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Tucson Unified School District is revising its student search and arrest guidelines to ensure they’re up-to-date with current laws and provide clearer direction for school administrators.

Governing board members approved the changes during last week’s meeting, which also included a public hearing about the district’s annual desegregation report.

The hearing and revised policies come amidst growing concerns over the threat of immigration enforcement in schools.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations and talked to a lot of people to try to figure out how to protect our students and families from what’s going on in our country right now,” said board member Dr. Ravi Shah.

The goal of the revisions is to align with the current law on what is permissible for searches, as well as to clarify specific circumstances for administrators, said TUSD Associate General counsel Michael Areinoff.

The policy was posted on TUSD’s website in December for 30 days to allow members of the public to comment, with Areinoff telling board members that no feedback was received.

TUSD General Counsel Robert Ross told board members that the current discussion about immigration enforcement at schools caused officials to take a closer look at some of the language when it comes to interviewing students about potential criminal activity by a parent.

“That is maybe useful for some criminal activity, but if we think about that the criminal activity is being undocumented, I don’t think that aligns with what the rest of the district’s position is,” Ross said, suggesting that they adjust the language in the policy to indicate that if there is no allegation of abuse or abandonment by a parent, requests by law enforcement to interview students will only be done when the parent consents.

Board member Sadie Shaw took issue with the term “peace officer” in the policy and asked that it be removed due to the fact that it could include immigration enforcement agents.

The changes were unanimously approved by board members. The revised policy's adoption will be voted on at an upcoming meeting.

The district’s annual desegregation update came on the heels of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimous decision to uphold the district’s release from a court-ordered desegregation plan. The ruling recognized the district’s efforts and affirmed that current achievement gaps aren’t the result of systematic institutional discrimination.

“TUSD continues to limit the gaps in academic performance among various subgroups of our student body to rates that are significantly smaller than national averages for urban school districts of our size,” said TUSD Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo. “We have an exceptionally diverse teaching and administrative staff, more diverse than one would expect from our local population and more diverse than comparable school districts of our size.”

Former teacher and longtime education advocate Lillian Fox was the lone member of the public to speak during the hearing, asking board members questions about the compilation of the report and the district’s failure to hire an assistant superintendent of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion assistant superintendent as part of its desegregation efforts.

Trujillo said that with the district facing a $3.7 million deficit for the current fiscal year, it doesn’t want to fill any vacant positions that are outside of schools or the classroom.

Desegregation efforts in the 2023-24 school year included a campaign at Innovation Tech High School to highlight its new building and career and technical education programs.

The campaign used different types of ads, including commercials in English and Spanish, print ads, video and audio streaming, digital ads, and social media.

Trujillo said that the first official desegregation budget draft will be presented at the board’s February 25 meeting with reports from desegregation-funded programs continuing through May.

Abbie Andrus is a University of Arizona alum and Tucson Spotlight reporter. Contact her at asandrus@arizona.edu.

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