Ivanka Trump Visits Connecticut School, Parents Pull Kids Out Of Classes

First daughter Ivanka Trump made a surprise visit to the Norwalk Early College Academy (NECA) in Norwalk, Connecticut, on Monday, prompting some parents who opposed the views of President Donald Trump to pull their kids out of the class.

At the gathering in the school which included high school students in a program at Norwalk High School, Trump discussed the importance of career education. NECA allowed degrees in software engineering and mobile programming and the students could also earn a high school diploma and an associate's degree in four years.

“To see the passion and enthusiasm for bringing real-life skills into a classroom environment but then coupling it with real-life experience through internship creates this really beautiful virtuous angle,” she said, News 12 New Jersey reported.

The parents of the students, who were not aware that Trump was scheduled to speak at the school on a particular day, suspected that the information was withheld due to security concerns.

“This should have been brought to our attention, although I do understand security reasons,” one of the parents, Karey Fitzgerald, told News 12. “I think we should have had the choice to send our child to school or keep them home,” she added.

Trump, however, posted pictures of her visit with a caption that read “It was an honor to meet so many bright and talented students!”

She was accompanied on the visit by IBM CEO Ginni Rometty who developed the academic model the Norwalk Early College Academy was built around.

Not all parents opposed the visit. Parent Angela Yaneth Guzman replied to a photo from Trump's visit on Facebook, thanking her for speaking to her son.

"My son Nicolas Guzman is a NECA student and you talked to him today and he's so excited about it. It's something He will never forget. Thank you Ivanka," she wrote.

An alumna of the academy, Monica Mercuri, also disapproved of Ivanka's visit to her alma mater. "Hope the diversity of our students and our large immigrant population doesn't scare her away!" she tweeted.

In the tweet about her visit, Trump also mentioned the STEM project that in September was granted a funding of $200 million each year for expansion by the president.

The project aimed at providing assistance by the U.S. government for the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including coding education, as the White House sought to train workers for high-demand computer-science jobs of the future.

Speaking after the memorandum granting funds was signed, Trump, who spearheaded the initiative, said: "Our country's long been the leader in innovation fueled by the skills, creativity, and grit of our workforce. In recent years with growing technological advancements, the nature of our workforce has increasingly shifted to jobs requiring a different skill set, specifically in coding and computer science," Ivanka Trump told reporters in a Monday conference call.

She also called the presidential memorandum "an enormous step forward toward an important milestone of aligning the skills being taught in our classroom with the jobs that exist in the country."