Racism and hate are behind a letter sent to the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto, according to school officials.
The letter accuses the district of employing several undocumented workers and threatens to turn them into immigration authorities.
“I consider this a racist act,” Ravenswood City School District Superintendent Gloria Hernandez-Goff said.
Hernandez-Goff is talking about a letter that accuses the district of employing several people who are undocumented.
“There is just this sense that, are we being targeted? Are our children in danger,” Hernandez-Goff said.
The letter names names. Maintenance and custodial workers Robert Guerrero and Antonio Cuellar are on the list.
The district says they are longtime, legal employees, but the letter threatens to turn them over to I.C.E. just the same.
The letter is signed by someone named Karen Smith, a concerned resident. The district says Smith is unknown to them and suggests the letter is motivated by discontent with the changing demographics of the district.
“There has been a recent exodus of people of color from the district and think this is an effort to hasten that process,” Hernandez-Goff said.
The district insists that all of the people named in the letter were properly vetted and are indeed documented.
But the letter has become a distraction and created a climate of fear across the district.