01/13/2026
My heart has been heavy this week.
Minneapolis Public Schools—serving 30,000 students—announced families can choose remote learning through February 12. Columbia Heights and Fridley followed.
Not because of weather. Not because of illness.
Because students are afraid immigration enforcement will separate them from their families on the walk to school.
What we're asking children to do:
Calculate danger on their way to class. Choose between their right to education and their family's right to stay together. Learn to move through the world with vigilance no child should carry.
I watched footage of a Native aunt begging ICE agents not to hurt her nephew Indigenous people being treated as outsiders on their own ancestral land. I thought about students who witnessed federal agents outside Roosevelt High School during dismissal. I thought about Renee Good's three children.
For immigrant families, African American communities, Indigenous peoples this isn't new trauma. It's intergenerational trauma being reactivated. The forced family separation. The violence made public.
The message: you don't belong, you should be afraid.
Schools are supposed to be sanctuaries.
Here's what I'm grateful for: Districts responding with compassion. Educators rising to meet this emergency moment. Communities standing in solidarity.
And here's what I'm concerned about: In 2020, when we scrambled to create emergency remote learning during COVID, Minneapolis families told us it didn't work well. Inadequate technology. Students felt unprepared. Connection was lost. Learning suffered.
We've been here before.
But I also believe we can do better this time.
Some districts are already showing us how:
🔹 Hopkins' VirtualEDU operates intentional blended learning year-round
🔹 Miami-Dade maintains crisis-ready distance learning infrastructure for hurricanes
🔹 Central Minnesota educators pioneered innovative hybrid models
What if we learned from them?
What if we built flexible, resilient learning systems BEFORE crisis strikes—not scrambling during it? What if we invested in preparation instead of repeatedly responding with panic?
I wrote about this moment—the trauma, yes, but also the opportunity to finally get this right: [
Not as criticism of what's failing, but as invitation to what's possible.
Because the students who are afraid today deserve more than emergency band-aids. They deserve systems built for their brilliance, their safety, and their full humanity.
To my fellow educators and community members: What are you seeing? What's working? How can we support each other and learn from each other through this?
Let's build something better. Together.
By Dr. Lanise Block, Lift.
