MAURICE DuBOIS: Today was the first day of a new school year in Los Angeles. The nation's second largest school system. It has more than 500,000 students in a county where more than a third of the residents are immigrants. This year, Carter Evans reports, teachers are keeping an eye out for potential ICE Reads.
CARTER EVANS: As students headed back to school across Los Angeles, little about this first day felt normal. School officials, teachers, and community groups are setting up the so-called safe zones in heavily Latino neighborhoods, focused on high schools where students walk to campus.
ALEX STRANGELOVE: For us as educators, we are the front line.
EVANS: Alex Strangelove is a physics teacher at Hollywood High, one of those safe zones. Today her lesson plans included being on the lookout.
What are they looking for?
STRANGELOVE: They're looking for unmarked cars. They want to make sure that our students are not being accosted, and they just want to provide a safe pathway.
EVANS: Earlier this week, federal agents detained a 15-year-old special-needs student at gunpoint outside an L.A. high school where his sister was registering for classes. He was quickly released, but it's one reason L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho called for volunteers and school employees to protect students.
Are you concerned that there could potentially be a confrontation in the streets between school employees, school police, and ICE?
ALBERTO CARVALHO: That should never be the case. Our individuals have been trained on protocol, steps to take. None of those steps include direct interference with legal proceedings or raid activities.
EVANS: So they cannot stop it?
CARVALHO: We cannot stop it. It is illegal for us to stop it.
EVANS: Sam Dovlatian is principal at Hollywood High.
SAM DOVLATIAN: I cannot imagine coming to work every day worrying about, you know, ICE agents showing up at your doorsteps. It puts fear in the student, and it puts fear on us.
EVANS: We checked with the school district to see how many times federal agents have actually tried to enter L.A. schools. It's happened twice. Both times, at elementary schools.
DuBOIS: Carte Evans in Los Angeles. Thank you.
