Regardless of greater than 2,000 Nationwide Guard troops approved by President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser stated college students within the nation’s capital won’t be aided by their presence as youngsters return to highschool this week.
“We do not want federal companies to assist get youngsters to highschool,” Bowser instructed ABC Information. “We’ll handle getting our youngsters to highschool.”
The college 12 months begins as Bowser and the Workplace of the State Superintendent of Schooling (OSSE) tout proficiency charges in English language arts/literacy (ELA) and math are the very best since previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ELA proficiency price is the very best on report.
Lots of of hundreds of scholars are returning to the classroom throughout main metropolitan college districts this week.
Some 100,000 college students return to D.C. faculties on Monday amid the Trump administration’s surge of regulation enforcement into Washington. Scholar security is all the time a high difficulty for schooling leaders throughout back-to-school season. Nevertheless, the presence of troops in Washington is elevating new questions as a military-style automobile was concerned in an accident final week and troops might be gathering all through town at Metro rail stations, which is what number of college students get to highschool.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser fields questions from reporters throughout a information convention at Phelps Structure Building and Engineering Excessive Faculty in Washington as Metropolitan Police Division Chief Pamela Smith listens on Aug. 20, 2025.
Rod Lamkey/AP
Bowser stated D.C.’s present transportation methods embody utilizing the district’s secure passage program with native regulation enforcement lining the streets. If households really feel unsafe, the district presents a secure join program, which connects college students with a experience to highschool.
Bowser believes utilizing the Guard as regulation enforcement is pointless and stated the crime price had decreased “precipitously” earlier than Trump’s surge.
“I feel calling women and men from their houses and their jobs and their households — they’ve for use on, you realize, on mission-specific gadgets that profit the nation,” Bowser stated, including, “I do not assume we now have an armed militia within the nation’s capital.”
However Washington’s Metropolitan Police Division Chief Pamela Smith acknowledged that the federal brokers unfold all through town have made enhancements to security.
“Listening to from the officers on the road, a few of them have discovered it to be very useful, some folks locally have discovered it to be very useful,” Smith stated.
In Philadelphia, the place practically 200,000 college students are returning to varsities this week, Faculty District of Philadelphia Superintendent Tony Watlington argued crime and shootings have additionally decreased there. He famous that the nation’s eighth-largest college district is investing in “security zones” by contracting with the Philadelphia Police Division to offer extra patrols in areas which have an uptick in violence.
“We have invested extra assets and secure paths applications the place we contract with neighborhood organizations to supervise youngsters as they traverse, as they make their solution to college, to make sure their security,” Watlington instructed ABC Information. As well as, Philadelphia is hiring extra college security officers for the college district employees, Watlington stated.Watlington stated he’s fostering a welcoming atmosphere within the Metropolis of Brotherly Love, which he stated is making a tradition the place younger folks really feel related, seen, and heard.
“We have now to construct relationships,” Watlington stated.
“We’re specializing in that closely within the college district, as a result of when youngsters who really feel related, their social and emotional psychological well being and wellness are attended to, and so they have relationships with one another and with adults, once they see one thing, they’re extra prone to say one thing and so these are numerous issues that we’re doing in our strategic plan to offer for the protection and effectively being of our younger folks and our staffs,” he stated.
A member of the Nationwide Guard patrols contained in the Foggy Backside Metrorail Station in Washington, August 21, 2025.
Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Pictures
However Watlington and Philadelphia dad and mom and households do have anxiousness about important cuts to its public transit system, SEPTA.
“We simply cannot go and get extra yellow college buses and put them on the road in Philadelphia,” Watlington stated. “We depend on public transit, and it’s unlucky, and it is no fault of our kids that they will have some impacts to their transportation.”
Nonetheless, Bowser and schooling officers in each D.C. and Philadelphia agree security is the highest precedence for his or her respective cities. At Bowser’s back-to-school pep rally earlier this month, she pressured a neighborhood response is required to make sure a profitable first day again.
Bowser urged D.C. residents to clap, cheer, and have fun town’s college students all week.
“Our youngsters deserve and can get a joyful begin to their college 12 months,” Bowser stated, including, “All of the adults in our buildings, all the folks in our authorities are targeted on ensuring that that occurs.”
“We would like them to have a terrific college 12 months, and we’re all going to be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them.”
