The Walking School Bus

ICE made the walk to school too dangerous for many immigrant families. So neighbors started walking the kids there themselves.

Anyone who had the pleasure of parenting through the COVID lockdowns knows how much kids need school. Schools and families are still trying to recover from the absenteeism, enrollment loss, learning loss, and mental health impacts of that period. Now millions of immigrant families and communities are living through a new crisis: facing fear, trauma, and massive disruptions that have once again made school feel unsafe.

Nowhere is that clearer than in cases like the father taken by ICE in Idaho while dropping his son at daycare, or the teenage brothers Max and Israel Makoka, zip-tied at a Mississippi bus stop as they waited to go to school.

Many families are too scared to send their kids to school at all. ICE raids, mass kidnappings, and deportations have made the daily routine feel too dangerous. School enrollment is down, and absences are up in districts across the country.

So neighbors, parents, and teachers started getting vulnerable kids to school themselves. Some walk. They form small groups, set pickup times and routes, and gather children door to door on the way to school. They call it a “walking school bus.” Others drive. The point is to let parents who feel unsafe in public stay home, and to put a trusted adult between the kids and ICE. Many train for how best to protect the children if an agent approaches. Others go a step further and organize mutual aid, bringing groceries to parents who are too afraid to go to the store.

The walking school bus belongs to a long tradition of regular people who have organized to ensure that kids in their communities get to school safely. Clergy escorted Black kids like the Little Rock Nine through white mobs to desegregate southern schools when local police refused to protect them. Violence interrupters have long walked kids to school past threats of community violence and through overpoliced blocks.

The advice of a Minneapolis mom who helped organize 200 volunteers to get kids to school safely? "I would recommend people not be scared and not think of it as organizing against the government, but organizing for the people in your neighborhood."

Free Somebody

You can do this. Here's how.

Got 5 minutes?

Walk someone to school. If you’re an adult or educator in a community with families targeted by ICE, offer to walk or drive their kids.
Print red cards. They explain a person’s rights during immigration enforcement. Print a set to keep on you and hand out to people who need them.
Be an emergency contact. Many immigrant parents are scared to share too much information with any institution, schools included. Others fear what happens to their kids if ICE takes them. If you have a parent's trust, offer to be a primary or backup emergency contact and an authorized pickup person for their children.

Got more time?

Organize a walking school bus where you live. Groups like Alameda County’s Transportation Commission have toolkits and webinars to help you start. Create (or use existing) school group chats to coordinate and communicate with other parents in real time.
Push your school district on its truancy policies. School attendance is important, but many school districts have punitive truancy policies that do not account for legitimate reasons why children might be home. These policies can put parents and kids at risk of arrest, deportation, or losing custody. Learn more about the truancy policies at your school and organize with other parents to offer alternatives.