Idaho is growing. We all know that.
And along with it can come
growing pains like not having
community infrastructure needs
met or ensuring that there are
enough resources to go around.
But sometimes it's less about
the physical changes and more
about the personal ones. Idaho
is home to nearly 2 million people,
13% of which identify as Hispanic
or Latino and help that community.
A local organization is working to
help understand Latino families
experiences in Idaho's school districts.
Brenda. Rodriguez joins us right
now to tell us how they're
doing that. Brenda, tell us
about it. Well, Idaho's American
Civil Liberty Union launched
their story project collection.
So far, they've learned instances of racism,
discrimination and discipline,
and also policing in schools.
I also spoke to an ABA parent
who says that she hopes this
project will help spark change.
As the Latino community continues
to grow here in the jump state,
Idaho's American Civil Liberties Union,
ACLU, is making sure Latino
students have a safe space to learn.
Folks are interested in talking
about education and it's such
an important issue to them.
And with Latino community being such
a growing part of the state and such
an essential part of the state,
it's important to be focusing
on young students experiences.
ACLU launched a new story collection
project to gather stories from
Latinos learning in Idaho schools
we learned about. Issues generally,
from those conversations and the
conversations that we kept on having,
we've tried to focus now a
little bit more on racism,
policing and discrimination because
it's what we're hearing most about.
Some of the questions parents,
students and educators will be asked
what are issues that are important to you?
Have you ever faced, for example,
in school, any racism,
any discrimination, any discipline
of any kind that's disproportionate
in in the amount of discipline?
For the second part of the project,
ACLU is hosting community listening sessions,
sharing things from antidiscrimination
protections, what students can do
if they ever have interactions with
police or law enforcement in school,
and even protections that students with
disabilities have or English learners have.
Their goal is to help address
these issues and build a sense of
community, a community in Nampa,
parent Chandra Reyna said. She was.
She had when she faced discrimination.
I was starting to see my own children.
But also hear from my family
and community members that are
students were just being policed,
that they were what I would
consider being harassed,
being questioned a lot,
just having a lot of overall
surveillance on them at school.
And I felt like it was starting to a
affect their experience in schools,
but also make them feel distanced
from their school environment.
Reyna says her daughter chose to leave in
person school because of her experience
and opted for online learning instead.
This is what's happening.
And This is why we're choosing
to remove her from your school.
What I would have expected as a parent was,
I'm really sorry to hear that.
What can we do to make her situation better?
We don't want her to not have
an actual in person experience.
I didn't get that.
I got it. OK, that's good.
We'll fill out your paperwork.
That isn't the response
that we should be getting.
It's an issue she says is
common in the state. I honestly
think that we have a lack of diversity.
And not only our teachers,
which the students have brought
as a concern to the school
district and to the school level,
but also particularly in our administration.
Reina says the ACLU's project will
help schools and the community
understand these challenges. This
could be an education tool for
folks to say, look at the data.
How can you take that information
and build it into your everyday
actions in your school to make sure
those students do feel welcome?
Now, they are still collecting stories
and hoping to hear from more families,
but their goal is to really have a
full report showing all of this data.
And of course, this is just barely
in the beginning phases. Alright,
we're going to hear a lot more about it.
Thank you so much, Brenda.