High School Students Broke Silence at Board Meeting Amid Ongoing Local ICE Raids
Community members and students shared their frustrations with the D201 board during the Oct 8, 2025 school board meeting. Jesus J. Montero/ Cicero Independiente
By Ankur Singh
Valerie, a sophomore at Morton East High School, didn’t let her nervousness stop her when she stepped up to the podium to speak at the monthly District 201 (D201) school board meeting on October 8 at the Morton Freshman Center.
Behind her were nearly 100 attendees, including students, parents, and community members who expressed their frustrations and anger that the district has not implemented policies that protect student safety during the ongoing ICE raids. Those who spoke cited recent events, including an email sent by Superintendent Michael Kuzniewski which they claim dismissed students’ fears.
Two other incidents that were mentioned occurred on October 7 when Berwyn police officers interrupted activists handing out know your rights information outside Morton West High School and another when School Board President Jeffrey Pesek shoved anti-ICE protestors at the Houby Day parade on October 5.
“This district should at least be showing students how they can protect themselves and know the rights of both themselves and family, instead of being ignored or disregarded,” Valerie said.
Valerie fought back tears as the audience behind her applauded. She thought of her mother as she spoke.
“She lives in fear every day of her life to even go out or go eat or do anything outside of the house. Sometimes even in her own neighborhood.” Valerie told Cicero Independiente.
In early September, President Donald Trump launched Operation Midway Blitz, his latest round of ICE raids in the Chicago area which has so far detained more than 1,000 individuals. While the board meeting was happening, more than 7,000 protestors were marching in downtown Chicago against the deployment of the National Guard.
Earlier that same day, a federal judge ruled that ICE had broken the law by making numerous arrests without warrants. Cicero in particular has been hit hard with countless viral videos of armed agents arresting people, often violently, without presenting warrants.
Speakers continued to talk about the profound sense of fear many students and their families feel, especially after, according to speakers, several ICE sightings in the vicinity of Morton West High School. Students said they were compelled to speak at the board meeting after feeling like their concerns were dismissed when they saw an email Kuzniewski sent to faculty and staff that referred to their anxieties as a result of a, “media driven fire” and “media hyperbole.”
“Why did you use the word hyperbole?” asked high school student Milagro Martinez to the superintendent. “All of those kids being left without their parents, all of those families being torn to pieces because their family members could be taken in an instant and they would never know…Is that an exaggeration?”
The District 201 school board, centered are Superintendent Michael Kuzniewski (L) and School Board President Jeffrey Pesek (Center). Jesus J. Montero/ Cicero Independiente
Speakers also alleged that board members were Trump supporters and therefore unsympathetic to the fears community members are feeling.
There are several items online that community members have shared via social media regarding Kuzniewski and Pesek. For instance, a Quora account that appears to belong to Kuzniewski shows him making numerous comments in support of Trump. In 2011 when the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Pesek and his brother Craig had ties to a convicted drug dealer and accused mob associate, the latter resigned from his seat on an Illinois Republican Party committee. Both Pesek and Kuzniewski were also photographed attending a 2016 Trump rally in Chicago.
Neither Pesek nor Kuzniewski responded to audience comments during the board meeting. Cicero Independiente also asked Kuzniewski for comment via email regarding the Quora account. We did not receive a response.
However, in an interview with Cicero Independiente on the day of the school board meeting, Kuzniewski said that only a snippet of his email was circulating on social media and not its entirety.
“We know this is real, okay. We know what's going on,” Kuzniewski said. “They're talking about us being MAGA but nowhere in any of the stuff that we are sending out is picking sides…we're trying to be apolitical and just do what's right for kids. And apparently some people feel we're not doing enough. We got to do better.”
The entirety of the email was posted on social media and did not offer specifics on what the district is doing to support students.
Audience members also were reacting to D201 School Board President Pesek shoving anti-ICE protestors and snatching a banner that read “ICE out of Cicero” at the annual Houby Day parade that past weekend.
“You could have used your words and you chose violence,” Luz Chavez, a member of the Berwyn Cicero Rapid Response Team said in comments directed towards Pesek.
Cicero Independiente attempted to request a comment from Pesek the day of the school board meeting, but did not respond to requests for comment.
In addition, the day prior to the board meeting, activists with the Berwyn Cicero Rapid Response Team had Berwyn police officers called on them and were threatened with arrest while passing out know your rights information to students outside of Morton West High School.
Christina Perez was one of those people, who said she was moved to pass out know your rights information to students after seeing videos online of ICE agents stopping students near her home in Berwyn.
“I truly believed I was going to go to jail yesterday for handing out life saving information that the schools should be handing out for the students,” she told the board.
Kristina Cavanaugh, Morton West High School principal, did not respond to a request for comment regarding the rapid response team member incident.
Students and community members requested that the district organize a forum for students and parents to discuss the ongoing ICE raids, create an emergency action plan for what to do if ICE is on school grounds, and train teachers and staff on how to respond.
“It hurts me as a girl to be afraid that her best friends and her parents might get taken away because of people who don't want to listen to us,” one student, who requested to remain anonymous, told Cicero Independiente. “We're Cicero. We are a community. We can grow together and learn together… but that's only if [the school board] wants to listen to us.”
Watch the full meeting stream below:
Ankur Singh is a Cicero-based, Chicago adjacent freelance journalist and organizer. His work has been published in The Washington Post, In These Times, Chicago Reader, Prism Reports, Truthout and more. He is a co-founder of the hyperlocal, bilingual news outlet Cicero Independiente.
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