The Future of Education
Policy, Protection, and Partnership: How School Networks Strengthen Sanctuary Practices
Chandler Miranda, Molloy University (United States)
Abstract
As immigration enforcement intensifies and public schools face mounting political and bureaucratic pressures, immigrant-serving schools increasingly rely on collective strategies to sustain sanctuary-oriented practices. This paper examines how the Internationals Network for Public Schools, a U.S.-based intermediary organization supporting schools for recently arrived immigrant and multilingual youth, strengthens schools’ capacity to enact sanctuary through networked leadership, policy mediation, and cross-school collaboration. Drawing on an institutional ethnography conducted between 2023 and 2025, including textual analysis and longitudinal interviews with network and school leaders, we analyze how the network operates as a strategic actor shaping leadership practice, knowledge sharing, and policy interpretation.
We situate our analysis within scholarship on educational networks, which conceptualizes networks as deliberately organized relational structures that build social capital, facilitate collective learning, and enhance schools’ responsiveness to complex institutional demands (Muijs et al., 2010; Díaz-Gibson et al., 2014). Our findings illustrate how the Internationals Network engages in targeted policy advocacy, reduces administrative and emotional burdens on educators through centralized partnerships, and fosters trust-based leadership communities that enable rapid, coordinated responses to immigration enforcement and policy uncertainty. In particular, we document how network leaders and principals interpret and adapt state and district policies to prioritize student safety, often filling gaps left by formal policy protections that exclude immigrant youth.
Building on research that positions Internationals schools as sites of possibility and counterpublics for immigrant youth (Jaffe-Walter & Miranda, 2020), this study shifts attention from individual schools to the network as a unit of analysis. We argue that sanctuary schooling is not a static designation but an ongoing, relational practice sustained through collective leadership, shared knowledge production, and strategic engagement with policy regimes (Collet & Macías, 2022). By foregrounding networks' role in mediating power and reducing isolation, this paper offers a grassroots model for sustaining sanctuary schools and advancing educational justice for immigrant youth in an increasingly hostile political climate.
REFERENCES
Collet, B. A., & Macías, L. F. (2022). Sanctuary schools and the cultural politics of protection for immigrant students. Educational Policy, 36(3), 403–431. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048211059723
Díaz-Gibson, J., Civís, M., Daly, A. J., Longás, J., & Riera, J. (2014). Networked leadership in educational collaborative networks. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 42(6), 723–739. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143214523017
Jaffe-Walter, R., & Miranda, C. P. (2020). Sites of possibility: Internationals schools and counterpublics for immigrant youth. Equity & Excellence in Education, 53(3), 325–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1758241
Muijs, D., West, M., & Ainscow, M. (2010). Why network? Theoretical perspectives on networking. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 21(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09243450903569692
