By Peter Day
Staff Writer
LUCERNE VALLEY -- A support system is in place for Lucerne Valley students feeling emotional following the recent election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.
"We can get them the support they need," Peter Livingston, superintendent of the Lucerne Valley Unified School District, said last Thursday. Livingston's statement was in response to a query by school board member Mavrick Von Haug.
"Have you guys experienced any political bullying going on in the high school that you're aware of?" Von Haug asked during the monthly school board meeting. "If not, we've got to get on it right away."
According to Livingston, the district now has a counselor who is trained to deal with such issues. Also, the superintendent added, the Desert/Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA), can assist, if needed. "We have connections to get counselors out."
Lucerne Valley Middle School/High School principal Douglas Ferber also addressed Von Haug's question.
"A lot of kids were down and depressed," Ferber said. "They're scared."
Ferber said some students, mostly in the middle school, have asked if their parents would be deported now that Trump has been elected.
"There's been a lot of that kind of stuff around the past couple days," Ferber said. "I think the teachers have been very informative in talking about this openly about how the political system works. The most important thing to understand is there's no one person that's going to push the nuclear button, and I think those are the kind of things that kids get told. They don't really understand there's a whole Congress and there's a whole bunch of other people besides the President."
Since last Tuesday's Presidential election, there have been protests in California and several other states. Some people have expressed concern that Trump is going to round up undocumented residents. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently stated that more than 200 incidents of hate and intimidation have occurred since election day.
However, House Speaker Paul Ryan attempted to assuage such concerns during an interview last Sunday with CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
“We’re focused on securing the border. We believe a security enforcement bill is our top priority,” Ryan said. “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump is not planning on that.”