Letter sent from the Shakopee Public Schools Superintendent to Staff and Families on Friday, January 23, 2026.

Parents/Guardians and Staff of Shakopee Public Schools:

We want to share with you a number of important messages.

The first of these messages is that we often use the phrase “every kid is my kid.” We use this phrase to convey that each of the students in our school community has innate value and to remind each of us working for Shakopee Public Schools how important it is to see each child with the same type of compassion and genuine care that a parent/guardian sees when looking at their own child.

As a public school district, we deeply understand that if a student’s physical and mental safety needs are not being met, and if a student is not eating well, it becomes incredibly challenging, if not impossible, for meaningful student learning to occur.

Currently, we have a significant number of students and their families who are hurting. They are living with tremendous levels of fear and anxiety. Some of our students and their families are so frightened, they are scared to leave their own home or to send their children to school. We are experiencing higher rates of student absenteeism and, we have increased rates of anxiety and mental health issues being reported. Obviously, this negatively impacts student learning.

In a typical school year, we have a certain level of challenges in providing services. This school year, and especially over the past few weeks, we have a new phenomena causing challenges at very high rates. The primary driving force directly impacting our students is the manner and very high visibility in which Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) are doing their work. For example, there have now been incidents where students, often while waiting for or riding on school buses, including very young children, have observed ICE activity with agents having guns drawn.

The next part of this communication will be broken down into information on school safety protocols and community resources available to students and their families.

In terms of school safety, our district has been working hard for quite some time. Over the past few years, we have developed crisis and safety plans, which can be found on our district website’s Crisis & Safety Information page.

In terms of day-to-day safety, the laws and rules applying to our school buildings, parking lots, fields and other spaces have not changed. Law enforcement agencies, including ICE, must have a signed judicial warrant to legally enter a school building, parking lot or other school district space. The rules are outlined in school district Policy 519.

School administrators and other school staff have been informed and trained on the protocols in regards to outside persons being allowed to enter our property or buildings. Additional information on immigration issues, including an extensive section on laws pertaining to ICE can be found on our website– Immigration Issues in Schools/ICE. On a related note, there exist laws that prohibit anyone from entering a school bus without permission. Tremendous efforts have been made to ensure safe transportation of each of our students to and from school.

The sharing of student data is another concern that has been raised by families in our school community. Shakopee Public Schools does not collect any information regarding the immigration or citizenship status of students. School district Policy 515 further outlines protocols for the sharing of student and family data, which is almost entirely considered private data, and not to be shared.

Since multiple persons have asked, we feel compelled to share that all employees of Shakopee Public Schools have completed the I9- Employment Eligibility Verification, a form required by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Our district also requires a background check that is more extensive than what is called for in law.

As always, our school district stands ready to provide support for our students and their families. We’re incredibly proud of our school district staff– administrators, cultural family liaisons, social workers, counselors, teachers, paraprofessionals and many others who have been going above and beyond to support the learning needs of each and every one of our students. This email communication would be much, much longer if we were to detail the many ways our staff has been providing support to our students and their families. Similar efforts have been made to address food insecurity in partnership with other Community Resources.

Efforts are also underway to support our students in other ways, including the nature of student learning itself. Many teachers have sent learning activities home for students who aren’t able to attend school. Others have provided such activities via the internet. In addition, the staff in our buildings have accommodated students with access to formal online learning via our school district’s partnership with Eden Prairie Online. We have also accommodated other high school students with our own Saber Online program.

If you or your student are in need of support, please reach out to your school building principal. They are highly informed and very skilled at getting students and their families to the right person within our district to help address individualized needs.

In partnership,

Assistant Superintendent Jim Miklausich and Superintendent Mike Redmond

This message has also been sent in Spanish, Somali, Russian and Vietnamese.