Minneapolis Public Schools are shut down for the remainder of the week after armed Border Patrol agents clashed with students and staff at a local high school Wednesday, just hours after an immigration officer fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car.

The closure of an entire city school district is an unprecedented response to the Trump administration’s ongoing immigration dragnet, one that has disrupted schools and sparked fear in students, families and educators across the country. The district announced to staff Thursday evening it will offer temporary online learning starting next week and continuing through Feb. 12.

Gov. Tim Walz, a former schoolteacher, said he thought Minneapolis Public Schools made “absolutely what was the right decision” to close and condemned federal agents’ presence at Roosevelt High School and other campuses. 

“I can’t say this strongly enough as a governor, as a parent, as a teacher, to our elected representatives, Democrats and Republicans, I beg you, I implore you to tell them to stay out of our schools,” Walz said at a press conference Thursday. “Tragedy will be magnified a hundredfold if this fight moves into the hallways of our public schools, amongst our youth. They are watching us, they are watching us now how we respond.” 

Josie Bures, 17 and a senior at Roosevelt, attended a protest at ICE headquarters for three hours early Thursday morning and planned to stop by another in the late evening. She’s not worried about herself, she said, but about the immigrants in her community.

“Those are our neighbors, our friends, my classmates and our teachers,” Bures said. “It’s just a very weird feeling to watch your teacher be tackled to the ground by ICE agents.”

The White House flooded Minneapolis this week , just days before Renee Nicole Good, 37, a writer who had just dropped off encountered a group of them on a snowy street and was shot in the head when she attempted to drive away.

The Department of Homeland Security and local witnesses and video have offered starkly different accounts of the actions preceding Good’s death and those at Roosevelt High School, where local news reports say students and staff .

A DHS spokesperson denied the use of tear gas and told The 74 on Thursday that agents were conducting immigration enforcement in the area when a U.S. citizen rammed his car into a government vehicle. While the man was being removed, DHS contended, “an individual who identified himself as a teacher proceeded to assault a border patrol agent.” 

A crowd gathered and “rioters” threw objects and paint at the officers and their vehicles, DHS said, adding, “agents would not have been near this location if not for the dangerous actions” of the driver. 

The district issued a statement Thursday saying, “Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) is aware of an incident that happened after school yesterday outside of Roosevelt High School. This incident involved federal law enforcement agents and is currently under investigation. We are working with our partners including the City of Minneapolis and others to support the individuals directly impacted.”

The statement went on to note its commitment “to maintaining a safe and welcoming learning environment for all of our students.” Recent events have deeply undermined that effort, parents and students told The 74. 

Shawna Hedlund, whose son is a freshman at Roosevelt, said he left campus just before federal agents arrived, but was already “stricken by what he had heard about the shooting.”

That feeling worsened when her son and other students she spoke with learned that ICE then showed up at their school and chaos broke out.

“They went from dismayed to shocked,” she said.

Hedlund, who works in student health, said she understands the necessity for the school closure but laments that children will be by themselves.

“We learned during the pandemic that isolation is hard on our kids’ mental health,” she said. “I don’t like thinking about all of the kids who are feeling alone today. And at the same time, it was not safe.”

Bures, the Roosevelt senior, said she’s not sure if she’ll be ready to pay attention in class when school resumes Monday, but there is no alternative.

“No one knows how long this will last or how persistent ICE will be,” she said. “My friend’s mom works at a St. Paul school. ICE comes there every day in the morning and when school lets out in the afternoon. As soon as school starts up, will ICE be there again?”

Muslim faith leader Abdulahi Farah said parents were already afraid to drop off and pick up their children at school. 

“The parents of high schoolers are the most scared,” Farah said. “The seniors and juniors, they are tall: They look like grown people — and they are driving. I have had a lot of moms share with me how they took away their kids’ car keys. Young people want to go play basketball, but parents are trying to make sure these young boys and girls are safe.”

Parents of older kids, fear, too, they could unintentionally escalate interaction with federal agents, he said. 

“Young people don’t use the best judgment,” Farah said. “Teenagers might run away from ICE agents — and ICE agents might shoot them.” 

Good was killed while driving away from agents who had come up to her vehicle, including one who tried to yank her driver’s side door open, according from the scene. DHS maintains that Good tried to run down one of their agents, who defended himself.

Numerous Twin Cities district and charter schools told families Wednesday that they should consider keeping their children home, according to a suburban Minneapolis school board member who asked not to be identified because she has loved ones at risk of deportation.

She said more than a third of district students were absent Wednesday, and that large numbers are not expected to return — particularly in neighborhoods targeted by federal agents.    

Like Roosevelt High School, the schools where ICE and the Border Patrol have been spotted have dual-language programs, heavy concentrations of Latino students and immigrant staff. Many are communicating with families directly instead of posting logistics on social networks, parents and administrators said. 

Several charter schools catering to immigrant populations are also closed. Located about a mile from Good’s shooting, El Colegio High School said it will notify families when it reopens. The three-school Hiawatha Academies network is also shuttered. 

Area superintendents were meeting Thursday to discuss the complicated state laws that govern absences. Because Minnesota reimburses schools for daily attendance, it has a law requiring them to disenroll students who aren’t present for 15 or more days. Administrators are likely to ask for a temporary exception. 

In Minneapolis, most high schoolers use public transit at district expense. Before it closed, Hiawatha began providing dedicated yellow buses for any student afraid to ride the public buses because ICE agents might board them. 

St. Paul Public Schools remains open but has instructed students to stay on school buses if they feel unsafe getting off. Drivers have been told how to make alternate arrangements to drive students home, the district said.  

A multilingual learner teacher in a southern Minneapolis suburb said her school, which serves a large portion of Spanish-speaking students, was in session Thursday but the mood was somber. She asked not to be identified to avoid drawing ICE’s attention.

In addition to the violence that unfolded Wednesday, one student’s father was detained Tuesday, she said.

“I started my class with quiet meditation and affirmations such as, ‘I belong here. I’m strong even when things feel scary. My family’s story matters. I’m allowed to feel happy even during hard times. I can focus on what I can control,’” she said.  

Anxiety is high, too, for parents of very young children whose local day care centers have come under intense scrutiny in the wake of recent allegations of fraud. The Trump administration cited those charges among its reasons for sending federal agents into Minneapolis with such force. 

“We have grown men showing up there with cameras,” Farah said, referring to social media influencers attracted by . “So some of the parents are not taking the kids to day care.”

And, he said, bullying is on the rise in schools, especially against the Somali community, another target of the president. Many of its members fled their homeland to escape government brutality, he said. 

“They have seen things like this before. … Things you thought would never happen here are happening here.” he said. “It has been overwhelming.”

Earlier this week, organizing on private channels, parents arranged patrols during dismissal times outside schools with programs catering to immigrants. Individual school parent groups also dropped off groceries and other supplies at students’ homes and solicited donations for families where adults or teens have been unable to work.

Within a couple of hours of Good’s death, the education community swung into action. Mattie Weiss, a former policy advocate at Educators for Excellence, created a GoFundMe for Good’s loved ones that as of Thursday night had collected $1.2 million from 31,100 donors, far surpassing its $50,000 goal.

Adam Strom, co-founder and executive director of Re-Imagining Migration, said that what happened in Minneapolis this week is being felt nationwide. 

“This is the result of policies transforming schools into sites of fear,” he said. “As horrible as that scene was, the impact ripples far beyond Minneapolis. Families across the country, after witnessing this, are sure that this could happen here, too. The question we all must face is what we’re going to do to keep our students safe.” 

Solution: In a city often riven by fractious posturing for power, three groups break the mold and coalesce around the establishment of a faith-based initiative called “Newark Unites Tutoring Center,” anchored by best practices to accelerate learning for 9th and 10th grade students throughout the city.

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

This collective response to an academic crisis came about through a home-grown collaboration among Reverend Dr. David Jefferson of , Jared Taillefer, Executive Director of and Kyle Rosenkrans, Executive Director of the (NJCF). They explained to me that the Newark Unites initiative was prompted, in part, by a town hall in June called “Where Do We Go from Here: COVID’s Impact on Education in Newark and the Lessons that Can Be Learned.” There, parent after parent expressed frustration and anger at their children’s learning loss after months of interrupted schooling and inadequate remote instruction.

Pastor Jefferson said, “these families were looking for solutions. I am in the business of hope– after all, I preside over the largest group of Newark parishioners in the city. So, given the urgency of the moment and this overwhelming consensus of parents that their children need immediate help, I knew we had to come up with a plan, especially since my congregants don’t have the resources to pay for it themselves.”

The plan evolved over the next two months, culminating in this threefold partnership. Pastor Jefferson, Taillefer, and Rosenkrans were also influenced by a that asked Newark voters, in part, how Newark should spend over $200 million in federal stimulus dollars to supplement education. An astounding 92% said the money should go to one-on-one tutoring, 35 points higher than the New Jersey average.

“What if I told you there is a non-profit that is a specialist in learning loss and driven by results?” asked Rosenkrans, whose foundation is funding the initiative. “What if I said we had the city’s largest church with the greatest impact? What if we brought them together to create a program that uses one of the greatest interventions to stem learning loss and expand it to other students across the city and get them back on track?”

This effort is anchored by Great Oaks, well known for its distinctive tutoring model. This public charter, which came to Newark a decade ago, serves 1,600 K-12th graders and has gained national and state during the pandemic for providing one of the most effective, research-based interventions to address learning loss. At Great Oaks, “tutor fellows” support teachers, students, and parents all year long, which leads to both of 80-90%–far higher than the state average– and a more diverse teaching staff.

And, in a dash of serendipity, Great Oaks is in the midst of a long-planned expansion; now, part of that expansion will be the new community Tutoring Center, which will provide individualized support to 9th and 10th graders throughout the city in reading and algebra.

“Tutoring works,” explained Taillefer. “There is a real hunger for it right now in Newark and it is our moral responsibility to respond to this call to action with substance. There is not one single solution to addressing the historic and unprecedented learning loss we have seen in Newark over the last year and half, but we must do something and the Center can be a start.”

Added Pastor Jefferson, “parents have lost so much confidence, so much trust in the district. They feel their voices have not been heard. Recent reports have even suggested that district leaders have attempted to – this is unacceptable. So let’s get the best of what we have. There’s something about a faith-based institution that leads to trust, that leads to hope. We’re laying the groundwork for a bigger expansion, a different vision of education in Newark that can break through barriers.”

“This is not about politics,” he continued. “This is about children and families, about getting past polarization and distractions. We always say children are our future. I say children are our present. There’s no time to waste. We have to act now because we have a big problem. Our solution is the creation of Newark Unites Tutoring Center.”

The Newark Unites Tutoring Center will be located at Metropolitan Baptist Church at 149 Springfield Ave, Newark, NJ. The Church itself has a long history of community-based education initiatives, including their mentorship program with the Eagle Academy School for Boys, partnering with the Leaguers to host its own preschool program, and hosting summer “” to support learning in Newark. Metropolitan will also provide snacks, school materials, and security during the tutoring sessions.

The free tutoring program will be available to 9th and 10th graders from any Newark public school and will take place starting in September. Those enrolled will be expected to attend each Saturday with their designated tutor. Families interested in the service can sign up or by going on the . The program will accept students on a first-come, first-serve basis.

This analysis originally appeared . 

Disclosure: The City Fund provides financial support to the New Jersey Children’s Foundation and The 74.