What is Your Choice?

Over the past month, North Carolina has been confronted with a wave of immigration enforcement actions that left families frightened, educators overwhelmed, and entire school communities destabilized. The headlines have been loud, but the impact on our students has been far quieter, unfolding in classrooms, in counseling offices and at kitchen tables across our state. As I listened to educators and community leaders describe what they’re witnessing, it reminded me of my own—very different—experience.

In 2010, I was working in rural high schools across Central Louisiana. Most weeks, I stayed at a Hampton Inn just outside Alexandria and drove the back roads through nine surrounding parishes. I often ate breakfast with immigration officials—federal vehicles in the lot, badges on their belts. We didn’t discuss our daily work, but the local paper told me enough: America’s immigration enforcement focused on workplaces—meatpacking plants, interstate restaurants, warehouses. It was visible, transparent and part of our reality. But it wasn’t what I’m seeing today.

Now, across places like Chicago, Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham, I hear about families intercepted while taking kids to school. Relief agencies being surveilled. Officers hiding their identities. That’s not just a shift in policy—it’s a shift in values.

Let’s be honest: immigration and border enforcement are part of any country’s work. But tactics and values matter. And when fear walks into the classroom, children aren’t the only ones carrying it.

Educators across our state are being deeply impacted. Teachers are fielding new, heartbreaking questions: “Will my mom be here when I get home?” Counselors are having conversations they were never trained to navigate—about raids, separations, disappearances. School nurses are treating stress-induced stomachaches and sleeplessness. Social workers can’t reach families afraid to even open the door.

These aren’t isolated incidents. Entire schools are being forced to shift their focus—from teaching, mentoring, and celebration to crisis response and emotional triage.

Is this what we want?

Schools should be sanctuaries of possibility. They are sacred community spaces—not battlegrounds. Not surveillance zones. When families feel hunted, when educators feel helpless, when kids feel unsafe—that’s not a policy issue. That’s a moral one.

I say this as a parent, as a business owner, as an educator, and as a neighbor: I want to live in a state where we don’t just protect our own—we protect each other. That starts by defending schools as spaces where every child, regardless of immigration status, feels safe to show up, to learn, and to belong.

Watching from the sidelines is no longer an option for me.

So I ask you—what is your choice?

Will you stand with children? Will you listen to educators? Will you commit to protecting schools as places of dignity and humanity?

I believe we can—and I believe we must.

The Public School Forum of North Carolina remains steadfast in the belief that public education is for every child. We believe that fear and intimidation should never override the simple but powerful promise of a place where children learn, grow and belong; we’ll continue advocating to make that a reality for every child in North Carolina and urge you to do the same.