This School District Has Received Death Threats for Standing Up for Immigrants. It’s Not Backing Down.

This School District Has Received Death Threats for Standing up for Immigrants. It’s Not Backing Down

This story about Winooski was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. WINOOSKI, Vt. — The day’s class started with a writing prompt: Do you feel safe in school? Why or why not? The students — whose families hail from across the globe and speak languages including Arabic, Nepali, Spanish and Somali — wrote their responses …

This School District Has Received Death Threats for Standing Up for Immigrants. It’s Not Backing Down.

The Winooski School District in Vermont passed a pioneering sanctuary policy to protect its highly diverse immigrant student population from federal immigration enforcement. Led by Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria, the small district maintains its stance despite facing intense backlash, federal funding threats, and community trauma from local detentions. This controversial local policy successfully inspired a new state law mandating immigration e…