EDITORIAL: Common sense at school
More area school districts are requiring state-issued identification tags to be shown by visitors prior to entering campuses. We strongly agree that the safety and security of area students should be foremost in school officials’ minds. We also believe, however, that school officials should be both smart and flexible in making certain allowances for undocumented parents to visit.
The Trib’s Wendy Gragg interviewed a couple of undocumented parents at Waco’s Bell’s Hill Elementary School who are no longer visiting their children because they do not have proper ID. They seemed genuinely fearful that if they attempted to visit their children, police would be notified and they would be deported back to Mexico.
Certainly no one wants to see that happen, and school officials gave no indication that would happen. Nevertheless, some aren’t visiting for lunch or parties anymore.
These children were born here in the United States and are by current law citizens. Separating child from mother, as one mother told Gragg, is “inhuman.” We have to agree.
Some parents actually offered great solutions to this problem, such as issuing ID tags to parents at the beginning of the year that parents could present when they visit the schools.
We press administrators to consider this and other options. What’s so wrong with injecting a little common sense and verifying familial links through other methods?
We recognize student safety must take priority, and we applaud campuses for implementing strict screening standards in order to keep sexual offenders off campuses.
Scanning state ID tags is, of course, the easiest method for red-flagging those convicted of sex crimes.
But are there other ways also?
How do you tell a kindergartner that Mommy can’t come to her Christmas party or watch her appear in a school play or take part in that great Texas tradition of kindergarten graduation?
To children, family is their whole world. We urge administrators to open their doors and allow other worlds in.
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