The 9th graders in Tracy Byrd’s class typically end the second quarter of the year with a challenging essay on Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck’s chronicle of the Depression era.
This year, as students at Washburn High School in Minneapolis analyze the novella’s tale of a doomed pursuit of the American Dream, their community is coping with real-world upheaval.
Since December, the Trump administration has made Minneapolis a focus of a nationwide push for heightened immigration enforcement in urban areas. Across the Twin Cities, federal immigration agents are forcibly taking immigrants into custody and have become engaged in heated confrontations with protesters.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot local resident Renee Good this month, about a mile and half away from Washburn’s campus. That same day, Border Patrol agents were seen on video clashing with protestors outside another high school two miles away.
Now, some desks in Byrd’s classroom sit empty. Children absent from class appear as muted images on his computer screen. The disruptions to student learning are district-wide: Citing safety concerns, Minneapolis schools—along with at least two other districts in the Twin Cities—have offered temporary distance learning options.
Byrd, who was Minnesota’s 2024-25 Teacher of the Year, is relearning how to teach students in person and online at the same time.. His class is navigating its first major literary essay. And amid ongoing federal immigration raids, they’re all learning what it means to live in a new normal.
Byrd spoke with Education Week about his experience as a Minneapolis teacher from Jan. 8-16. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
‘We’re still trying to figure this whole thing out’
I have some [students who have] opted into distance learning. With that, there’s a universe of students that are crushing it. They are still excelling, still being present as much as they can, still turning in work. And then I do have some that opted into the online learning world, and they’re not around for Google Meet. They’re not asking questions via email. They’re not responding to the online assignments. .
What we know is, of that universe of students, some have ghosted because self-preservation says that they have other things to worry about. There are a small number that [tell me] these issues aren’t impacting them on a big day-to-day basis, and yet the homework isn’t being turned in.
Every day, I write assignments on the board for the students in the classroom, where they can take notes, and we’re going from there. At home in distance learning, they’re able to see the same slides. They ask questions through the chat. They’re so polite they will not unmute and ask questions in the middle of the class.
I will say, having done it once before during the pandemic makes [it] not as stressful as it was the very first time. Now it’s just kind of remembering, “Oh yeah, I need to turn on the Google Meet. Oh yes, I need to share my screen,” versus the “Good morning, everybody here in my classroom. Now let’s get going with today’s lesson.”
We’re still trying to figure this whole thing out. Who knows how long this is going to go.
You can see the teachers—their faces showing how they’re weathered. Social workers are taking in grocery orders, dropping off things to families on top of their normal day-to-day duties and still showing up for the students with that kind of strong face that says “We’re going to get through this.”
Some of the students in our Black and brown community, their faces tell a different story than our white faces. Our white faces say, “I am the ally. I am the one that is helping where I can, and I’m able to do this work.” Black and brown faces are not quite exhausted yet, but it’s that, “I have to now navigate school for seven hours a day and then figure out going home and getting to school and all of that at the same time.” It’s heavy on them. You can see it.
I’m not going to lie. Weeks drag on when we get to this time of the year, where the sun [is] coming up [late] and goes down super early. There is a drain on my energy levels. Then having to do both [in-person and distance learning] every day, it’s a cognitive load to remember I have to change how I do this. Then I have to hide my frustration that it is our federal administration that is forcing this change to take place when, typically, it’s the job of adults to protect children.
‘Everything is in flux’
Wednesday, [Jan. 7], the bell rang, my class left, and I flipped on the internet, and I was like, “Oh, man, that’s not even a mile and a half away, where the shooting took place.”
I had lunch, and we had prep, the teachers in my 9th grade crew. There’s three of us. We meet every day to lesson-plan. That day, it was all trying to process what’s going on. Lunch ends, prep ends, and then we have fifth hour, and that’s the end of my day.
Video surfaced about the teacher at Roosevelt [High School], where the teacher in front of the students is being cornered by [federal agents] and then [dragged] away. We have a basketball game that night, and we’re already trying to come up with protocol. If ICE were to show up, how do we lock the doors? What are we going to do? And we just try to come up with that plan, which is bonkers. ..[And then] we get an email just saying we’re not going Thursday or Friday, but on Friday, we’re going to find out what we are going to do for Monday.
Thursday was me literally at my house screaming at the TV, saying profanities all day long. It’s a work stoppage. It’s not the teachers saying we want a better contract. It is not a pandemic. It is … fear and chaos that is stopping us from working. I’m really trying to wrap my brain around this and reconcile this.
Friday [Jan. 9] happens. As teachers, we all come back into the building. At 8:30 a.m., we’re having a meeting with our principal, and then we’re going to try to figure out what is the best course of action, because the quarter ends next week.
How do we get to the end of the quarter? How can we minimize the distraction and the disruption? Who is going to be able to drive into a neighborhood, whether they are known or not, be able to knock on a door and give this aid, give these things to these students, to the parents of these students, without people looking at them and wondering who they are and why they’re here? [When our district announced it was allowing distance learning,] then the question was, well, how many students are we talking about?
Everything is in flux. We have to try to provide normalcy. That’s it. And normalcy looks different.
‘It’s not just curriculum’
My message to the students on Monday, [Jan. 12] was, how are we doing? I know you had a couple days off. And the second message was, sometimes grades matter, and sometimes they don’t. The level of effort that you can give, if you can put forth your best effort, that is what’s being rewarded. Don’t focus on how to get the best grade. How can you take care of yourself and continue to show up?
Children are the most resilient group on the planet. Some of them come here [from the standpoint of] “I need to block out what’s going on in the real world.”
It’s the jokes and the rock-paper-scissors that they play in class, just to kind of get their peers thinking about something else. This is education. It’s not just curriculum. It is, how do I show up for my peers when I know there’s really nothing that I can do for them? [Students are saying], “How do I take just the smallest burden away from [mypeers]?” And they’re actively trying to do that at age 14 and 15. It’s the best thing to see.
On Wednesday, Jan. 14, there was an announcement [in the school that said, “We are in a code yellow lock-in. No one is leaving the building, and no one is coming into the building.” There was ICE presence near the school.
We don’t know how long [until] this is going to end. We don’t know what the next place is going to be, but the only constant is change.
We know something’s going to happen somewhere, and when it does, can you give yourself and your students grace? These are unprecedented times, so we might not get it right, right away. We might make a few mistakes, but as long as we understand that our students are the most important thing and we do what they need each day, then we’re doing right by them. And that’s the job.
‘I know you’re OK’
We read Of Mice and Men, and we read some other texts, some poetry, “Yo Soy Joaquin” [by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales about the Chicano movement of the 1960s]. Different authors, different ethnicities, different time periods, and then what we’re going to do is compare these texts to one another. What is the author saying about America in this time period? What is Langston Hughes saying when he penned “Let America Be America Again” [about the American ideal]. … Are they saying similar things? Are they saying totally different things? Is what they’re saying still happening right now or not? We’re comparing texts to [today’s] world, texts to texts, and texts to self. They’ve never had to write an essay like that.
Usually, essays are [about talking] to me about your neighborhood, or we read a book, and they give an analysis, a book report, and we call that an essay in middle school.
They’re going to write this one physically by hand. We’re getting away from the technology in the Chromebooks, to combat AI. So I’m able to see, are these your ideas, not ideas that you asked ChatGPT to write. We want to communicate our thoughts and stand [by] our thoughts.
The students [in distance learning] are going to compose an outline as if they were going to write the paper, and just that. We’re going to have them set up their outline, which is going to be super difficult to have that AI-generated, because you have to find quotes that are going to support your topic sentence, to support your thesis. You’re in distance learning, so there’s something else that you have going on. Let that take precedence, and when you’re in the building, we have something else for you.
In my room, it’s less than 10% [online]. For our building, it’s a little higher. What I found interesting is a couple of students have switched. They opted for online, and they made class in person, but if they’re not in class, then they’re online. They’re showing up on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, but Monday, Wednesday, they can’t. As long as you are getting this information, whether you choose to get it online or in person, it is irrelevant to us.
If I can see your face, that’s even better, because then I know you’re OK. But if you pop up on my screen, I also know you’re OK.