democrat party, they, in my opinion, are a far greater threat to the future of America than any foreign adversary.
I’ve had first hand experiences with these people. I refused to join then almost 40 years ago because they were pro choice. When my contract expired at a school and I couldn’t find another one, they didn’t help me at all. They’re just an institution that supports the Democrats. In fact, they got Obama elected by campaigning for him every day after achool. At least, that’s what the teachers did in Florida.
The teachers union as a whole, is just so evil. I was told to come to a meeting and when I walked in, the teachers were arranged in a semicircle with me out in front in the middle facing them. This was done purely to intimidate. I had to go up against them in the late 1990s as an advocate for my son, who they wanted to put in classes for retarded children. They would not budge. They said they knew better, I was just a Mom. When I asked if they get additional funding for each child they judged retarded, the room went silent. Finally someone said that had nothing to do with it. I told them it most certainly did. They put a paper in front of me saying I had to acknowledge they were right and even if I didn’t sign it, that would mean I agreed. On that paper I wrote exactly what they were doing to us, that I did not agree and I promptly pulled him out of that school-it was a public school in Northern Virginia. I was prepared to home school, even though I worked full time and had just been accepted into a doctorate program. I dropped out of the doctorate program, found a small up and coming high school that accepted him (they did not believe he was retarded either) and I augmented it with additional schooling at home. It was hard. Fast forward: Today my son has had several good jobs, with each new job resulting in a promotion. He has bought several new cars over the years, and we could not be more proud of him.
If the law allows it, teachers’ unions should be DECERTIFIED! They no longer care about students; it’s about pushing a Marxist agenda!
Why doesn’t this article have an author’s name? I’d appreciate footnotes referencing sources for these statements.