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More than 200 Spanish-speaking parents and students received calls from Berkeley schools late last month, urging students to attend school May 1 or suffer consequences.  

Parents of students at both high schools and two middle schools received the automated calls the weekend before May 1, when millions flooded the streets in a nationwide boycott to honor immigrants’ rights. The calls were conducted in Spanish and exclusively honed in on Latino families. 

Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) spokesperson Mark Coplan denied that the district office had any involvement in the calls. He said the calls originated at Longfellow and King middle schools and the Berkeley Alternative High School (BAHS). Some students at Berkeley High also received calls because they have siblings at those schools, Coplan said. 

Neither King Principal Kit Pappenheimer nor Longfellow Principal Rebecca Cheung returned calls for comment. One of the BAHS guidance counselors apparently initiated the calls to about 10 Alternative High families, Coplan said.  

The message told parents that school administrators understood students wanted to participate in the boycott, but that the school would not condone such behavior. Parents were urged to discuss May Day events with their children, and told that teachers would hold similar discussions in school. The message also said there would be consequences for students who leave school. 

The same message went out to all the Spanish-speaking families, said BUSD Admissions and Attendance Manager Francisco Martinez. 

Liliana Zazueta, who has children at Berkeley High and Longfellow, claims she received two disparate messages. The one from Longfellow was neutral, she said; it acknowledged that parents might want to pull their children out of school, but that the school did not think it was a good idea. 

The Berkeley High School message was more ominous, Zazueta said. It threatened to lower her son’s grades if he missed school. Her son, a 10th-grader, skipped school, anyway. Recently he received a poor progress report, though Zazueta doesn’t know if it’s linked to his absence May 1.  

One ninth-grader at Berkeley High, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said his father received a call that said if his son went to school May 1 then left, there would be serious consequences. The student attended school, even though most of his friends did not, because “I was afraid of what might happen if I went to a protest,” he said.  

Miguel, another Berkeley High School student who did not want to release his full name because of potential repercussions, claims the message he received said he would not graduate, walk the stage or participate in prom if he missed school May 1. 

Martinez resolutely denies that any other messages went out. He keeps a log of all messages, through the district’s time-based notification system, the NTI Group, Inc., which allows school site administrators to record messages and distribute them to specific groups, like parents who might vote in PTA elections or attend a Back to School Night.  

Some contend that calls which targeted Spanish-speaking families and not other immigrants—even though the boycott honored all immigrants—were discriminatory.  

“Isolating one part of the population, that sounds like discrimination,” said Berkeley High School history teacher Jody Sokolower. “If that’s not racism, I don’t know what is.” 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence would not comment on the specific incidents, but said, “It may well have been something that, if you’re going to inform kids, you need to inform all kids,” though she added that the principals were probably looking out for the safety of their students. 

The news comes on the heels of reports that the school district docked the pay of teachers who attended rallies May 1, prompting some to accuse the district of fostering an atmosphere of intimidation against immigrants. 

“It’s kind of paternalistic,” said Marcela Taylor, a Spanish, history and English language learner teacher who heads up Berkeley High’s La Raza club. “I’m not surprised that there are students and parents who feel threatened.”