The Minneapolis school system will offer families the option of remote learning for a month, officials said Friday, responding to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out in a city where tensions are high over federal immigration enforcement.

Under the temporary plan, teachers will simultaneously deliver lessons from their classrooms to students in the classroom and at home, similar to the way many did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Immigration enforcement in cities across the U.S. has led to dips in attendance, parents and educators say. Advocates in other cities facing federal interventions have sought remote learning options, particularly for immigrant families that might feel vulnerable, but Minneapolis appears to be one of the few districts to reintroduce the option of virtual learning.

“This meets a really important need for our students who are not able to come to school right now,” a Minneapolis school administrator wrote in an email to their staff late Thursday.

Administrators’ emails to staff indicate the decision to offer remote learning wasn’t a quick one. They refer to long meetings with input from school principals and the teachers union, acknowledging the planning and coordination required to deliver virtual school. In light of the devastating academic and emotional impact remote learning had during the pandemic, some also see it as a last resort.

A desire to keep students engaged in school appeared to prevail.

“This will keep them safe and help them keep up with their work,” the school administrator explained in one of the emails obtained by The Associated Press. “It will also allow them to be counted present, so we don’t have a ton of dropouts next week.”

Schools see remote learning as a way to help in stressful times

That Minneapolis, a district of nearly 30,000 students, would willingly offer remote learning again suggests a new level of fear after an onslaught of federal attention and conflict. There’s been President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on the Somali community living there, a pledge to send 2,000 federal immigration agents and a federal agent’s deadly shooting of Renee Good, a mother of three and a U.S. citizen, on Wednesday.

On the same day as the shooting, immigration enforcement agents detained someone outside the city’s Roosevelt High School around dismissal time, which led to altercations with bystanders. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators said agents deployed tear gas and detained an educator before releasing them.