WINOOSKI, Vt. — The day’s class started with a writing prompt: Do you feel safe in school? Why or why not? The students — whose families hail from across the globe and speak languages including Arabic, Nepali, Spanish and Somali — wrote their responses before reading them aloud.
“I feel safe in school because I saw the school doors are locked every time,” one student said, “and I heard ICE is not here.”
“If ICE comes to school, they are not allowed to go in,” said another.
“ICE can’t come in,” said a third teen.
The sense of security students feel in this multilingual learner class at Winooski High School is hard-won. Since the start of the second Trump administration, the federal government has investigated schools for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, rescinded a policy protecting students on school grounds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and threatened school districts with the loss of federal funding. Administration officials have also encouraged states to challenge a decades-old Supreme Court decision guaranteeing undocumented students’ right to public schooling, which conservative activists say takes resources from American children.
While many districts have chosen to go quiet or self-censor out of fear of being targeted, the Winooski school system and its superintendent, Wilmer Chavarria, have taken the opposite approach.
Last year, this small district of about 800 students was the first in Vermont to pass a sanctuary policy aimed at protecting students from immigration enforcement while at school. Then, months later, Chavarria refused to sign a document from the Trump administration saying it is complying with the federal ban on DEI efforts in schools.
Student artwork is displayed prominently in the atrium at Winooski High School in Winooski, VT. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report
That’s happened even as the district has been affected directly by federal policies. In June of last year, Chavarria, a naturalized citizen, was detained for several hours by immigration officials at the Houston airport while on his way back from visiting family in Nicaragua. Over Thanksgiving break in November, a second grader was detained with his mother by federal agents conducting immigration enforcement. After weeks in a detention center, they left the country. In early December, the Winooski School District was the target of racist messages and phone calls after a video of a student raising the Somali flag on a pole outside the high school went viral on social media.
While there have been no direct threats by the Trump administration to pull Winooski’s federal funding, which accounts for 6 percent of the district’s annual budget, Chavarria said he is preparing for the possibility.
“When somebody wants us to lose funding, we’re going to lose it anyways. The difference is, did we lose it while bending the knee, or did we lose it while standing up for our values?” Chavarria said. “Either way, the outcome will be the same.”
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Nestled along the Winooski River on the outskirts of Burlington, Winooski is the smallest school district by land area in Vermont. This 1.5-square-mile community is the most diverse district in a state that ranks among the whitest in the nation. Nearly 60 percent of students here are people of color, more than a third are learning to speak English, and about 71 percent of students live in poverty.
The Winooski School District, where more than one-third of students are learning to speak English, is the most diverse school system in Vermont. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report
For more than three decades, the town and neighboring region have been a federal refugee resettlement community, accepting hundreds of immigrants annually who are fleeing conflict from Bhutan, Somalia, Bosnia and Syria, among other countries. Last year, the Trump administration decreased the admissions cap for refugees into the U.S. from 125,000 in 2025 to 7,500 in 2026, the lowest limit for refugee placement since the program’s inception.
Since then, the number of refugees resettling in the state has been reduced to a trickle. So far, about 50 refugees, all from South Africa, have relocated to Vermont this year.
Chavarria, 37, joined Winooski schools in 2023 after serving as director of equity and education support systems in another Vermont district. Born in Nicaragua, he didn’t learn English until high school, a background that resembles many of the Winooski students he serves. His actions on behalf of immigrant students have built him widespread support in the community.
“Wilmer has been a brave voice in a time in our country where that’s being punished,” Robin Merritt, a parent of three children in the district, said as she dropped them off on a Tuesday morning in April. “I can’t speak for everybody, but most of the public is pretty proud of his leadership.”
The sanctuary schools policy is a key reason. The guidance formally outlined Winooski’s policy reaffirming that staff will not share student data with immigration officials. It also restricts agents’ access to campus without a signed judicial warrant, among other steps. In May, after advocacy from Chavarria and others, the Vermont Legislature passed a law modeled after Winooski’s policy requiring all schools in the state to have immigration enforcement protocols.
Letters of support hang on the walls of the Winooski School District. The district received a deluge of racist threats in December after raising the Somali flag on school grounds in December. Photographed on April 7, 2026. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report
In an emotional district meeting last February, more than three dozen teachers, students and Winooski residents spoke in support of it.
“I want to know the district has my back,” one staff member said.
“We are scared. Passing this will help us feel safe and at ease while at school,” a high school student told board members.
Most school board members supported the policy from the outset. But Nicole Mace, the board president, said she worried it would make Winooski a target of federal officials, who have at times singled out sanctuary communities for policies that impede immigration enforcement.
She was not at the meeting where the policy was approved, in a 4-0 vote. But in the year since, she said she’s learned how much it has meant to families in the district.
“The risk is around us no matter what, and for the district to take a very clear and unwavering position of support for our families and students couldn’t be done with little tweaks in the policy or putting our heads down and hoping that we could just ride this out,” said Mace.
Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, an organization that advocates for the rights of immigrants, said clear policies like this one not only protect students, but also staff, who may not know what immigration agents are allowed to do on school grounds. Her group advocates for all school districts to have such policies, in the same ways schools plan for earthquakes and tornadoes and other emergency situations.
“You want to be able to show that you support all families, including immigrant families, that they ideally should participate and not be afraid of coming to school,” she said.
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A 2022 study found that children from families with mixed citizenship status were more likely to earn A’s and less likely to report problems with their teachers and peers if they attended a school that had a “safe zone” policy restricting immigration enforcement on campus.
“I really see the impact in the classroom,” said Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver, who teaches English and history at Winooski High and was Vermont’s teacher of the year in 2025. “When kids feel seen and heard and valued in our district and community, it shows up in the work they’re doing.”
Caitlin MaCleod-Bluver, Vermont’s statewide teacher of the year in 2025, serves on the Winooski School District’s team of rapid response volunteers who help out when students or their families are dealing with immigration enforcement. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report
MacLeod-Bluver is part of a group of teachers in the district who have volunteered to drive or walk students to and from school when they are worried about immigration enforcement in town.
A desire to reassure immigrant families was also the impetus for Chavarria’s decision to raise the Somali flag on school grounds on Dec. 5, three days after President Donald Trump referred to Somalians as “garbage” in a Cabinet meeting. When a video of the flag went viral on right-wing social media, staff had to temporarily take down the district’s website and social media accounts and unplug school phones because of death threats, hundreds of which were turned over to Vermont State Police and the FBI.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said at the time that the threats came from individuals who had nothing to do with the Trump administration. “Aliens who come to our country, complain about how much they hate America, fail to contribute to our economy, and refuse to assimilate into our society should not be here,” she told The Associated Press. “And American schools should fly American flags.”
Despite the onslaught, the staff kept the Somali flag up, beside the U.S. and Vermont flags, through the following week to show support for Somali students, who make up about 9 percent of the school system’s student population.
Chavarria — who with his husband stayed at a hotel for a few days following the episode after receiving death threats — said he believes if more school leaders publicly and vocally pushed back on Trump administration policies, Winooski wouldn’t be as big of a magnet for people’s hate.
“It does feel like we are alone in an ocean,” he said. “It is very, very scary. It is draining. It is demoralizing. It’s like a nightmare that you wish one day ends, because you feel like nobody else understands it because nobody else is being attacked the way we are.”
Last spring, the superintendent’s brother and sister-in-law had to leave the U.S. after the Trump administration ended a Biden-era program that allowed eligible Nicaraguans to stay in the country for a two-year period with a sponsor. The family, who had lived with Chavarria as their sponsor, still had time left on their visas when the program was abruptly canceled. When Chavarria was stopped at the Houston airport while he was on his way back from visiting family in Nicaragua, immigration officials searched his devices and interrogated him for nearly five hours, about his marriage and work and citizenship, before releasing him.
“When I get asked, I advise people that your status doesn’t matter if you’re brown,” said Chavarria, who has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over agents searching his personal and school devices while he was questioned.
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Inside the Winooski school building this spring, there were visible traces of the challenges of the last year. Since the deluge of death threats in December, doors separating hallways are locked, requiring a staff member to let students through sections of the building throughout the day. Along the entryway’s walls, dozens of posters and cards from families, students and supporters both near and far carry messages such as, “You belong here,” “You make our community a better place” and “Somali students we stand with you.”
A table with “Know your rights” and “Conoce tus derechos” emblazoned across a banner sits off to the side, with documents translated into more than half a dozen languages telling families how to organize their documents and talk to children about ICE, along with papers they can hand immigration agents explaining their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.
Students work through a journaling prompt in a multilingual learner reading class at Winooski High School. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report
Still, outside of school walls, the district has not been able to keep all students safe. In the weeks following the second grader’s detention in November, teachers wrote letters of support appealing to immigration officials and organized a fundraiser for emergency resources and legal fees. Erin Hurley, a multilingual teacher who taught the boy, said detention center officials denied her request to send his school work to him.
During phone calls, the mother told Winooski staff that her son wasn’t doing well at the detention center in Dilley, Texas, due to lack of edible food, clean water and medical care. After seven weeks in Dilley, and despite having a lawyer fighting for their release, the family decided to self-deport.
In the last year, Hurley and other staff members at the school district have volunteered to be temporary guardians for several students whose parents worry about being detained.
“I feel so disgusted that our country has come to this. These families make our community so much brighter. They contribute to Vermont so much,” Hurley said.
In March, protests erupted in nearby South Burlington when immigration agents detained three people at a house, none of whom were the man agents had a warrant for.
A high school student in Winooski — whose family members are Nepali immigrants and whose name is being withheld to protect her privacy — saw videos of the arrests and protest online. She said she appreciated that the Winooski School District sent out a message alerting families about the incident. The sanctuary schools policy has made her and her mother feel safe while she is at school, the student said. And she hopes other districts in Vermont pass similar policies — a requirement under the new state law, starting next year.
“Right now, it’s only Winooski. Even if they don’t have a lot of students or staff of color, I think it’s really good to make it a sanctuary school, still. Because there might be one or two students that it would be really helpful,” said the student.
Becky Savage teaches a multilingual learner reading class at Winooski High School in Winooski, VT. Credit: Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report
Back in Winooski High School’s multilingual learners class, their teacher, Becky Savage, turned to a new topic: Astronauts aboard Artemis II had just released photos from the far side of the moon, the farthest any human has ever traveled from Earth. She pulled the images up on screen for the class to see.
They had a million questions. Is that photo artificial intelligence? How do the astronauts have access to the internet? Why didn’t they land on the moon?
For a few minutes, their thoughts were 250,000 miles away. Then, it was time to practice reading and writing in English again.
Contact staff writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at [email protected].
This story about Winooski was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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