Massachusetts school districts await word on new migrant student additions

BOSTON — Districts across Massachusetts are still waiting to find out how many new migrant students will be joining them for the upcoming school year.

The state’s new five-day limit for migrants at temporary respite centers is raising new questions about which districts families will be enrolling in.

A spokesperson with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s Office said that the state has been telling families about their educational rights and options.

According to the state, children have the right to remain in their previously enrolled Massachusetts district, and families have the right to enroll children in the district in which they’re actually living.

“We are concerned that families will be left in limbo and without vital guidance in terms of enrolling their children,” said Erika Richmond Walton, Litigation Fellow with Lawyers for Civil Rights.

Walton said that her group is very concerned that the changes to the state’s emergency shelter programs will have “unintended consequences.”

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Education does not yet have numbers on how many migrant children are expected to enroll in districts this year.

A spokesperson for the state’s Executive Office of Education said 76 districts enrolled nearly 3,000 students who lived with their families in emergency assistance hotels and overflow sites during the 2023-24 school year.

She pointed out that only about half of emergency assistance families are immigrants and that number is not a comprehensive count of immigrant students in Massachusetts.

“Last year we had the largest increase of students who were new to the U.S. in my 26-year career in Brockton,” said Kellie Jones, Director of Bilingual Education at Brockton Public Schools.

Jones told Boston 25 News said her district saw an average of 100 new English language learners monthly last year.

She said that a total of 855 arrived between October 1, 2023, and June 20, 2024.

Those arrivals came after the state’s October 1st deadline which counts for the following school year’s funding.

That means that the district will not be receiving funding for those 855 new arrivals until the summer of 2025 for fiscal year 2026.

“With such limited financial resources, we had to figure out how we were going to fund that. That is a challenge for districts such as Brockton,” she explained.

Brockton opened several additional middle school classrooms last year with resources that were not in the budget.

Jones said resources that the district invested in before COVID have been sustaining the district through its new enrollment demographics.

That includes three parent advocates who speak Haitian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Cape Verdean as well as 14 bilingual community relations facilitators.

Boston Public Schools is another district that is well equipped to educate incoming ESL students.

“They’ve experienced the trauma of crossing borders. If they were to have to switch schools, it’s really hard,” said Russell Weiss-Irwin, who teaches ESL at Sarah Greenwood K-8 School in Dorchester.

Worcester Public Schools also sees its share of newly arrived students from outside the U.S.

It’s organizing a “Family Academy” for non-English speaking families on August 24 from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Worcester State University.

The academy is designed to help migrant families understand how the American school system works and help the district understand how to support their children’s education.

“We see them as assets and citizens to give us new perspectives, and we’re ready for them,” said Deborah Gonzalez, Co-Director of Family & Community Engagement at Worcester Public Schools.

A spokesperson with Governor Healey’s Office said DESE collaborates with other state agencies and community providers to offer technical assistance, guidance, and support to districts and homeless families.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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