BROOKLYN, January 15 – How do we as school workers connect with our students’ families when school-sponsored events are mostly remote since COVID? At our school, we decided to organize a school-wide, in-person community event highlighting student projects, art, and music.
Over 150 family members attended our project and arts showcase organized by the anti-ICE rapid response team at our school. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members are active in this team.
The turnout showed just how hungry families are for connection, solidarity, and collective action. It was a step in breaking down the isolation built under capitalism and magnified since COVID, and a step towards building a communist world run by our students who are the future of the working class.
ICE out of our schools!
Comrades have been organizing this anti-ICE committee since last year, with as many as two dozen staff members working together to create a response to safeguard our students in case ICE is in the neighborhood or shows up at school. This committee has been pushed forward by the antiracist, pro-student sentiment of a group of dedicated staff members. Most in the group receive CHALLENGE on a consistent basis, showing growing openness to communist ideas. Last year, we also organized a school-wide Know Your Rights assembly to show students that their teachers care about them and are willing to stand up against the fascist kidnappings of our immigrant brothers and sisters.
This year, as ICE raids have ramped up across the country, we knew we had to step it up and reach our students’ families directly. We wanted families to know that we want to connect with them, defend them, and organize with them. Along the way, we had a political struggle over whether Zohran Mamdani’s election would mean a safer city for the working class. There was resounding agreement that no politician will be able to stem the tide of rising fascism. We have to organize with our students and parents to fight back. This understanding reflects over 20 years of communist organizing at the school, including countless rallies and antiracist struggles to defend students against the NYPD, school segregation, and budget cuts. As communists, we understand the importance of challenging the culture of passivity that the bosses push.
At the event itself, students presented projects highlighting important social and political issues impacting society today, including gentrification, the MTA budget cuts, organized resistance against slavery and so much more. Student artwork and music were also showcased. A potluck brought together this multi-racial parent and student body, with families eating delicious food and celebrating student work together.
Our committee also organized a food pantry to support families facing food insecurity due to food stamp budget cuts or ineligibility for aid. Students helped organize the pantry, pack bags of food, and distribute them to anyone who wanted. Under capitalism, neither housing nor food, healthcare, or education are guaranteed. That is why we need to fight for communism, a society where the working class is in charge and will guarantee these basic human rights.
How to respond to fascist attacks by ICE
Over 40 family members packed into a classroom for the ‘Know Your Rights’ workshop organized by our committee; this workshop was the driving force behind the school-wide event. We presented our plans to help keep students safe from NYPD and ICE attacks. We shared how we’ve organized ICE watches in the neighborhood and had to jump into action just months ago after reports of ICE activity nearby. We also discussed a Department of Education email sent to some NYC high schools detailing plans to immediately arrest any student found with a “weapon.” While some parents initially thought this would improve safety, they were shocked to learn that “weapons” could include items like forks or safety pins. Involving the NYPD immediately opens the door for ICE to access vulnerable students. Although the DOE claimed the email was sent in error, it has not been retracted in schools.
Parents signed up to join our committee and participate in ongoing organizing efforts. Families also took part in an activity writing messages of solidarity on butterflies to build a bulletin board welcoming all students. These small acts help break down the racist and nationalist walls that capitalist media and schools work overtime to build. We ended the workshop by inviting families to join us the next morning for a before-work rally across the street from the school.
The next morning, about 20 staff members, joined by a few students, rallied in frigid temperatures. With signs in hand we chanted for working-class, multi-racial unity and fightback against the vast number of capitalist attacks we are witnessing: school budget cuts, food and healthcare budget cuts, imperialist wars, but mainly racist ICE raids and killings. This was the fourth rally we’ve held since last June, and we received enthusiastic support from passing vehicles, MTA buses, and waves of students on their way to school.
We need communism!
A teacher and Party member spoke about the society our students deserve. Capitalism, organized for the profit of a few at the expense of most, offers only war, instability, and police terror. Students everywhere deserve better. We must continue to organize worker-student-parent multi-racial unity to fight against all of these attacks. But unless we win our co-workers, our students, our families, to the understanding that capitalism must be smashed once and for all, we will be on a hamster wheel of forever fight-back.
It is the task of communists to be bold in sharing our solution, the need for communist revolution. Admittingly, it is easier to write that in an article than to struggle to overcome anti-communist ideas and develop the confidence that the working class will heed our call. There is no short cut. Fight for communism! We have nothing to lose but our chains.
