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TPS board member E’Lena Ashley defends promotion of anti-immigrant rhetoric

Tulsa World
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A Tulsa Public Schools Board of Education member is defending her recent comments characterizing immigrant students as a potential security threat to other pupils and district employees.

Speaking to the Tulsa County Republican Men’s Club on Oct. 9, E’Lena Ashley claimed that up to half of the multilingual learners in her east Tulsa school board district are not in the country legally and that those students could endanger the safety of others while on campus or on school buses.

“We don’t know their agenda,” she said. “We don’t know their language. We don’t know what they have in mind to be in our classrooms. We don’t know if they’ve had school before. Many

of these people have never been in a classroom, and they have no intention of listening to a female teacher or possibly even a male teacher.”

Those remarks resurfaced at Monday night’s school board meeting when they were called out during the constituent comment period by

leaders of the Tulsa Classroom Teachers Association.

“I am reminded that silence is complicity,” TCTA Vice President LeeAnne Jimenez said. “I must speak out against useless, hurtful words that impact our classrooms.”

According to data provided by the district, 38% of all TPS students are

multilingual learners, or students whose first language or primary language spoken at home is something other than English. More than 70 languages are spoken by TPS’ multilingual learners, including Spanish,

Chuukese, Hmong, Vietnamese, Pashto, Marshallese, Zomi and Arabic.

Federal law requires public schools to provide accommodations and

supplemental supports for English-language learners, who are one of the fastest-growing student populations within the district.

Among the 10 schools within Ashley’s east Tulsa District 4, 55.46% of students are classified as current multilingual learners and another 4.29% are classified as former multilingual learners, or students who have demonstrated sufficient proficiency in English not to require additional supports.

Multilingual learners are the majority of students at nine of the 10 schools within Ashley’s board district, with Lewis and Clark Elementary School as the lone exception. Multilingual learners account for more than 60% of the students attending four District 4 campuses: Cooper and Disney elementary schools, East Central Middle School and East Central High School.

East Central High School is also home to a Newcomer Academy that specifically works with high school-age students who are new to the United States to build their English skills while covering the courses required to earn a high school diploma.

When asked about her comments, Ashley said Wednesday via text message that her remarks were not made out of hostility to immigrants. She said she was trying to protect “our vulnerable community of students and educators from being drawn into a criminal system of dangerous recruiting into an anti-American ideology and perversions.”

She also acknowledged Wednesday that her claim regarding citizenship

rates among multilingual learners within her district was “a guesstimate”and that she did not have any information to substantiate it.

“We don’t know because we don’t track it,” she said.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling in Plyler v. Doe, school

districts are prohibited from asking students or their families to provide citizenship documentation. That same ruling held that all children in the country are entitled to a free public education under the 14th Amendment, regardless of their citizenship status.

Additionally, Ashley said the security concerns referenced at her appearance before the Tulsa County Republican Men’s Club were raised to her privately by TPS teachers and support staff, as well as by attendees at her Sept. 30 community meeting.

With attendees allowed to submit questions anonymously, Ashley said she did not know how many, if any, of those anxieties brought forward at the Sept. 30 meeting were from people who have a direct connection to a TPS site, such as a child attending school.

The Tulsa World obtained an audio recording of that Sept. 30 community meeting. Among the specific questions raised at that meeting were whether multilingual learners are causing an unsafe environment on TPS buses, the possibility of older newcomers showing up with the expectation of taking younger students for “their wife or concubine or whatever” or enrolling in an age-inappropriate school and then assaulting younger students.

Although school districts cannot require proof of citizenship, students do have to provide either a birth certificate or another form of documentation showing their age when enrolling.

Leaders for both TCTA and the American Federation of Teachers Local No. 6049, which represents TPS’ support employees, said Thursday that their members had not raised any concerns with them about security or discipline problems caused in classrooms or buses by multilingual learners or newcomer students.