San Diego Teachers to Give In-Person Instruction to Illegal Immigrant Kids While Locals Stay at Home
The San Diego Unified School District’s in-person education program for children who have illegally crossed the border has spurred an angry response from those who wonder why in-person education cannot be provided for American children.
The district on Monday announced that it was seeking teachers for about 1,450 illegal immigrant girls ages 14-17 who will be temporarily housed at the San Diego Convention Center.
The illegal immigrants are expected to be at the center through July.
First buses with migrant girls arrive at San Diego Convention Center https://t.co/keL6TM9tPT pic.twitter.com/R9ZLrW0pej
— San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut) March 28, 2021
“All children in California, regardless of immigration status, have a constitutional right to education. We also have a moral obligation to ensure a bright future for our children,” Superintendent of Schools Paul Gothold said in a San Diego County Office of Education news release.
The noble words grated on the ears of those who wish the district’s children could have been first on the list for in-person education.
Students have been limited to online-only learning all year, and even when schools partially reopen on April 12, they will use a hybrid model that includes some in-person classes but more online education.
“We have 130,000 kids who haven’t been allowed in a classroom for over a year in the San Diego United School District. It’s great that there’s in-person learning for those unaccompanied minors from Central America, but I wish every child in San Diego Country was allowed the same opportunity for in-person teaching,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond said Monday on Twitter.
Wait a minute… So you’re saying it is ok for San Diego teachers to teach in person… just not to San Diego children? https://t.co/jE56xYcQT3
— Reopen California Schools (@ReopenCASchools) March 29, 2021
“The system is broken when San Diego teachers are teaching migrant children in person, but the 100k students of taxpaying families at San Diego Unified School District are stuck learning in Zoom school,” parent Emily Diaz told Fox News.
“We agree that every child deserves an in-person education, but why are taxpaying students put last? If this is a humanitarian issue then who is rescuing San Diego Unified students, because our leaders have failed them,” Diaz said.
“What is happening right now is immoral,” she added.
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A district spokeswoman told Fox News that the program “will include English language development and social-emotional learning opportunities. The teachers who are participating in the program are doing so voluntarily, and the program is following a COVID-19 screening protocol based on guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California also noted that illegal immigrants who just arrived are being given in-person learning sooner than San Diego children.
“For more than a year, parents and students in San Diego County have waited for educators to answer one question: When will our schools reopen with in-person instruction only? And for a year, they’ve been told to wait,” Issa told Fox News.
“The decision to provide in-person instruction to illegal migrants is outrageous, and parents have every right to be angry,” he said.
Brilliant! Teach the illegal immigrants, who have been exposed and are positive for COVID and keep our students home when they should be in school. Just brilliant. And the mayor of San Diego retweet’s it as supporting it. This is getting totally out of control. https://t.co/3GkCHghK7M
— brd (@brd78867161) March 30, 2021
Diaz said she was begging California Gov. Gavin Newsom to allow children to return to in-person learning five days a week.
“Fourteen percent of our district are students with disabilities and 23 percent are English Language Learners. San Diego Unified took in millions of dollars in relief funding to bring them back at the beginning of the school year but only 6000 are in-person today and we have no idea how that money was used,” she said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
