ICE said it was focused on undocumented immigrants with criminal records; its internal data showed<\/a> that three-quarters of those taken into ICE custody during the operation had no criminal record at all.<\/p>\n Minnesota leaders said federal agents were targeting schools \u2014 \u201cAll it does is cause terror and trauma to the children,\u201d Gov. Tim Walz told the New York Times<\/a> \u2014 and Fridley Middle, which draws from immigrant communities, was among several schools in the area that were directly impacted by the raids<\/a>.<\/p>\n Halverson knows multiple students who had a parent or other relative taken by ICE. At the height of agents\u2019 activity, he said, between 100 and 150 of his students did not attend school in person because parents feared leaving their homes to transport their children or were afraid to send them via bus.<\/p>\n Some mornings, Halverson estimated, he had 100 or so voicemails waiting for him, the phone\u2019s light blinking constantly. Most were from parents.<\/p>\n \n Jordan Halverson had a sign made featuring three core pillars when he took over at Fridley Middle school, which celebrates its diverse student body. (Jourdan Rodrigue \/ The Athletic)<\/p>\n \u201cYou could hear the pain, the sadness. They\u2019re asking me, \u2018How are you going to protect my child?\u2019\u2009\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 You sit there, you\u2019re a first-year principal, and you\u2019re like, \u2018I don\u2019t have all the answers. I can\u2019t guarantee 100 percent safety for your child.\u2019 It was a lot of helplessness, and sitting in that.\u201d<\/p>\n Halverson goes back to No. 1 on his sign. Do I belong?<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I always tell people is that we\u2019ve got to control the controllables,\u201d he said, using a phrase commonly heard in football. \u201c(We can) welcome these kids into the building each day and make them feel safe and that they are home.\u201d<\/p>\n Halverson knows firsthand how much that matters. As a teenager, he may have appeared to some as the imperturbable football star of Fridley High. In reality, his home life was turbulent. Food and shelter were frequently uncertain. Halverson\u2019s friends, teachers and coaches across Fridley supported him \u2014 with meals, a bed and more.<\/p>\n Now, the Fridley Middle staff and students looked to Halverson, their rookie principal, to lead them through a frightening and uncertain winter.<\/p>\n No. 3. Can I do this?\u00a0<\/p>\n By the time Halverson\u2019s mother moved them to Fridley the summer before he entered ninth grade, he was old enough to understand that something was wrong, but not old enough to understand what it was. All he knew was that they couldn\u2019t ever keep an apartment for very long.<\/p>\n \u201cI was used to my mom calling me or sending me a text like, \u2018We gotta get out of the house by this time because we can\u2019t live there anymore,\u2019\u2009\u201d he said.<\/p>\n During a particularly challenging episode with her mental health, Halverson said, his mother went to stay with her sister in Wisconsin. Halverson had just started to settle in at school. He was making friends and gaining the attention of coaches who saw him play football and also wanted him on the basketball and track teams. Halverson wanted to stay in Fridley and finish school, yet he no longer had a permanent home there.<\/p>\n (He didn\u2019t see his father from age 2 until he was in high school, when his dad showed up unannounced at one of his basketball games. They don\u2019t keep in touch, Halverson said, although he has relationships with other half-siblings on both his dad\u2019s and mom\u2019s side.)<\/p>\n Coaches, teachers and friends\u2019 parents recognized the truth of Halverson\u2019s situation and were keeping an eye on him. Halverson crashed on couches all across Fridley. His mom sent money to the families who took him in for food and clothing, but he wasn\u2019t always sure where his next bed or meal would be.<\/p>\n Eventually, Halverson moved in for a months-long stay with one of his best friends and football teammates, Travis Zerwas. Zerwas, his four siblings and his parents lived in a modest house near the high school and had little to spare. However, everyone was welcome at their table regardless of background or circumstance, and Zerwas\u2019 parents gave what they could.<\/p>\n Finally, Halverson had a consistent roof over his head. Some of his fondest memories are from conversations at the dinner table with the Zerwases.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t need the best to do your best,\u201d Zerwas remembers his parents often saying. Halverson came to understand that many Fridley families held those same values.<\/p>\n His mother later moved back to Fridley, and Halverson returned to live with her, but they still moved around town a lot. She was a fierce advocate for Halverson\u2019s education, though, and pushed him to make at least a 3.0 grade point average so he could draw more scholarship consideration from colleges. Concordia-St. Paul recruited him and offered financial aid.<\/p>\n At CSP, Halverson again emerged as a standout player and a quiet leader. Others around the team at that time noted that Halverson did not speak up much but took it upon himself to check in on teammates and the locker-room dynamics \u2014 and recalled that when he did voice an opinion, people listened.<\/p>\n \n Teammates considered Halverson (6) a leader, both in high school and in college. (Courtesy Justin Oakman Photography)<\/p>\n Shortly into his junior season, Halverson tore his ACL. Because he had an extra year of eligibility due to the injury, he and a college adviser realized he could pursue a secondary degree. He chose educational leadership, thinking about the people who had once helped him and how he might give back.<\/p>\n When he returned to the field for his final season, Halverson set CSP\u2019s career tackles record. He started hearing about interest from NFL scouts and\u00a0thought professional football might\u00a0be a possibility.<\/p>\n Buzz about Halverson\u2019s potential football career was circulating back in Fridley, too. He was their hometown player, who was first preparing for a regional NFL combine and was then invited to the Vikings\u2019 rookie minicamp. He even had an agent. Teachers at Fridley Middle still mention that Halverson once trained at the same facility as other local stars, Detroit Lakes\u2019 Adam Thielen and CSP\u2019s Zach Moore.<\/p>\n At the rookie minicamp, Halverson was honest with himself. He could hang with the guys on special teams \u2014 he flew around with effort and hit people \u2014 but between the level of competition to make the roster and lingering effects from his college injury, his football career was likely over (he did make it long enough for then-Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer to cuss in his direction after a play, he jokes).<\/p>\n Halverson had known that he wanted to be a teacher when football was over. Eventually, he thought, he could become a principal, a natural match for a team leader.<\/p>\n He taught health classes and coached at Wayzata High, a well-to-do school in a Minneapolis suburb, for seven years, becoming the defensive coordinator of its state championship football team in 2019.<\/p>\n However, his path shifted again. He and his wife, Kaliah, had a daughter in 2018. The long nights and weekends he spent coaching began to pile up, and Halverson did not want his daughter to grow up without him as a constant presence. He had missed his father too much. He eventually shifted fully to administration, and one day last summer, Halverson saw the opening for a new principal at Fridley Middle.<\/p>\n Without hesitation, he applied. The interview process began. It felt like fate that he might be able to lead in the community that raised him. When the school board announced Halverson as the new principal, he wept.<\/p>\n \u201cI was speechless. Instant tears,\u201d he said. \u201cThis community means so much to me. It\u2019s done so much for me. They all wrapped their arms around me when I needed them.\u201d<\/p>\n As Halverson came of age in Fridley, he thought football would be his path to becoming extraordinary somewhere else. Now, he believes he was always supposed to come back.<\/p>\n Fridley Middle enrolls students from all over the metro area and is very diverse, a fact the teachers and administrators are proud of. In the front lobby and outside Halverson\u2019s office, a large wall features a mural that welcomes people to the school in 24 different languages, next to it, an American flag.<\/p>\n Halverson himself is multiracial (Black, Vietnamese and White) and believes it\u2019s important for his students to see someone from a diverse background in such a vital role.<\/p>\n One frigid, gray day last winter, Halverson received word from his district network that ICE agents were in Fridley and would possibly come by the high school and middle school. He acted quickly. He sent a staff-wide email asking teachers and administrators to stand outside the school at dismissal that afternoon, and urged staff over the school loudspeaker to check their emails. If agents did arrive, Halverson wanted them to see all the adults, not just the kids.<\/p>\n Staff only needed to show up if they felt comfortable, he stressed.<\/p>\n At dismissal, Fridley Middle\u2019s teachers and many support staff put on their jackets, scarves and gloves and walked outside. There they stayed, helping to get students safely into vehicles.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we had 100 percent of our teachers out there,\u201d Halverson said.<\/p>\n The next morning, in the frigid dark of the Minnesota winter, teachers were outside again to greet students as they arrived. For weeks, as the raids continued, the staff kept it up.<\/p>\n Fridley Middle has three social workers, including Jaimie Beran, a Fridley native who returned to the school after graduating from Florida State University. She also knew Halverson in high school, though she was a few years younger.<\/p>\n In a normal year, the social workers network with students and families throughout the entire Fridley community and into the greater metro area \u2014 anywhere there might be a student in need. They keep an eye on students who might not have a stable situation once they leave class; the Jordan Halversons of a different era, as Beran put it.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0528_JordanHalverson_Inline-1024x512.jpg\")
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