“No more discussion about ICE will be permitted”

On December 3rd, Dekalb County’s Sequoyah Middle School Interim Principal Tiffany Sims met with her advisory committee.

It would be her last such meeting with them. 

Less than two weeks later, she was no longer an interim principal in the Dekalb County school system. 

An open records request filed by 285 South reveals how that meeting frustrated many of its attendees.

Over 90 percent of Sequoyah’s students are Latino. The school is located in Doraville, about a mile and half from the Buford Highway corridor, an area that’s seen multiple Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests this year. With reports circulating online from all over the country showing parents being seized by masked ICE officers near schools, it’s perhaps not surprising that student fears had been running high.

The meeting started routinely enough, at the middle school’s media center. 

When the issue of instances of students cutting themselves came up, one advisor, a parent and the chair of the group, Yolanda Torres, raised the possibility that worries over ICE raids might be behind some kids’ self-harming.

“Many moms didn’t send their kids [to school] because it is a cause of fear and we have to pay attention to it. This is a reflection of the cutting,” Yolanda told Interim Principal Sims.

According to the minutes, Interim Principal Sims acknowledged the concern, saying: “we are going to teach our students on how to cope with negative emotions and the anxiety when they are faced with life issues, including immigration.”

When Chairperson Yolanda went on to express the need to address ICE activities, Sims responded by talking through District protocol, ending by saying, “If immigration has the proper paperwork and documentation that they need to arrest a student, then they need to hand over the student or adult in the warrant.”

After that, Sims repeatedly refused to engage with parents’ and teachers’ concerns over how ICE raids were affecting students’ mental health. “I don’t want to turn this into a meeting about ICE, it’s about mental health issues,” she said. “The district has a protocol and that is it on the matter.”

Jonathan Peraza Campos, a teacher at the meeting, then offered to share research on the link between immigration enforcement activity and students’ mental health. “I will just summarize it quickly,” he said. But Sims, according to the minutes, “pivoted to the next agenda item.” 

When the discussion moved to construction, another participant in the meeting, Dr. Arnulfo Muralles, who is listed as a teacher representative and co-chair of the committee on the school’s website, proposed to return to the topic of ICE. 

‘This is about school improvement and instruction, not about ICE,” said Sims. “We are going to support students with social-emotional learning.”

Yolanda and Jonathan continued trying to engage in the ICE  discussion. When Jonathan asked, “Does immigration not affect student’s academic and social-emotional health?” Sims responded: “No more discussion about ICE will be permitted.” She then called for the meeting to be adjourned. 

285 South reached out to Tiffany Sims asking her to clarify the context and intentions around her responses at the PAC meeting, but as of publication, hadn’t received a response. 

Since the meeting, Jonathan has penned an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, citing that he’s seen firsthand the impact of immigration enforcement in his classroom. One student, “walked into class crying because her dad had been detained on his way to work,” and another, “rarely comes to school because he’s been too depressed to leave the house since his father was deported earlier this year.

In an email to 285 South, the school district said Ms. Sims had transitioned into a role within Professional Learning this month. 

Asked why Ms. Sims was moved to another position, the representative wrote: “Personnel transitions between semesters are a routine part of district operations and are made to best align leadership strengths with district needs.”

On condition of anonymity, a parent of children at Sequoyah spoke with 285 South. They said they were afraid of being targeted for being undocumented. 

The parent explained that after former Interim Principal Tiffany Sims acknowledged that if ICE officers came to the school with a warrant, they would hand them to the officers, students at the school no longer trusted her. “Cuando ella llegaba a los salones a saludar, algunos pocos le contestaban, otros escondían la cara.” When she entered the classrooms to greet students, a few would respond, while others would hide their faces. 

Dekalb County Interim Superintendent Norman Sauce, in a statement published by Decaturish, released following a December 8 board meeting – where several community members spoke about their concerns around how discussions of ICE were being handled – outlined the district’s protocol, and said he was “meeting with principals this week to review district protocols.”  

That meeting, according to the DCSD spokesperson, “reinforced procedures that have already been shared multiple times.”

It lasted “approximately 10 minutes”.

The parent 285 South spoke to said they felt the need to prepare for the worst. “Les digo a muchos padres que es muy importante uno tener un plan con sus hijos, no dejarlo así no más, porque se ve que en las escuelas nunca quieren hablar de eso.” I tell parents that it’s really important to have a plan with their children and not avoid the subject because you can see that in schools they don’t want to talk about it.