Teachers in metro Atlanta report children of immigrants and LGBT adolescents are coming to school distraught this week over what Donald Trump’s election portends for them and their families.
Trump has pledged mass deportations and has said he would consider Supreme Court justices who would overturn same-sex marriage. Vice president-elect Mike Pence is a longtime opponent of gay rights.
Asked to share their experiences this week in the wake of Trump’s election, about 100 teachers told the AJC Get Schooled blog they were comforting fearful students even in the very early grades.
One said students at her middle school students were “terrified. We had to have a special assembly to talk about it. Many students –and teachers –crying.”
Another local teacher said, “They were absolutely apoplectic today. I had one girl, in tears, tell me she packed her bags this morning just in case immigration came to deport them because her family ‘could not afford to buy [her] new things.’ The fear is very real. I had to address it openly in all classes today.”
One teacher said, “I overheard several politically-centric LGBT conversations today, but the one that really got to me was when a senior looked up in the middle of class and said quietly, ‘I’ll never be able to get married now.’”
To read more of what teachers are encountering, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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