Tag: school (in)security

  • Inside Schools’ Teen Nicotine Crackdown – The 74

    Inside Schools’ Teen Nicotine Crackdown – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    It was in physical education class when Laila Gutierrez swapped out self-harm for a new vice: Vaping.

    Like students across the country, Gutierrez got dragged into a nicotine-fueled war between vape manufacturers, who used celebrity marketing and fruity flavors to hook kids on e-cigarettes, and educators, who’ve turned to surveillance tools and discipline to crack down on the youngest users. Gutierrez was suspended for a week after she was nabbed vaping in a crowded school bathroom during her lunch hour. 

    In my latest investigative deep dive, co-published this week with WIRED, I reveal how school districts across the country have spent millions to install vape-detecting sensors in school bathrooms — once considered a digital surveillance no-go. The devices prioritize punishment to combat student nicotine addiction.

    Eamonn Fitzmaurice/The 74

    My analysis of public records obtained from Minneapolis Public Schools reveals the sensors inundated administrators with alerts — about one per minute during a typical school day, on average. Their presence brought a spike in school discipline, records show, with suspensions dwarfing treatment services and younger middle school students facing the harshest consequences. 

    The sheer volume of alerts, more than 45,000 over seven months across four schools, raises questions about whether they’re an effective way to get kids to give up their vape pens. And some students voiced privacy concerns about the sensors, the most high tech of which can now reportedly detect keywords, how many young people are in the bathroom at one time and for how long. 

    “Surveillance is only a diagnosis,” Texas student activist Cameron Samuels told me. “It only recognizes symptoms of a failed system.”  

    In the news

    Charlotte, North Carolina, school officials reported more than 30,000 students absent on Monday, two days after federal immigration agents arrested 130 people there in their latest sweep. That more recent data point underscores the 81,000 school days missed by more than 100,000 students in California’s Central Valley after immigration raids earlier this year, according to a newly peer reviewed Stanford University study. | The 74

    • Los Angeles schools have lost thousands of immigrant students — from 157,619 in the 2018-19 school year to just 62,000 this year — because of the city’s rising prices and falling birth rates. Now, that trend has intensified after the “chilling effect” of recent federal immigration raids, district officials said. | The 74
    • Student enrollment is dropping in school districts across the country amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. In Miami, for example, the number of new immigrant students has decreased by more than 10,000 compared to last year. | The Associated Press

    Ten Commandments: Siding with the families of students who argued they infringed on their religious freedom, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered some Texas public school districts to remove Ten Commandment displays from their classroom walls by next month. | The New York Times

    • 28 Bills, Ten Commandments and 1 Source: A Christian Right ‘Bill Mill’. | The 74

    Online gaming platform Roblox announced it will block children from interacting with teens and adults in the wake of lawsuits alleging the platform has been used by predators to groom young people. | The Guardian

    Furry and freaky: “Kumma,” a Chinese-made teddy bear with artificial intelligence capabilities and marketed toward children, is being pulled from shelves after researchers found it could teach its users how to light matches and about sexual kinks. | Futurism

    A teenage girl from New York reported to a police officer at school that her adoptive father had been raping her at home for years. The officer, who didn’t believe her, bungled the case — and she was abused again. | New York Focus

    ‘Brazen cruelty’: A federal judge has ordered the release of a 16-year-old Bronx high schooler who has spent nearly a month in federal immigration custody despite having a protective status reserved for immigrant youth who were abused, neglected or abandoned by a parent. | amNewYork

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    Civil rights groups have decried proposed federal changes to the Education Department’s data collection on racial disparities in special education that could make it more difficult to identify and address service gaps. | K-12 Dive

    ‘Dead-naming’ enforced: A Texas law now requires school employees to use names and pronouns that conform to students’ sex at birth. Several transgender students whose schools are complying say it has transformed school from a place of support to one that rejects who they are. | The Texas Tribune.

    ICYMI @The74

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon has signed agreements with other agencies to take over major K-12 and higher education programs in keeping with President Donald Trump’s effort to shut down the Department of Education. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    Emotional Support

    “Let’s circle back in 2026.”

    -Taittinger, already


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  • Tenn. Law Aimed at Students Who Make School Shooting Threats Ensnares a Retiree – The 74

    Tenn. Law Aimed at Students Who Make School Shooting Threats Ensnares a Retiree – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    Larry Bushart Jr. was just freed from a Tennessee jail cell after spending more than a month behind bars — for a Facebook post.

    The high-profile arrest of the 61-year-old retiree and former cop — which made waves in free speech circles — has all the hallmarks of a bingeworthy culture war clash in 2025: 

    • A chronically online progressive turns to Facebook to troll his MAGA neighbors about President Donald Trump’s seemingly lopsided response to school shootings compared to the murder of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk
    • An elected, overzealous county sheriff intent on shutting him up
    • A debate over the limits of the First Amendment — and the president’s broader efforts to silence his critics
    Eamonn Fitzmaurice / T74

    The controversy, I report this morning, also calls attention to a series of recent Tennessee laws that carry harsh punishments for making school shooting threats and place police officers on campus threat assessment teams working to ferret out students with violent plans before anyone gets hurt. 

    In Bushart’s case, the sheriff maintained that his post referring to the president’s reaction to a 2024 school shooting in Perry, Iowa, constituted a threat “of mass violence at a school,” apparently the local Perry County High School. The rules that ensnared Bushart have also led to a wave of student arrests and several free speech lawsuits. His is likely to be next, Bushart’s lawyer told The Washington Post.

    In the news

    Updates in Trump’s immigration crackdown: Federal immigration officers chased a Chicago teacher into the lobby of a private preschool Wednesday and dragged her out as parents watched her cry “tengo papeles!” or “I have papers.” The incident is perhaps the most significant immigration enforcement act in a school to date. | The 74

    • Proposed federal rules would allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to collect iris scans, fingerprints and other biometric data on all immigrants — including, for the first time, children under 14 years old — and store it for the duration of each individual person’s “lifecycle.” |  Ars Technica
    • On the same day Cornell University notified an international student that his immigration status had been revoked, Google alerted him that federal authorities had subpoenaed his personal emails. Now, the institution won’t say whether federal authorities had tapped into university “emails to track [students] as well.” | The Cornell Daily Sun
    • In California, federal immigration officers shot a U.S. citizen from behind as he warned the agents that students would soon gather in the area to catch a school bus. The government says the shots were “defensive.” | Los Angeles Times
    • ‘Deportation isn’t a costume’: A Maine middle school principal is facing pushback for a federal immigration officer Halloween costume, complete with a bulletproof vest that read “ICE.” | Boston.com
    • In Chicago communities that have seen the most significant increase in immigration enforcement, school enrollment has plunged. | Chalkbeat
    • Also in Chicago, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to hand over use-of-force records and body camera footage after trick-or-treaters were “tear-gassed on their way to celebrate Halloween.” | USA Today

    A bipartisan bill seeks to bar minors from using AI chatbots as petrified parents testified their children used the tools with dire consequences — including suicide. Some warn the change could stifle the potential of chatbots for career or mental health counseling services. | Education Week

    • A Kentucky mom filed a federal lawsuit against online gaming communities Discord and Roblox alleging the companies jeopardized children’s safety in the name of profit. After her 13-year-old daughter died by suicide last year, the mom said, she found the girl had a second life online that idolized school shooters. | 404 Media
    • Character.AI announced it will bar minors from its chatbots, acknowledging safety concerns about how “teens do, and should, interact with this new technology.” | BBC
    Getty Images

    A jury awarded $10 million to former Virginia teacher Abby Zwerner on Thursday, two years after she was shot by her 6-year-old student. Zwerner accused her former assistant principal of ignoring repeated warnings that the first grader had a gun. The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. | The New York Times

    ‘Creepy, unsettling’: This family spent a week with Grem, a stuffed animal with artificial intelligence designed to “learn” children’ s personalities and hold educational conversations. | The Guardian

    A judge ordered the Trump administration to release federal funds to California school districts after it sought to revoke nearly $165 million in mental health grants as part of a broader crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion.  The grants funded hundreds of school social workers and counselors. | EdSource

    In 95% of schools, active-shooter drills are now a routine part of campus life. Here’s how states are trying to make them less traumatic. | The Trace

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    A lawsuit against a Pennsylvania school district alleges educators failed to keep students safe after a 12-year-old girl was attacked by a classmate with a metal Stanley drinking cup. | NBC10

    ‘Inviting government overreach and abuse’: The Education Department was slapped with two lawsuits over new Public Service Loan Forgiveness rules that could bar student borrowers from the program who end up working for the president’s political opponents, including organizations that serve immigrant students and LGBTQ+ youth. | The Washington Post

    ICYMI @The74

    1939 redlined maps of Los Angeles showing neighborhoods deemed eligible and ineligible for economic aid

    How LAUSD School Zones Perpetuate Educational Inequality, Ignoring ‘Redlining’ Past

    Students Want Schools to Incorporate AI in Learning But Express Some Fears

    LifeWise’s Big Red Bus Is Driving Thorny Questions about Church and State

    Emotional Support

    Matilda plots her escape.


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  • Students Love AI Chatbots — No, Really – The 74

    Students Love AI Chatbots — No, Really – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    The robots have taken over.

    New research suggests that a majority of students use chatbots like ChatGPT for just about everything at school. To write essays. To solve complicated math problems. To find love. 

    Wait, what? 

    Nearly a fifth of students said they or a friend have used artificial intelligence chatbots to form romantic relationships, according to a new survey by the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology. Some 42% said they or someone they know used the chatbots for mental health support, as an escape from real life or as a friend.

    Eighty-six percent of students say they’ve used artificial intelligence chatbots in the past academic year — half to help with schoolwork.

    The tech-enabled convenience, researchers conclude, doesn’t come without significant risks for young people. Namely, as AI proliferates in schools — with help from the federal government and a zealous tech industry — on a promise to improve student outcomes, they warn that young people could grow socially and emotionally disconnected from the humans in their lives. 

    In the news

    The latest in Trump’s immigration crackdown: The survey featured above, which quizzed students, teachers and parents, also offers startling findings on immigration enforcement in schools: 
    While more than a quarter of educators said their school collects information about whether a student is undocumented, 17% said their district shares records — including grades and disciplinary information — with immigration enforcement. 

    In the last school year, 13% of teachers said a staff member at their school reported a student or parent to immigration enforcement of their own accord. | Center for Democracy & Technology

    People hold signs as New York City officials speak at a press conference calling for the release of high school student Mamadou Mouctar Diallo outside of the Tweed Courthouse on Aug. 14 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
    • Call for answers: In the wake of immigration enforcement that’s ensnared children, New York congressional Democrats are demanding the feds release information about the welfare of students held in detention, my colleague Jo Napolitano reports. | The 74
    • A 13-year-old boy from Brazil, who has lived in a Boston suburb since 2021 with a pending asylum application, was scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after local police arrested him on a “credible tip” accusing him of making “a violent threat” against a classmate at school. The boy’s mother said her son wound up in a Virginia detention facility and was “desperate, saying ICE had taken him.” | CNN
    • Chicago teenagers are among a group of activists patrolling the city’s neighborhoods to monitor ICE’s deployment to the city and help migrants avoid arrest. | NPR
    • Immigration agents detained a Chicago Public Schools vendor employee outside a school, prompting educators to move physical education classes indoors out of an “abundance of caution.” | Chicago Sun-Times
    • A Des Moines, Iowa, high schooler was detained by ICE during a routine immigration check-in, placed in a Louisiana detention center and deported to Central America fewer than two weeks later. | Des Moines Register
    • A 15-year-old boy with disabilities — who was handcuffed outside a Los Angeles high school after immigration agents mistook him for a suspect — is among more than 170 U.S. citizens, including nearly 20 children, who have been detained during the first nine months of the president’s immigration push. | PBS

    Trigger warning: After a Washington state teenager hanged himself on camera, the 13-year-old boy’s parents set out to find out what motivated their child to livestream his suicide on Instagram while online users watched. Evidence pointed to a sadistic online group that relies on torment, blackmail and coercion to weed out teens they deem weak. | The Washington Post

    Civil rights advocates in New York are sounding the alarm over a Long Island school district’s new AI-powered surveillance system, which includes round-the-clock audio monitoring with in-classroom microphones. | StateScoop

    A federal judge has ordered the Department of Defense to restock hundreds of books after a lawsuit alleged students were banned from checking out texts related to race and gender from school libraries on military bases in violation of the First Amendment. | Military.com

    More than 600 armed volunteers in Utah have been approved to patrol campuses across the state to comply with a new law requiring armed security. Called school guardians, the volunteers are existing school employees who agree to be trained by local law enforcement and carry guns on campus. | KUER

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    No “Jackass”: Instagram announced new PG-13 content features that restrict teenagers from viewing posts that contain sex, drugs and “risky stunts.” | The Associated Press

    A Tuscaloosa, Alabama, school resource officer restrained and handcuffed a county commissioner after a spat at an elementary school awards program. | Tuscaloosa News

    The number of guns found at Minnesota schools has increased nearly threefold in the last several years, new state data show. | Axios

    More than half of Florida’s school districts received bomb threats on a single evening last week. The threats weren’t credible, officials said, and appeared to be “part of a hoax intended to solicit money.” | News 6

    ICYMI @The74

    RAPID Survey Project, Stanford Center on Early Childhood

    Survey: Nearly Half of Families with Young Kids Struggling to Meet Basic Needs

    Education Department Leans on Right-Wing Allies to Push Civil Rights Probes

    OPINION: To Combat Polarization and Political Violence, Let’s Connect Students Nationwide

    Emotional Support

    Thanks for reading,
    —Marz


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  • ICE Nabs Iowa School Leader – The 74

    ICE Nabs Iowa School Leader – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    The top campus security story this week is the resignation of Iowa’s largest school district superintendent, who was detained by federal immigration authorities on allegations he was living and working in the U.S. without authorization. 

    In a “targeted enforcement operation” a week ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Ian Roberts, a 54-year-old native of Guyana, who has led Des Moines Public Schools since 2023.

    The fast-moving chain of events raises questions about why ICE agents specifically sought the arrest of the public official and the city’s first Black schools superintendent, whom federal officials said had a previously unreported final order of removal issued by an immigration judge on May 29. Yesterday, he was accused of federal firearm charges for possessing a gun at the time of his arrest.

    The Trump administration has already tied Roberts’ detainment to the president’s broader crackdown on affirmative action. The Justice Department announced Tuesday it would investigate Des Moines Public Schools to determine if it engaged in race-based hiring. 

    In 2021, the district’s former human resources manager said that out of Des Moines Public Schools’ 4,000 staff members, some 400 were Black. His comments were made as the district reflected on hiring Iowa’s first Black teacher 75 years earlier.

    The unraveling of Roberts’ career is also a story of purported deception. The school board, whose vetting practices have come under scrutiny, released a letter this week saying it is “also a victim,” after Roberts was accused of falsifying records about his immigration status and academic credentials.

    Roberts, an Olympic runner for his native Guyana who came to the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa, previously served in leadership roles at school districts in Pennsylvania and Missouri and at a major charter school network. 

    Get up to speed with this step-by-step explainer by the Des Moines Register.

    In the news

    A TikTok post led to the arrest of a Kennewick, Washington, 14-year-old who officials say had guns, a color-coded map of his high school and a manifesto outlining plans to carry out a campus shooting. | Tri-City Herald

    In California, authorities say an anonymous tip thwarted a potential school shooting after a student posted “detailed threats” on social media including a “mapped-out plan.” | NBC News
    The Education Department announced it would withhold more than $65 million in federal grants to the New York City, Chicago and Fairfax, Virginia, school districts for upholding equity policies designed to support transgender and Black youth. | The New York Times

    Campus speech at the forefront: More than 350 complaints have been submitted to the Texas education department against public school employees accused of publishing social media posts that praised the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. | Fort Worth Report

    • The Los Angeles Unified School District faces accusations that its social media policy, which allows educators to ban parents from campus for making threatening or racist online comments about school officials, violates the First Amendment. | LAist
    • ‘Truly scandalous’: The Trump administration engaged in the “unconstitutional suppression of free speech” when federal immigration enforcement officials arrested and sought to deport international college students for their pro-Palestinian activism. | The Washington Post
    • A new PEN America report warns of a “disturbing normalization of censorship” in public schools where book bans have risen sharply in the last few years. The 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess topped the list. | NPR 
    • Lawrence, Kansas, school officials were accused of censoring high school journalists and intimidating their adviser in violation of state law after current and former students filed a federal lawsuit alleging the district’s use of a digital student surveillance tool violated their privacy and press freedom rights. | Student Press Law Center
      • The student activity monitoring tool Gaggle, which flags keywords like “kill” and “bomb,” “has helped our staff intervene and save lives,” the Lawrence district says. But students say the system subjected them to false allegations. | The Washington Post
      • The 74 throwback: Meet the gatekeepers of students’ private lives. | The 74

    ‘Places of care, not chaos’: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law new rules that require federal immigration enforcement officers to show a warrant or court order before entering a school campus or questioning students. | EdSource

    Minnesota’s red flag gun law, which allows authorities to confiscate firearms from people with violent plans, has been used to prevent school shootings but its use is inconsistent, an investigation found. | The Minnesota Star Tribune

    A middle school boy from New York was arrested on allegations of catfishing classmates by impersonating a girl online, convincing male classmates to send him sexually revealing photographs and extorting them for cash or gift cards. | The New York Times

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    The Trump administration plans to overhaul a student loan forgiveness program for employees at nonprofits that officials claim are engaged in “illegal activities” — a justification that could be used to target organizations that serve immigrants and transgender youth. | The Associated Press

    A Michigan school district, where four elementary school girls said they were groped by a classmate on the playground, is accused of waiting eight days to report the incident to the police. | Lansing State Journal

    ICYMI @The74

    As the LGBTQ Youth Population Doubles, Number of Bills Targeting Them Triples

    Goblins AI Math Tutoring App Clones Your Teacher’s Looks and Voice

    From Screen Time to ‘Green Time’: Going Outside to Support Student Well-Being

    Emotional Support

    The 74 will meet for a company summit in Minneapolis next week. Matilda wasn’t invited, but she couldn’t care less.


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  • L.A. Schools Telehealth Vendor Waited 8 Months to Report Breach – The 74

    L.A. Schools Telehealth Vendor Waited 8 Months to Report Breach – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    It’s another hot summer Friday and another day with news about a data breach — this one jeopardizing both student health and campus safety data.

    And once again, the development is unfolding in the country’s second-largest school district.

    Kokomo Solutions, which the Los Angeles district contracts with to provide telehealth services to students during the school day and to track campus safety threats, disclosed a data breach after it discovered an “unauthorized third party” on its computer network. The discovery happened in December 2024, but the notice to the California attorney general’s office wasn’t made until Aug. 5.  

    It’s the latest in a series of data privacy incidents affecting L.A. schools, including a high-profile 2022 ransomware attack exposing students’ sensitive mental health records and last year’s collapse of a much-lauded $6 million artificial intelligence chatbot project. 

    In the news

    Students at the center of Trump’s D.C. police takeover: In an unprecedented federal power grab, the Trump administration’s seizure of the D.C. police department and National Guard deployment is designed to target several vulnerable groups — including kids. | NPR

    • The move comes at a time when crime in the nation’s capital is on the decline. But a deep-dive from June explores how the district’s failure to prevent student absences has contributed to “the biggest youth crime surge in a generation.” | The Washington Post
    • Here’s what young people have to say about Trump’s D.C. takeover. | NBC 4
    • City police will roll out a youth-specific curfew Friday in the Navy Yard neighborhood. | Fox 5

    A new Ohio law requires school districts to implement basic cybersecurity measures in response to heightened cyberattacks. What the law doesn’t do, however, is provide any money to carry out the new mandate. | WBNS 

    News in Trump’s immigration crackdown: A federal judge in Minnesota has released from immigration detention a nursing 25-year-old mother, allowing her to return to her children as her case works its way through the court. | The Minnesota Star Tribune 

    • The Trump administration has revived one of its most controversial immigration policies from the president’s first term: Separating families. | The New York Times
    • Federal immigration officials quizzed an Idaho school resource officer about an unaccompanied migrant student, part of a broader national effort to conduct “welfare checks” on immigrant youth who came to the U.S. without their parents. | InvestigateWest
    • Leading Oklahoma Republican lawmakers have partnered with the Trump administration in a lawsuit challenging a state law allowing undocumented students to receive in-state college tuition. | InsideHigherEd
    • Los Angeles community members have organized to create protective perimeters around the city’s campuses after immigration agents reportedly drew their guns on a student outside a high school. | Los Angeles Times
      • The district announced new bus routes designed to improve student safety while commuting to school during heightened immigration enforcement. | NBC 4
    • The nonprofit Southwest Key, which for years has been the federal government’s largest provider of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children, has laid off thousands in Texas and Arizona after losing federal grants. The Trump administration dropped a lawsuit in March over allegations the nonprofit subjected migrant children to widespread sexual abuse. | ABC 15
    • A Texas court blocked the state attorney general’s request to depose and question a nun who leads Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, one of the largest migrant aid groups in the region. | The Texas Tribune
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    Microphone-equipped sensors installed in school bathrooms to crack down on student vaping could be hacked, researchers revealed, and turned into secret listening devices. | Wired

    ‘These are innocent children, sir’: New video of the delayed police response to the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows the campus police chief attempting to negotiate with the gunman for more than 30 minutes. | The New York Times

    Kansas schools have become the latest target in the Trump administration’s campaign against districts that permit transgender students to participate in school athletics. | KCTV

    • The Loudoun County, Virginia, school board has refused to comply with an Education Department order to end a policy allowing transgender students to use restroom facilities that match their gender identity. | LoudounNow 
    • The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into allegations the Baltimore school district ignored antisemetic harassment by students and educators. | The Baltimore Banner

    Lots of drills — little evidence: A congressionally mandated report finds that active shooter drills vary widely across the country — making it difficult to understand their effect on mental and emotional health. | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

    A federal judge has blocked a new Arkansas law requiring that public schools display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms. It’s the second state Ten Commandments law to be halted this year. | Axios 

    ICYMI: I did a deep-dive into the far-right Christian nationalists behind more than two dozen state Ten Commandments-in-schools bills nationally — each of which are inherently identical. | The 74

    Is Texas up next? Civil rights groups will ask a judge on Friday to prevent a similar law from going into effect. | Houston Chronicle

    ICYMI @The74

    Despite Court Order, Education Department’s Civil Rights Staff Still On Leave

    ‘So Many Threats to Kids’: ICE Fear Grips Los Angeles at Start of New School Year

    Emotional Support

    Don’t sleep on this Bloomberg feature into “Doodlemania” — the billion-dollar industry for hypoallergenic (and floofy!) designer pups.


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  • How a Christian Nationalist Group is Getting the Ten Commandments into Classrooms – The 74

    How a Christian Nationalist Group is Getting the Ten Commandments into Classrooms – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    As far-right political operative David Barton leads a Christian nationalist crusade, he’s traveled to state capitols across the country this year to support dozens of bills requiring Ten Commandments displays in classrooms. 

    My latest story digs into a well-coordinated and deep-pocketed campaign to inject Protestant Christianity into public schools that could carry broader implications for students’ First Amendment rights. Through a data analysis of 28 bills that have cropped up across 18 states this year, I show how Barton’s role runs far deeper than just being their primary pitchman.

    The analysis reveals how the language, structure and requirements of these bills nationwide are inherently identical. Time and again, state legislation took language verbatim from a Barton-led lobbying blitz to reshape the nation’s laws around claims — routinely debunked — about Christianity’s role in the country’s founding and its early public education system. 

    Three new state laws in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas mandating Ten Commandments posters in public schools are designed to challenge a 1980 Supreme Court ruling against such government-required displays in classrooms. GOP state lawmakers embracing these laws have expressed support for eradicating the separation of church and state — a pursuit critics fear will coerce students and take away their own religious freedom.

    In the news

    Updates to Trump’s immigration crackdown: Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released from custody a 6-year-old boy with leukemia more than a month after he and his family were sent to a rural Texas detention center. | Slate

    • As the Department of Homeland Security conducts what it calls wellness checks on unaccompanied minors, the young people who migrated to the U.S. without their parents “are just terrified.” | Bloomberg
    • ‘It looks barbaric’: Video footage purportedly shows some two dozen children in federal immigration custody handcuffed and shackled in a Los Angeles parking garage. | Santa Cruz Sentinel
    • The Department of Homeland Security is investigating surveillance camera footage purportedly showing federal immigration officers urinating on the grounds of a Pico Rivera, California, high school in broad daylight. | CBS News
    • California sued the Trump administration after it withheld some $121 million in education funds for a program designed to help the children of migrant farmworkers catch up academically. | EdSource
    • Undocumented children will be banned from enrolling in federally funded Head Start preschools, the Trump administration announced. | The Washington Post
      • Legal pushback: Parents, Head Start providers challenge new rule barring undocumented families. | The 74
    Getty Images

    The executive director of Camp Mystic in Texas didn’t begin evacuations for more than an hour after he received a severe flood warning from the National Weather Service. The ensuing tragedy killed 27 counselors and campers. | The Washington Post

    The day after the Supreme Court allowed the Education Department’s dismantling, Secretary Linda McMahon went ahead with plans to move key programs. | The 74 

    • Now, with fewer staff, the Office for Civil Rights is pursuing a smaller caseload. During a three-month period between March and June, the agency dismissed 3,424 civil rights complaints. | Politico
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    Massachusetts legislation seeks to ban anyone under the age of 18 from working in the state’s seafood processing facilities after an investigation exposed the factories routinely employed migrant youth in unsafe conditions. | The Public’s Radio

    An end to a deadly trend: School shootings decreased 22% during the 2024-25 school year compared to a year earlier after reaching all-time highs for three years in a row. | K-12 Dive

    Florida is the first state to require all high school student athletes to undergo electrocardiograms in a bid to detect heart conditions. | WUSF 

    The Senate dropped rules from Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax-and-spending bill that would have prevented states from regulating artificial intelligence tools, including those used in schools. | The Verge

    • Food stamps are another matter: The federal SNAP program will be cut by about a fifth over the next decade, taking away at least some nutrition benefits from at least 800,000 low-income children. | The 74

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    Supreme Court to Address Legality of Barring Trans Athletes From School Sports

    Medicaid Cuts in Trump Tax Bill Spark Fears for Child Health, School Services

    Heinous, heartbreaking — and expensive. California schools face avalanche of sex abuse claims

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    74 editor Nicole Ridgway’s dog Mika is cooler than your dog.


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  • Trump’s Deportation Database Puts Students at Risk – The 74

    Trump’s Deportation Database Puts Students at Risk – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson wants to eject undocumented students from public school classrooms. But first, he needs their data. 

    Watson seeks to require students statewide to submit a birth certificate or other sensitive documents to secure their seats — one of numerous efforts nationwide this year as Republican state lawmakers seek to challenge a decades-old Supreme Court precedent enshrining students’ right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status.

    Some 300 demonstrators participate in a Waukegan, Illinois, rally on Feb. 1 to draw attention to an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area. Privacy advocates warn student records could be used to assist deportations. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

    In my latest feature this week, I dive into why those efforts have alarmed student data privacy advocates, who warn that efforts to compile data on immigrant students could be used not just to deny them an education  — it could also fall into the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly works to create a “master database” of government records to zero in on migrants, data privacy experts warn that state and federal data about immigrant students could be weaponized. 

    In the news

    Cybercriminals demanded ransom payments from school districts nationwide this week, using millions of K-12 students’ sensitive data as leverage after the files were stolen from education technology giant PowerSchool in a massive cyberattack late last year. The development undercuts PowerSchool’s decision to pay a ransom in December to keep the sensitive documents under wraps. | The 74

    Gutted: Investigations at the Education Department’s civil rights office have trickled to a halt as the Trump administration installs a “shadow division” to advance cases that align with the president’s agenda. | ProPublica

    • Civil rights groups, students and parents have asked courts to block the Education Department’s civil rights enforcement changes under Trump, saying they fail to hold schools accountable for racial harassment and abuses against children with disabilities. | K-12 Dive
    • Among the thousands of cases put on the back burner is a complaint from a Texas teenager who was kneed in the face by a campus cop. | The 74

    ‘The hardest case for mercy’: Congratulations to Marshall Project contributor Joe Sexton, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting on a legal team’s successful bid to spare the Parkland, Florida, school shooter from the death penalty. | The Marshall Project

    The city council in Uvalde, Texas, approved a $2 million settlement with the families of the victims in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, the first lawsuit to end with monetary payouts since 19 children and two teachers were killed. | Insurance Journal 

    • In Michigan, a state commission created in the wake of the 2021 school shooting at Oxford High School, which resulted in the deaths of four students, issued a final report calling for additional funding to strengthen school mental health supports. | Chalkbeat
    • Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Education Department axed $1 billion in federal grants designed to train mental health professionals and place them in schools in a bid to thwart mass shootings. | The 74

    A high school substitute teacher in Ohio was arrested on accusations she offered a student $2,000 to murder her husband. | WRIC

    Connecticut schools have been forced to evacuate from fires caused by a “dangerous TikTok trend” where students stab school-issued laptops with paper clips to cause electrical short circuits. | WFSB

    Eleven high school lacrosse players in upstate New York face unlawful imprisonment charges on accusations they staged a kidnapping of younger teammates who thought they were being abducted by armed assailants. | CNN

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    The Future of Privacy Forum has “retired” its Student Privacy Pledge after a decade. The pledge, which was designed to ensure education technology companies were ethical stewards of students’ sensitive data, was ended due to “the changing technological and policy landscape regarding education technology.” | Future of Privacy Forum

    • The pledge had previously faced scrutiny over its ability to hold tech vendors accountable for violating its terms. | The 74
    • New kid on the block: Almost simultaneously, Common Sense Privacy launched a “privacy seal certification” to recognize vendors that are “deeply committed to privacy.” | Business Wire

    Google plans to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot for children as the tech giant seeks to attract young eyeballs to its AI products. | The New York Times

    Kansas schools plan to spend state money on AI tools to spot guns despite concerns over reports of false alarms. | Beacon Media

    ICYMI @The74

    A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services suggests gender-affirming health care puts transgender youth at risk but the report ignores years of research indicating otherwise. (Getty Images)

    HHS Condemns Gender-Affirming Care in Report That Finds ‘Sparse’ Evidence of Harm

    Chicago Public Schools’ Black Student Success Plan Under Investigation Over DEI

    SCOTUS to Rule in Case That Could Upend Enforcement of Disabled Students’ Rights

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    Birds are chirping. Flowers are blooming. And 74 editor Bev Weintraub’s feline Marz is ready to pounce.


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  • Amazon Doc Probes Student Surveillance Harms – The 74

    Amazon Doc Probes Student Surveillance Harms – The 74

    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    It all began when school officials mistook a blurry image of a Mike and Ike candy for pills. 

    Pennsylvania teenager Blake Robbins found himself at the center of a digital surveillance controversy that gave rise to student privacy debates amid schools’ growing reliance on ed tech. 

    Spy High, a four-part documentary series streaming now on Amazon Prime, puts the focus on a lawsuit filed in 2010 after Robbins’ affluent Pennsylvania school district accused him of dealing drugs — a conclusion officials reached after they surreptitiously snapped a photo of him at home with the chewy candy in hand. 

    Blake Robbins, then a high school student in Pennsylvania’s affluent Lower Merion School District, speaks to the press about his 2010 lawsuit alleging covert digital surveillance by educators. (Unrealistic Ideas)

    The moment had been captured on the webcam of his school-issued laptop — one of some 66,000 covert student images collected by the district, including one of Robbins asleep in his bed. 

    I caught up with Spy High Director Jody McVeigh-Schultz to discuss why the 15-year-old case offers cautionary lessons about student surveillance gone awry and how it informs contemporary student privacy debates. 

    How student surveillance plays out today: Meet the gatekeepers of students’ private lives. | The 74

    In the news

    Courts block DEI directive: Three federal courts ordered temporary halts on Thursday to Trump’s efforts to cancel student diversity initiatives — and demands for states to pledge allegiance to the administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws. | The 74

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that called for school discipline models “rooted in American values and traditional virtues,” taking aim at Obama- and Biden-era efforts to reduce racial disparities in suspensions and expulsions. | Politico

    U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks about a new autism study during a news conference on April 16, 2025. (Getty Images)

    ‘The history there is deeply, deeply disturbed’: Disability-rights advocates have decried plans at the National Institutes of Health to compile Amerians’ private medical records in a “disease registry” to track children and other people with autism. | The 74

    • Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., faced criticism for recent comments that many kids “were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they’re 2 years old.” | ABC News

    A new lawsuit filed by students at military-run schools accuses the Defense Department of harming their learning opportunities by banning books related to “gender ideology” or “divisive equity ideology,” including texts that refer to slavery and sexual harassment prevention. | Military Times

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    California lawmakers are demanding answers after Department of Homeland Security agents visited two Los Angeles elementary schools and asked to speak with five students who the federal agency said “arrived unaccompanied at the border.” | LAist

    ‘We all deserve reparations’: White House aide Stephen Miller said in an interview last week the country “used to have a functioning public school system” until it was destroyed by “open borders.” | The New Republic

    The Justice Department seized thousands of photos and videos in an investigation of a former University of Michigan assistant football coach who was indicted on allegations he hacked into student athletes’ private accounts to steal intimate images. | CBS Sports

    A 48-year-old mother was arrested and accused of bringing a gun to her daughter’s Indiana elementary school and threatening the girl’s teacher over a classroom assignment about flags. While discussing flags, the teacher reportedly referred to a rainbow flag in the classroom with the words “be kind.” | NBC News

    Banning ‘frontal nudity’: A Texas school district has removed lessons on Virginia history from an online learning platform for elementary school students because the commonwealth’s flag depicts the Roman goddess Virtus with an exposed breast. | Axios

    The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month to weigh Trump’s executive order eliminating birthright citizenship, bringing into question a 127-year-old court precedent. | NPR

    A class-action lawsuit accuses tech giant Google of amassing “thousands of data points that span a child’s life” without the consent of students or their parents. | Bloomberg Law

    A Florida teacher is out of a job after she called a student by their preferred name, allegedly violating a 2023 Florida law that requires schools to receive parental permission to refer to students by anything other than their legal names. | Click Orlando

    The vice president of the Buffalo, New York, chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse was arrested and accused of sex crimes against children. | WIVB

    ICYMI @The74

    Supreme Court Shows Support for Parents Who Want Opt-Outs from LGBTQ Storybooks

    ‘There Goes My Son’s Help:’ Wave of Washington Head Starts Shut Down as Chaos Engulfs Federal Program

    State Officials Sue Trump Administration for Halting COVID School Aid

    Protecting Children Online Takes Technology, Human Oversight and Accountability

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    Don’t even think about touching Matilda’s cactus.


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  • Punishing Parents for Chronic Absenteeism – The 74

    Punishing Parents for Chronic Absenteeism – The 74


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    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    As educators nationwide grapple with stubbornly high levels of student absences since the pandemic drove schools into disarray five years ago, Oklahoma prosecutor Erik Johnson says he has the solution. 

    Throw parents in jail.

    This week, I offer a look at chronic absenteeism’s persistence long after COVID shuttered classrooms, plunged families into poverty and led to the deaths of more than 1 million Americans. Lawmakers nationwide have proposed dozens of bills this year designed to curtail student absences — with radically different approaches.

    While a proposal in Hawaii would reward kids’ good attendance with ice cream, new laws in Indiana, West Virginia and Iowa impose fines and jail time for parents who can’t compel their children to attend class regularly. In Oklahoma, where Johnson has ushered in a new era of truancy crackdowns, state lawmakers say parents — not principals and teachers — should be held accountable for students’ repeat absences.

    “We prosecute everything from murders to rape to financial crimes, but in my view, the ones that cause the most societal harm is when people do harm to children, either child neglect, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence in homes, and then you can add truancy to the list,” Johnson told me this week. 

    “It’s not as bad, in my opinion, as beating a child, but it’s on the spectrum because you’re not putting that child in a position to be successful,” continued Johnson, who has dubbed 2025 the “Year of the Child.”

    In the news

    Books are not a crime — yet: Under proposed Texas legislation, teachers could soon face jail sentences for teaching classic literary works with sexual content, including The Catcher in the Rye and (unironically?) Brave New World. | Mother Jones

    Mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week could have devastating consequences for the health and well-being of low-income children. | The Associated Press

    Ten days or else: The Education Department demanded Thursday that states certify in writing within the next 10 days that K-12 schools are complying with its interpretation of civil rights laws, namely eliminating any diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or else risk losing their federal funding. | The New York Times

    A Texas teen was kneed in the face by a school cop: Now, with steep cuts to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, her case is one of thousands that have been left to languish. | The 74

    Students’ right to privacy versus parents’ right to know: The Trump administration has opened an investigation into a California law designed to protect transgender students from being outed to their parents, alleging violations of the federal student privacy law. | The New York Times

    • A similar investigation has been opened against officials in Maine, where the feds claim district policies to protect students’ privacy come at the expense of parents’ right to information. | Maine Morning Star
    • “Parents are the most natural protectors of their children,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement after a similar federal investigation was launched against Virginia educators. “Yet many states and school districts have enacted policies that imply students need protection from their parents.” | Virginia Mercury
    • A little context: In a recent survey, more than 92% of parents said they were supportive of their child’s transgender identity. | Human Rights Campaign
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    The Student Press Law Center joined a coalition of free speech and journalism organizations in denouncing the recent ICE detention of Tufts University international student Rumeysa Ozturk over opinions she expressed in an op-ed in the student newspaper. 

    • “Such a basis for her detention would represent a blatant disregard for the principles of free speech and free press within the First Amendment,” the groups wrote in their letter. | Student Press Law Center
    • The Turkish doctoral candidate is one of several students who’ve been rounded up by immigration officials in recent weeks based on pro-Palestinian comments. | The New York Times

    Florida lawmakers have a plan to fill the jobs of undocumented workers who are deported: Put kids on the overnight shift. | The Guardian

    Minority report: Following bipartisan opposition, Georgia lawmakers have given up on efforts to create a statewide student-tracking database designed to identify youth who could commit future acts of violence. | WABE

    A majority of school district programs focused on protecting student data are led by administrators with little training in privacy issues, a new report finds. | StateScoop

    Washington students’ sensitive data was exposed. The culprit? A student surveillance tool. | The Seattle Times

    ICYMI @The74

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    Annie, who lives with The 74 social media guru Christian Skotte, is the cutest regular at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. You won’t convince me otherwise. 


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  • Former Kansas City School Police Officer Fights for Student Safety Via Nonprofit – The 74

    Former Kansas City School Police Officer Fights for Student Safety Via Nonprofit – The 74

    KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Marialexa Sanoja publicly quit her job as a Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools police officer over concerns with the district’s handling of student safety needs and founded a nonprofit to help kids escape the challenges in Wyandotte County.

    In the three-and-a-half months Sanoja was stationed at Wyandotte High School, the district’s largest school with 1900 students, Sanoja said she filed 140 incident reports and that in most instances the district failed to take action. The district, through its YouTube channel, disputed her figures and asserted it handled concerns responsibly.

    “It didn’t take long for me to find out that the students were not in the best interest of anybody,” Sanoja said. “When the police officer becomes a safe space for students, there is something wrong with that.”

    After her resignation in December 2023, Sanoja founded Missión Despegue, translated to “mission takeoff,” a nonprofit that helps parents and students document their grievances with the school district to hold the district accountable for its handling of safety issues.

    Sanoja saw the district’s response to a sexual assault case and its communication as inadequate, and experts echo her concerns. Now, Sanoja works with current and former students to get their GED certificates, drivers licenses, mental health care and prevent substance abuse.

    Sanoja’s concerns

    Sanoja said much of the Latino community, which makes up 72% of Wyandotte High School, is afraid to complain or make a scene because many of them are new to the country. She aims to empower them, and help them achieve the “American dream.”

    One reason Sanoja resigned — and a former student dropped out — was because of the district’s response to the former student’s experience of being sexually assaulted at school. Kansas Reflector doesn’t identify minors who have been sexually assaulted.

    According to an incident report filed by Sanoja, the former student was a freshman and alone in the Wyandotte High School stairwell when a group of older boys groped her and made sexual remarks. She began recording the boys with her phone, which prompted them to leave, the report said.

    Sanoja was off duty that day. The former student asked the on-duty officer to file a report, which Sanoja says she never saw. The day after, Sanoja and the former student said they filed an incident, criminal, and Title IX report. The former student wanted to press charges.

    “After that, I just stopped going to school, because I didn’t feel safe,” the former student said in an interview with Kansas Reflector.

    Sanoja said security camera footage and the former student’s video showed the boys’ faces. The former student said the district told her that because the boys never returned to school, it could not suspend them. However, the former student said she continued to see the boys on campus.

    “Ultimately, the district didn’t do anything about it. We were asking, at least, for suspension. That didn’t happen,” Sanoja said.

    A spokesperson from the district told Kansas Reflector it was unable to provide comment on the former student’s case, or the district’s responsibility to handle reports of sexual assault.

    Sanoja publicly resigned with a letter that accused the district of failing to communicate with parents. She wrote that she was worried about instances where students brought guns to school property and all parents weren’t notified.

    In a response video to Sanoja’s resignation, district superintendent Anna Stubblefield said “those incidents are not always relayed to all families. Not because we’re hiding anything, but because the impact is low and to protect the privacy of our students.”

    A district spokesperson told Kansas Reflector the “administration is required to contact parents regarding student issues — such as absences, drug-related concerns, or fights — in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct.”

    Expert opinions

    Ken Trump, an expert in school safety communications who is not related to the president, said parental anxiety over school safety is rising nationwide.

    “It’s very easy to get caught up if you’ve got a couple thousand kids in a school, dealing with incidents and other things. But you need to take a tactical pause in this, and go back to looking at the communications,” Trump said. “You can’t go back to the old-school mindset of if someone finds out about it we’ll talk. That doesn’t work anymore.”

    Sanoja said that after a student overdosed at school and she contacted the parents directly, the high school principal told Sanoja to route all communication with parents through administration.

    Sanoja said that she continues to receive videos of physical fights in the schools, totaling in the hundreds, since her resignation.

    Michael Dorn, a school safety expert who assists schools after major acts of violence, said  Sanoja’s allegations were concerning. He said he would have responded to her concerns differently than the school district did.

    “I was a school district police chief for 10 years,” Dorn said. “If an officer in my department wrote that kind of resignation letter, I would request a state police investigation. I would ask for a polygraph test, and I would ask that she be polygraphed. I wouldn’t do anything like that, but if someone alleged that I did and I didn’t do it, I would request that to clear my name.”

    Sanoja worked as a police officer in Lenexa before transitioning to the school district and said Wyandotte High School presented the most significant challenges she’s seen. She believes the problems are “within the culture” of the school.

    “Everybody’s tired of the way the district is handling things,” Sanoja said. “They’ve been failing these kids for years.”

    Fixing root causes

    Through her nonprofit, Sanoja helps students who leave the district, like the former student who was sexually assaulted, earn their GED certificate.

    When they’re out of the school environment, Sanoja said, they thrive.

    Sanoja said most of the families she works with are immigrants, and the parents do not speak English.

    “We face the daunting task of ending the stigma, shame and judgement that come with our culture,” Sanoja said.

    Missión Despegue seeks to fix the root causes of the problems seen in school — like substance abuse, violence, bullying, and mental health issues. Sanoja said she sees these problems reflected in things like the graduation rate of the district. For the 2023-2024 school year it was 78.1%, which is 11.4 percentage points lower than the state average.

    Through donations, Sanoja covers the cost of mental health appointments, DMV license and GED class registrations, and laptop purchases for students pursuing their GED certificate without one. In February, she began converting first-time offenders’ court fees, in hopes of reducing recidivism.

    With the help of more than 100 volunteers, Sanoja has hosted events where she provides Narcan and educates parents about the dangers of substance abuse. She also guides volunteers to further training, like drug prevention and compassion fatigue workshops.

    Sanoja said she doesn’t get paid for her work with Missión Despegue. She said she needs an assistant, because she has “a long list of people that need help.”

    “I see something in them. I know they’re going to be successful,” Sanoja said. “I want that opportunity for every kid I have.”

    Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: [email protected].


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