WASHINGTON — At a ribbon-cutting on an addition to an elementary school in the affluent Glover Park neighborhood last Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser was all smiles. She watched students perform a scene from the musical “Oz,” then spent several minutes talking about the benefits of investing in schools and getting students excited to get back in the classroom.

But minutes after taking photos with school leaders and local officials, she walked into the building’s gymnasium, where she was swept into a tornado of her own, facing questions from reporters about a much tougher topic: the impacts of President Donald Trump’s attempt to take over the city. All 14 questions Bowser fielded were about Trump’s executive order, including:

• “There’s been video of ICE arrests spreading across social media… What’s your reaction when you’re seeing these videos in the city?”
• “Can you tell us how you feel about the additional National Guard troops coming from other states… Do you feel this has usurped your authority even more?”
• “How are you reflecting on this moment? It seems like your potential concerns about this administration are starting to be realized?”

Despite Bowser’s attempt to project normalcy ahead of the first day for public schools Monday, the start of the school year will be anything but business as usual. Federal agents have set up checkpoints at various intersections across the city. They’ve conducted immigration enforcement actions, with food delivery drivers slammed to the ground and arrested by masked agents from the Department of Homeland Security in broad daylight. National Guard soldiers in Army fatigues have taken up posts outside of Nationals games and at metro stops.

The White House says there are more than 2,000 agents, officers and soldiers involved in the operation, and more than 900 arrests have been made.

While the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told NBC News last week that agents wouldn’t be at D.C. schools on the first day, they might come onto campuses in the future.

As mayor, Bowser is the highest ranking official in D.C. government. But ever since Trump issued an executive order declaring an emergency to restore “law and order” in the nation’s capital, her limited power has become more evident, reflecting the city’s lack of autonomy since it is not a state. She wants the agents from Homeland Security Investigations to stop covering their faces to avoid identification during enforcement operations. She doesn’t think the National Guard presence is necessary, and wants them out. But all she can do is ask.

So she’s focused on the things she can control.

“Monday is my favorite day of the year,” Bowser told a room full of educators at Phelps Ace High School in Northeast Washington on Wednesday.

There are more than 52,000 students in D.C.’s 117 public schools.

Even with the city on edge, Bowser told the educators to avoid the elephant in the room when the bell rings on Monday.

“I want everyone to know whose job politics is in this room,” Bowser said. “Whose job is it? It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine. I’m the only one. It’s not yours. Alright?”

She told teachers to “trust that I’m going to do the right thing for all of us.”

But that’s not reassuring to parents, who are grappling with how to do the right thing for their kids.

Alicia Swenson has four children in D.C. schools, and she and her husband were planning to let their sixth and seventh grade children commute to school on the Metro by themselves. Now, though, Swenson said she and her husband will to escort their kids to their school in Northwest D.C. because the National Guard is making their younger daughter uncomfortable.

The last time she saw a large law enforcement presence in D.C. was during the 2020 racial justice protests, Swenson said. This time, though, is harder to explain to her children.

“Back then, I think we said, ‘There’s peaceful protesting, and that is people’s right. It’s a good thing to do to stand up when you see something wrong,’” Swenson said during a Friday interview. “But this? I have no idea what to say to her. It’s very hard for us to explain what’s going on right now.”

At a back-to-school event in the West End neighborhood on Friday, parent Melissa Neil said that while the National Guard surge can be “understandable,” it was also “a little concerning.” Neil is a citizen but immigrated from the Dominican Republic, and she noted that even if someone is a citizen, “you still look as an immigrant.”

“You never really know what are the standards,” Neil said. “Even if you have your documentation, they can still identify you as you are not. So it is concerning that you’re with your kids, and they can pull you out.”

Nearly every day, a video goes viral of immigration enforcement actions on the streets of Washington, after the Department of Justice directed Bowser to order the city’s police department to assist in immigration enforcement operations and to comply with database inquiries and requests for information from any federal law enforcement entity.

At the same back-to-school event, Louis Limes said he has “mixed emotions” about sending his daughters back to school amid the surge of National Guard and federal agents.

“If they’re out here for the safety of our children, cool, but from the last couple of days, we’ve seen that they went over their boundaries as far as protecting and serving the streets, harassing, physically abusing citizens,” Limes said.

Itzetht Testa was shopping with her children in Columbia Heights on Thursday, and she said that although she served 25 years in the Air Force, she disagreed with the National Guard in the city’s streets. She voted for Trump but disapproves of his first few months so much that she says she will never vote for a Republican again. Now, she said her seventh grade son felt threatened seeing the National Guard.

“If they’re using it for immigration purpose, I don’t care for that,” she said of the National Guard near schools. “It should not be used for that.”

“I will always vote independent from now on,” Testa added.

While DC residents have yelled, taunted, and protested against the federal agents and National Guard in their neighborhoods over the past 14 days, when students get to the front doors of their schools on Monday, Bowser said Wednesday at the Phelps pep rally that parents, neighbors, and friends will be there “clapping” them in, to show the city is cheering them on.

“We’re all going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with them,” Bowser said.