When ICE activity in Chicago spiked this spring, classrooms turned tense almost overnight. Some students showed up distracted, some did not show up at all, and a group of high school teachers quietly started filling the gaps on their own time. Off the clock, educators began running know-your-rights workshops, organizing informal ICE-watch shifts near school doors, and pooling small compassion funds to cover rides, groceries and other basics for families.
Those grassroots efforts surfaced in recent reporting on how staff at several CPS schools have responded to immigration enforcement fears. As reported by Block Club Chicago, teachers at Curie, Von Steuben and Lincoln Park have organized regular sanctuary meetings and sketched out safe-passage routes, while others have run fundraisers and food drives to support families caught in the middle.
How Schools Set Up Sanctuary Work
At Curie High School, social studies teacher Sophie Bauer Schmidt Sweeney teamed up with bilingual staff to host recurring sanctuary meetings and to recruit colleagues for ICE-watch shifts, according to reporting by Borderless Magazine. At Von Steuben, staff and students created a compassion fund and sold student-made posters to cover families' immediate needs, while at Lincoln Park, librarians and parents mapped out alternate drop-off routes so families could avoid CTA stops where they feared unwanted attention.
Students Push Back And Pitch In
Students have not just watched from the sidelines. A Curie sophomore who spoke with reporters helped lead a teacher-approved protest, and Digital Imaging students at Von Steuben designed and sold posters, sending the proceeds directly to impacted families. Teachers and students also described sharp attendance drops at some schools as parents kept kids home or stayed off public transit during enforcement spikes, adding both emotional and financial strain, as reported by Block Club Chicago.
District Rules And The Union Response
Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union already have a joint framework that is supposed to keep schools off-limits to immigration enforcement. CPS guidance to families states that agents may not enter school grounds without credentials, a stated reason and a criminal judicial warrant, and that the district will not voluntarily share student immigration information, according to CPS. The union points to contract language requiring district-union training on these protections and says members have formed sanctuary teams while pressing the district to carry out the required trainings, per a statement from the Chicago Teachers Union.
What Comes Next
Teachers who are volunteering this work say it helps students feel safer in the short term, but they stress that it is no replacement for district-wide training and staffing. A wave of civic activity around May Day and other rallies has kept pressure on local leaders as families weigh the safety of daily school commutes against the need to work, reporting earlier this month shows, according to ABC7 Chicago.
For now, these off-duty sanctuary teams are focused on the immediate work of calming students and keeping families fed and mobile. Teachers say the real test will be whether that urgent goodwill can be turned into lasting district support so that protections and trainings become standard across CPS, not something cobbled together after hours.
