Victoria Gomez de la Torre doesn’t know when — or if — the migrant children she serves are going to get the education help they’ve come to rely on.

Gomez de la Torre oversees the migrant education program for 12 central Florida counties. The federally funded service helps the children of migrant agricultural workers, who move within and between states based on planting and harvesting seasons.

Her staff identifies agricultural workers who’ve migrated to the area and helps them enroll their children in school. It also helps connect them with tutoring and medical care.

Earlier this summer, the Trump administration more than $6 billion in education funding, including money for migrant education, after-school programs, English-language programs for non-native speakers and other grants. Congress had already approved the money, but the administration said it wanted to conduct a review of the programs.

The administration announced last Friday it would the remaining $5.5 billion of the money, after unfreezing $1.3 billion earlier this month.

But for Gomez de la Torre’s program, the damage had already been done: Without the money, it had to shut down this summer.

“We didn’t have enough money left over to carry the program,” said Joram Rejouis, the director of program development for the public schools in Alachua County, which includes Gainesville and is the largest of the 12 counties. “Definitely, stopping the program caused damage.”

The program came to a complete halt when Gomez de la Torre’s 11 staff members were offered other positions in the school district. Throughout July, about five dozen migrant children across the 12 counties were without summer services. The were supposed to go out before the start of the month.

“It’s going horrendously,” said Gomez de la Torre. “Migrant families depend on us, rely on our system and our help.”

The Alachua County program serves about 1,000 to 1,200 children of migrant workers throughout the year, many in rural farming communities. Each year, roughly 17,000 migrant children are served by programs across Florida.

“It is a very valuable program for a very vulnerable population,” Rejouis said. “Definitely, stopping the program caused damage, period — for the families, for the program and for the district.”

Migrant children are less likely to have regular primary care and are to face health conditions such as anemia and high blood pressure. Many migrant families who harvest food in the fields themselves.

The program also helps with communication and translation among parents, teachers and guidance counselors. “We were their go-to for whenever they needed something,” Gomez de la Torre said. “Now, they don’t have us.”

The freeze in funds added to the uncertainty and fear created by the Trump administration’s broader moves to target benefits for immigrants. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently it had added Head Start to the list of public programs that would be closed to immigrants who are here illegally. After the funding announcement earlier this month, a senior official the administration had established “guardrails” to ensure the funds are not used “in violation of Executive Orders.”

“It’s anybody’s guess when we’ll come back,” Gomez de la Torre said. “If we’ll come back. If people who chose to retire will return, if their retirement can be rescinded. … Nobody knows exactly how it’s going to play out.”

A similar story is unfolding in California.

The statewide Mini Corps program, run by the Butte County Office of Education, north of Sacramento, connects migrant children at schools and labor camps with bilingual tutors who help them during the school day. Many of the tutors are former migrant children themselves, said Yvette Medina, who oversees the program.

The funding freeze forced the office to lay off around 400 workers statewide, according to spokesperson Travis Souders. Despite Friday’s announcement, the organization is waiting for official word — in writing — before reversing layoffs.

“There’s going to be many students out there who are just going to have another disadvantage to the disadvantages that we already have,” Medina said.

In Santa Clara County, which includes San Jose, the program was forced to shut down altogether, according to Medina.

Medina grew up in migrant labor camps, following her parents to the fields at 4 a.m. as they picked cherries and grapes before she went to school. Her parents worked throughout the Central Valley, back in Mexico and up and down the West Coast, all the way to Oregon.

“It is devastating,” she said. “If it wasn’t for the migrant program, I know for a fact there’s no way I would have graduated high school.”

Migrant families already are gripped with fear as the Trump administration ramps up immigration raids and arrests, which President Donald Trump insists are focused on those with criminal histories.

“They are terrified,” Gomez de la Torre said. “We had families stop sending kids to school and others who fled the country.”

Ruby Luis, a consultant who helps school districts across Florida identify and enroll migrant students in school, also was a migrant child. Her parents worked in orange groves, at strawberry and Christmas tree farms and produce-packing houses.

Program tutors read books with her and gave her school supplies. The program took her on college tours and she enrolled via a scholarship for migrant children — a first-generation college student. She eventually graduated with a degree in biology.

“Just having even somebody to talk to you about going to college — because you don’t have anybody to talk to about [that],” she said. “Having that support was really impactful.

“To take that away, and then now they just have to navigate it themselves, it creates these barriers,” Luis said. “And it can ultimately leave these children not having access to education.”

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

When Yvette Medina was growing up in the labor camps of California’s Central Valley, she’d often accompany her father to the bank to cash checks.

“He’d tell me, ‘You should be a bank teller. You’re inside all day, out of the sun,’” Medina recalled. “For me, growing up, there weren’t a lot of options or things to aspire to. My parents just didn’t know what was out there.”

A program called Mini-Corps changed all that. Mini-Corps, part of the state’s Migrant Education program, sends bilingual tutors to schools and labor camps to help children whose parents work in California’s agricultural fields, dairies, fisheries and timberlands. Medina credits Mini-Corps tutors with getting her through high school and helping her enroll in college, where she ultimately earned a teaching credential.

But now the Migrant Education program is defunded, at least temporarily, after President Donald Trump withheld its grant money on July 1. were also halted, including after-school centers, English learner programs and professional development for teachers. In California, the cuts totaled more than $810 million.

The U.S. Department of Education said it would not release the money until it completed a review of the programs to ensure “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities.” Last week it , but nothing else.

The department didn’t say when that review would happen. Meanwhile, California and 23 other states have , saying that Trump had no right to withhold the money because it had already been appropriated by Congress.

Almost every county in California has Migrant Education programs. Kern has the largest number of migrant students — nearly 5,000 — but even urban counties like San Francisco have at least a few dozen. Now, programs for those students have been put on hold or cut back. Some school districts scraped together money to keep the programs running through summer, but others canceled programs altogether and laid off staff. The Butte County Office of Education, which oversees the Mini-Corps program for the state, laid off more than 400 employees as a result of the cuts. The Santa Clara County Office of Education laid off 22 staff and shuttered many services for migrant students, including college visits, a math and science program, a debate tournament and summer programs.

“Our hope is that we find some other finding source,” said Tad Alexander, deputy superintendent of the Butte County Office of Education. “But right now it feels like they’re trying to bleed it out.”

On the move with the harvest

Nearly 80,000 students in California are migrants, moving every few months with their parents for work, according to a , an educational research and development organization. That could mean winter in Porterville for the orange harvest, spring in Salinas for strawberries, summer in Madera for peaches, fall in Oroville for almonds. Some families even venture to Washington for cherry season, or to Mexico between harvests.  The majority of migrant farm workers are legally authorized to live and work in the U.S., according to WestEd.

Although most migrant students are in school at least part of the time, some aren’t enrolled in school at all. They’re either working in the fields themselves, caring for younger siblings or otherwise helping their families.

Migrant students, many of whom are English learners, tend to struggle academically. Of those who are enrolled in school, only 16% met the state’s math standard and 24% met the English language arts standard last year.

But migrant students had relatively high graduation and college-going rates – primarily community college – in part thanks to the Migrant Education program. Students can get help with reading, math, science, English language skills, one-on-one tutoring, health and social-emotional support, and help enrolling in college and navigating life after high school.

For nearly a century, the U.S. has offered services and protections to farm laborers from other countries. The Bracero program, an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico starting in 1942, allowed Mexican laborers to legally work in U.S. agricultural fields. That program ended in 1964, but President Lyndon Johnson stepped in to enact a host of other programs that benefitted migrant laborers, including the landmark and the Migrant Education program.

Early in his career, Johnson had worked as a teacher at a school along the Texas-Mexico border where most of his students were the children of immigrants. He helped teach them English, started sports and literary clubs and drove them to nearby towns for athletic and speech competitions. He used his first paycheck to buy playground equipment. was the inspiration for the Migrant Education program as well as Johnson’s other anti-poverty programs from that era, according to the National Archives.

The Migrant Education program served about 270,000 students nationwide last year, and is among the smallest of the federal education grants. Of all the programs Trump defunded on July 1, Migrant Education has the lowest price tag: $121 million for California, $375 million nationwide.

‘Dark times’

De-funding the program has had a chilling effect on migrant families everywhere, said Debra Benitez, director of migrant education services for WestEd. Most migrant families deeply value education, she said, and are willing to make extraordinary sacrifices for their children to go to school. The Migrant Education program allows that to happen, she said.

“This is a population of individuals who’ve dedicated their lives to agricultural labor, very difficult work which we know historically no one else is willing to do,” said Benitez, whose grandparents were migrant laborers in the San Joaquin Valley. “All they want is for their children to be educated.”

She believes that defunding Migrant Education will ultimately hurt the economy because immigrants play such a crucial role in farming, dairy, fishing and other industries.

“These families who have historically worked as migratory farm laborers, their plight has long been hard and arduous. But they’re proud to contribute to California’s economy,” Benitez said. “And then there’s the human side of it. It’s painful. These feel like dark times.”

Bilingual teacher pipeline

Mini-Corps works with 28 colleges and universities in the state to train tutors to work in schools and camps. Tutors earn $17.25 an hour and gain classroom experience that can give them a leg up for a teaching career. Most are bilingual Spanish speakers, but some speak Punjabi, Chinese, Hmong and other languages of California migrants.

The idea is to help migrant children while also creating a pipeline of bilingual teachers.

Daniel Martinez-Osornio worked as a Mini-Corps tutor for migrant children when he was a student at Cal State San Marcos. He spent his time at schools in Vista and San Marcos, helping students with classwork but also “building connections, helping kids so they didn’t feel called out or uncomfortable,” he said.

Having grown up in Salinas, Martinez-Osornio understood the challenges that migrant students faced. Although his family didn’t move frequently for work, many of his cousins and friends did. With more than 4,300 migrant students, Monterey County has one of the highest percentages of migrant students in the state.

“I know it’s tough. The parents are working all day, and kids have to be home to take care of their siblings — or be taken care of by siblings,” he said. “The kids just want someone to talk to about their day, what’s going on, express their feelings. They just want to have some happiness.”

Martinez-Osornio was so inspired by his work in the Mini-Corps program that he decided to become a teacher. He recently earned his credential at Stanford and hopes to be a bilingual elementary teacher in Salinas.

He was shocked when he heard that the federal government stopped funding the program.

“It breaks my heart,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe it, considering the impact it has on kids and families. It’s generational impact.”

Waiting and hoping

Some counties have been able to salvage their summer migrant programs without laying off staff, at least for now. The Fresno County Office of Education, which has the state’s third-largest migrant program with 6,300 students, has converted half of its summer programming to a hybrid virtual format. Instead of two weeks at an outdoor education camp called Scout Island, students will spend one week there and one week on other activities, including online learning.

Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Michele Cantwell-Copher said her office would continue to help migrant students as best it can, but it will likely have to make deep program cuts.

“(This program) is a lifeline for thousands of students in Fresno County,” she said. “The students who are impacted by cuts to migrant services are the same students whose families put food on our tables. We will continue to advocate fiercely to ensure these young people get the support they deserve.”

Imperial County, which has 3,543 migrant students, received nearly $5 million last year for its migrant education program. Nonetheless, the county doesn’t plan any layoffs or program cuts, in part because County Superintendent of Schools Todd Finnell said he’s confident that the federal money will come through eventually. Also, the program is worth keeping even without the federal resources, he said.

“Our students and families benefit significantly from the program and any reduction or elimination would certainly be a loss in our mission to improve the quality of life in Imperial County,” Finnell said.

‘Hope that you didn’t have before’

Yvette Medina, whose parents are laborers from Mexico, moved every few months as a child. Her parents picked cherries, tomatoes, watermelon, asparagus and apricots, sometimes working in packing plants in Stockton or Tracy. Medina didn’t spend an entire year at one school until her senior year in high school, when she stayed with an aunt in Manteca.

Mentors in the Migrant Education program helped her enroll at Sacramento State, and inspired her to become a Mini-Corps tutor herself.

“In a world where you feel lost, it’s another person who speaks your language, reflects your culture,” Medina said. “They’re in college, they’re role models. You think, oh my gosh, I want to be like that too.”

Medina worked as an elementary school teacher for several years after graduating, and now runs the Mini-Corps program at the Butte County Office of Education. In addition to running that program, the office oversees Migrant Education for 22 counties between Sacramento and the Oregon border.

“Mini-Corps changed my life, it changed my family’s life,” Medina said. “It introduced me to a profession where I’d have access to a salary, benefits, networks. It gives you hope that you didn’t have before.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

One thing is clear from the stories that populate this year’s list: Many of America’s schools are still grappling with the academic struggles that followed the pandemic – as well as the end of federal relief funds, which expired this fall. Student enrollments have yet to recover and many districts are facing – or will soon face – tough decisions about closures.

Meanwhile, some educators are testing innovative ways of teaching math, reading and science, hoping to gain back some of the academic ground lost since the COVID shutdowns. Technology is also playing a pivotal role in this post-pandemic world, with communities weighing the impact of cellphones and artificial intelligence on student learning and mental health.

November’s election – which featured debates over school choice, Christianity in public schools and the fate of the Department of Education – also made headlines here at ����Ӱ��. And, as calls for cracking down on immigration grew even louder, we dug deep into the hurdles facing immigrant students and schools. 

Here’s a roundup of our most memorable and impactful stories of the year:

Exclusive: Thousands of Schools at Risk of Closing Due to Enrollment Loss

By Linda Jacobson

Long before districts close schools, enrollment loss takes a toll on staff and families, from combined classes to the loss of afterschool programs. This exclusive analysis by Linda Jacobson, based on Brookings Institution research, found that more than 4,400 schools lost at least one-fifth of their students during the pandemic — more than double the number during the pre-COVID period. The detailed look shows how the crisis is playing out at the school level and which districts face tough decisions about closures and cuts. 

Unwelcome to America’: Hundreds of U.S. High Schools Wrongfully Refused Entry to Older, Immigrant Student

By Jo Napolitano

����Ӱ��’s 16-month-long undercover investigation of school enrollment practices for older immigrant students revealed rampant refusals of teens who had a legal right to attend, shutting a door critical to success in America. Senior reporter Jo Napolitano called 630 high schools in every state and D.C. to test whether they would enroll a 19-year-old Venezuelan newcomer who had limited English language skills and whose education was interrupted after ninth grade. “Hector Guerrero” was turned down more than 300 times, including 204 denials in the 35 states and D.C., where high school attendance goes up to at least age 20. ����Ӱ��’s investigation revealed pervasive hostility and suspicion toward these students in a particularly xenophobic era and a deeply arbitrary process determining their access to K-12 education.

Interactive: Which School Districts Do the Best Job of Teaching Kids to Read?

By Chad Aldeman

It’s not news that low-income fourth graders are years behind their higher-income peers in reading. But poverty is not destiny, and some schools and districts hugely outperform expectations. Working with Eamonn Fitzmaurice, ����Ӱ��’s art and technology director, contributor Chad Aldeman set out to find districts that are beating the odds and successfully teaching kids to read. From Steubenville City, Ohio, to Worcester County, Maryland, and across the country, click on their interactive map to find the highfliers in your state. 

Whistleblower: L.A. Schools’ Chatbot Misused Student Data as Tech Company Crumbled

by Mark Keierleber

In early June, a former top software engineer at ed tech startup, AllHere, warned Los Angeles district officials and others about student data privacy risks associated with the company’s AI chatbot “Ed.” The LA Unified School District had agreed to pay AllHere $6 million for the chatbot and the spring rollout of Ed was highly publicized, with L.A. schools chief Alberto Carvalho calling the chatbot’s student knowledge powers “unprecedented in American public education.” But, as Mark Keierleber reported, red flags soon began to emerge. The company financially imploded and its founder Joanna Smith-Griffin left the company. In November, federal prosecutors indicted her, accusing of defrauding investors of $10 million.

America’s Most Popular Autism Therapy May Not Work — and May Cause Serious Harms

by Beth Hawkins

Today, a child’s new autism diagnosis is frequently followed by a referral to a variation of an intervention called applied behavior analysis, or ABA, and four decades of pressure from parents and advocates has created a sprawling treatment industry. Yet, even as providers and lobbyists jockey to strengthen ABA’s dominance, autistic adults and researchers increasingly say there’s alarmingly little proof it’s effective — and mounting evidence it’s traumatizing. In an exclusive investigation, Beth Hawkins spoke with families, teachers and scholars about the growing controversy surrounding autism’s “gold standard” treatment. 

A Cautionary AI Tale: Why IBM’s Dazzling Watson Supercomputer Made a Lousy Tutor

by Greg Toppo

In 2011, IBM’s Watson supercomputer crushed Jeopardy! champions, raising hopes that it could help create a powerful tutoring system that would rival human teachers. But the visionary at the head of the effort watched as the project fizzled, the victim of AI’s inability to hold students’ attention. As new educational AI contenders like Khanmigo emerge, what lessons can they learn from the past? ����Ӱ��’s Greg Toppo took a look at how IBM’s failed effort tempers today’s shiny AI promises.

State-by-State, How Segregation Legally Continues 7 Decades Post Brown v. Board

by Marianna McMurdock

Seventy years after the Supreme Court outlawed separating public school children by race, Marianna McMurdock sought to answer a pivotal question: How are some of the most coveted public schools in the U.S. able to legally exclude all but the most privileged families? Last spring, she spoke with researchers at the nonprofits Available to All and Bellwether, which published a report that examined the troubling laws, loopholes and trends that are undermining the legacy of Brown v. Board in each state. The researchers called for urgent legal reform to offset the impact that one’s home address has on enrollment, particularly as many districts have started considering closures.

Being ‘Bad at Math’ Is a Pervasive Concept. Can it Be Banished From Schools?

by Jo Napolitano

Are you bad at math? If you are, it’s likely that self-fulfilling seed got planted early. Many math education leaders are trying to uproot that thinking, arguing that any student can master the subject with the right accommodations and tutoring. Changing the bad-at-math mindset in U.S. schools, however, will not be easy, others warn. “We use math as a means to sort kids by who gets to be at the top and who gets to be at the bottom,” one math equity advocate told Jo Napolitano. 

Hope Rises in Pine Bluff: Saving Schools in America’s Fastest-Shrinking City

by ����Ӱ�� Staff

Pine Bluff, Arkansas, earned the unwelcome distinction in the 2020 census of being America’s fastest-shrinking city, losing over 12% of its population in one decade. Amid this exodus of families, students and taxpayers, its school district had to navigate school closures, budget pressures and a state takeover. Throughout last winter, members of ����Ӱ��’s newsroom embedded in Pine Bluff to report on the region’s trajectory. Here are some of the powerful stories they came back with: 

Kids, Screen Time & Despair: An Expert in the Economics of Happiness Echoes Psychologists’ Warnings About Tech

By Kevin Mahnken

A prominent economist has joined the growing chorus of experts warning against the dangers posed to youth mental health by screens and social media, reported Kevin Mahnken. New papers released by Dartmouth College professor Danny Blanchflower, a leading expert in the burgeoning field of happiness economics, suggest that the huge increase in screen time over the last decade has made the young more likely to despair than the middle-aged. 

Why Is a Grading System Touted as More Accurate, Equitable So Hard to Implement?

By Amanda Geduld

As educators push for more transparency in grading policies post-pandemic, some are turning to standards-based grading. When done correctly, it separates academic mastery from behavior and more accurately reflects what students know. But misunderstandings of the model, a lack of proper training, and a rush to adopt it often leads to messy implementation. Associate professor Laura Link told Amanda Geduld that as schools look to fix learning gaps, “standards-based grading is one that seems like it can be a quickly adopted effort. But it could backfire — and does backfire — very easily.”

Texas Seeks to Inject Bible Stories into Elementary School Reading Program

by Linda Jacobson

Last May, a sweeping redesign of Texas’ elementary school curriculum that used Bible stories to teach reading was unveiled. At the time, state education Commissioner Mike Morath described the changes as a shift toward a “classical model of education.” But the revisions raised questions about potential religious indoctrination and bias. Nevertheless, in November, the Texas Board of Education approved the new curriculum in a close vote. Linda Jacobson followed the story closely.

The Political War Over the Department of Education Is Only Beginning

By Kevin Mahnken 

Fresh from their November victories, Republicans are already working to help President-elect Donald Trump achieve his promise of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education. But research suggests that, while perceptions of the agency are mixed, the public is unlikely to back a sweeping course of elimination. “Saying you’ll get rid of it reads generically as being anti-education,” one political scientist told Kevin Mahnken. “That strikes me as a very heavy albatross to hang around your neck come the midterms.” 

18 Years, $2 Billion: Inside New Orleans’ Biggest School Recovery Effort in History

By Beth Hawkins

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed 110 New Orleans schools. Displaced families could not return until there were classrooms to welcome their kids, but no one had ever tried to rebuild an entire school system. While many of the buildings were moldering even before the storm, federal funds couldn’t be used to build something better. Some of the schools had landmark status and were of great historical significance. Eighteen years and $2 billion later, Beth Hawkins took a look at seven schools that illustrate how the district accomplished the task.

As Ryan Walters’ Right-Wing Star Rose, Critics Say Oklahoma Ed Dept. Fell Apart

By Linda Jacobson

Oklahoma state education chief Republican Ryan Walters has acted as a one-man publicity machine, a performance that’s earned him venomous foes and ardent fans who follow him with a near-religious fervor. But one casualty of his approach might be a functioning state education bureaucracy. Even Republican lawmakers have grown impatient, calling for a probe into how Walters handles state and federal funds. As Rep. Tammy West, a GOP incumbent running for re-election, told reporter Linda Jacobson, “Regardless of party, citizens want transparency, accountability and communication.”

AI ‘Companions’ Are Patient, Funny, Upbeat — and Probably Rewiring Kids Brains

By Greg Toppo

A college student relies on ChatGPT to help him make life decisions, including whether to break up with his girlfriend. Is this a future we feel good about? While AI bots and companions like ChatGPT, Replika and Snapchat’s MyAI, can offer support, comfort and advice, experts are beginning to warn of potential risks. ����Ӱ��’s Greg Toppo talks to researchers and policy experts about what we should be doing to help make them safer.

Indiana Looks to Swiss Experts to Create Thousands of Student Apprenticeships

By Patrick O’Donnell

Indiana officials have turned to experts at the Swiss version of MIT for help in becoming a national career training leader by making apprenticeships available to thousands of high school students across the state. Indiana is the latest state to work with ETH Zurich — where Albert Einstein once studied — to develop ways to break down barriers between educators and businesses so that career training can be a large part of a reinvented high school experience, reported Patrick O’Donnell. 

Investigation: Nearly 1,000 Native Children Died in Federal Boarding Schools

By Marianna McMurdock 

Nearly 1,000 Native American children died while forced to attend government-affiliated boarding schools, according to a report published last summer by the Interior Department. The children are buried in 74 unmarked and marked graves, reported Marianna McMurdock, as tribes assess repatriation of remains. Nearly 19,000 children were estimated to be kidnapped, often at gunpoint, and enrolled in the schools with the aim of assimilation. “We [were] never called by our name, we were all called by our numbers,” said one survivor. 

The Nation’s Biggest Charter School System Is Under Fire in Los Angeles

By Ben Chapman 

The nation’s largest experiment with charter schools is no longer growing. These days, Los Angeles charter operators say they are just trying to survive. With tough new policies governing co-locations, falling enrollment, and a hostile district school board, charter leaders say they’ve never faced stronger headwinds, reported Ben Chapman. With enrollment plummeting across the district, some charter networks have recently announced closures while others have stopped submitting proposals for new campuses. “Now, particularly in L.A., our focus is not on growing,” said Joanna Belcher, chief impact officer for KIPP SoCal. 

Florida Students Seize on Parental Rights to Stop Educators from Hitting Kids

By Mark Keierleber 

Late last year, Florida senior Brooklynn Daniels was called to the principal’s office and spanked with a wooden paddle “that was thick like a chapter book.” Like in many enclaves that dot the Florida panhandle, Liberty County permits corporal punishment as a form of student discipline. But her flogging, the honors student said, went much further: She alleged sexual assault and filed a police report, reported Mark Keierleber. Daniels joined a student-led movement to change Florida law that has latched onto the GOP-led parental rights movement. 

Interactive: See How Student Achievement Gaps Are Growing in Your State

By Chad Aldeman

In 2012, then-President Barack Obama freed states from the accountability provisions of No Child Left Behind in exchange for reforms related to standards, assessments and teacher evaluations. That relaxing of school and district accountability pressures corresponded with a decline in student performance across the country that is still being felt — achievement gaps are growing across subjects and all across the country. To illustrate these alarming discrepancies, contributor Chad Aldeman and Eamonn Fitzmaurice, ����Ӱ��’s art and technology director, created an interactive tool that enables you to see what’s happening with student performance in your state.

Left Powerless: Non-English–Speaking Parents Denied Vital Translation Services

by Amanda Geduld

Flouting federal laws, K-12 public schools routinely fail to provide qualified interpreters to non-English-speaking families. Parents must instead rely on Google translate, their own kid or a bilingual staff member who isn’t a trained interpreter for issues as simple as their child’s absence for a day or as complex and intimidating as a special education meeting or a school disciplinary hearing. The problem is pervasive and vastly underreported, experts told Amanda Geduld. School leaders say they are trying their best, but lack the money and staffing to meet the need. 

Failed West Virginia Microschool Fuels State Probe and Some Soul-Searching

By Linda Jacobson

The West Virginia treasurer’s investigation into a microschool, funded with education savings accounts, offers a glimpse into an emerging market that has mushroomed since the pandemic. When the program shut down after a few months, parents were left demanding their money back and scrambling to find other arrangements for their children. The example, experts say, shows that it takes more than good intentions to provide a quality education program. As one parent told Linda Jacobson, “I should have seen the red flags.”

In the Rush to Covid Recovery, Did We Forget About Our Youngest Learners?

by Lauren Camera

The country’s youngest elementary school students suffered steep academic setbacks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic – just like students in older grades. But new research shows that they aren’t catching back up to pre-pandemic levels in reading and math the way older students are. And when it comes to math, many are falling even further behind. “We were shocked when we first saw the data,” Kristen Huff, vice president of assessment and research at Curriculum Associates, told Lauren Camera.

Of the roughly migrants who have arrived in New York City since March 2022, about a are school aged children. Late spring tallies estimate at least have enrolled in the city’s public school system.

But experts serving them say the approach to housing and by extension school placement – which includes new families – is “haphazard” at best, threatening the safety and stability of children. 

“We deal with trauma all the time. We work in homelessness, but what we are experiencing is a whole other level,” said Henry Love, vice president of policy and strategy for Women in Need, the largest family shelter provider in New York City and the nation.

WIN is operating several migrant-specific shelters throughout the city, predominantly converted hotels. 

Love, who holds a doctorate in developmental psychology, explained migrant children are experiencing compounding traumas: violence or instability in their home countries, death and uncertainty during the journey to the U.S., and housing instability in the city. They are still in survival mode, and many are experiencing PTSD while attempting to find normalcy in schools. 

“We’re not putting the resources into these kids for them to be able to grow and develop in the best way possible,” said Love. “… We’ve been in this for two years, we’re going to continue to be in emergency mode. At some point, we have to think about what’s happening for these kids long term.”

In conversation with ����Ӱ��, Love discusses what migrant youth are experiencing in the city today and the failures of the systems serving them, while cautioning against the creation of a separate housing system for migrants. 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Thinking about this particular population of newcomers, what’s top of mind for you right now? 

The kids. I feel like that’s been the issue from the onset of this. I’m a former educator, I used to teach elementary school. Just knowing what these kids have gone through, and how young so many of them are, and how critical this age is in their development … the majority of the young people that we have who are asylum seekers are under the age of 6 or 7. 

My barber, who’s from Venezuela, came with his son. He’s 56, telling me the story: Seeing a baby get his head smashed in and dying. Seeing dead bodies on the way up through . All this stuff. What does that do to a six year old? 

This is what I’ve heard from every single parent that I have talked to about what they’ve gone through to get their kids and their families here. There’s base level trauma of what caused them to leave wherever in the first place. And then there’s the trauma on the journey. And then there’s a trauma at the border. And then there’s the trauma being shipped to New York. And then there’s the trauma of being homeless here. 

On top of that, now for no reason besides to harass people, [New York City] is gonna do the 60 day eviction rule? There’s no words for just how cruel that is. What does this mean, for a population that specifically needs to be stabilized more than any other population, and we’re doing one of the things that is the most destabilizing?

How have you seen eviction orders play out?

I feel like it’s purposely complicated.

Basically, for the purpose of this conversation, we’ll say there’s two systems. Agencies that fall under the jurisdiction of the city are having shelters open up underneath them, like Housing Preservation and Development, Emergency Management.

Then there’s the Health and Hospitals system – unique because it’s a quasi-gov agency. Because of that, the right to shelter doesn’t apply the same way to them as they do to the rest of the city agencies. [The 60-day rule is under effect for families with children staying in .] That’s also why we think that the Mayor is trying to get people into these places. 

Most families are in facilities that don’t have a 60 day order, but what we are experiencing is horrible. What the city has been doing is sending all of the families out of Department of Homeless Services tier two shelters, which is mostly what we run and specialize in, and into migrant facilities. They are mostly hotels. 

It’s short notice. We’ve had buses just pull up like “get on” and we’re like, what? What’s happening? 

Same day eviction sort of thing? 

It’s a same-day eviction. We were like, “we need notification. What — you want 30-40 families?” We push back on that. 

There was also another incident where we got notified within 24 hours. We communicated to the families at this particular [Brooklyn] site. When we first opened this shelter in that space a few years ago, there was so much pushback from community members against the opening of a homeless shelter. Eventually what happened was like some of the community members did a petition and they allowed us to open it. After that, there was a much better relationship with the school. 

All that to say that when we had an influx of folks coming into our sites, particularly asylum seekers, all of them went to this one elementary school. Their PTA has just loved all these families. When they heard about this [move] notification, they were like, what the hell? They organized a protest … It’s been beautiful to witness. 

There’s limited things that we can do. We can’t tell them no, we can’t stop them. We say, we can’t force you all to get on the buses, but eventually DHS police will come. And that’ll be really ugly. I don’t have words to describe sitting down with the PTA moms who were asylum seekers — they’re begging me to not transfer them. 

One of the women took her phone out and had this really heartbreaking story from her 11 year old who was at school and was texting her, “Mommy, I’m afraid to come home, the police could be there.” That is what these folks are experiencing during this. 

I’m seeing that transferring regularly — from our facilities to another which doesn’t have the 60 day rule. But forced transfers like that, that are all of a sudden, are very inhumane. I can’t even fathom what’s happening for those kids. And some of them are having to do this every 60 days. 

Thank you for sharing those stories. You mentioned this was happening pretty regularly, sometimes 30 to 40 families at once. How and when were you able to successfully push back? 

I guess [we were sometimes successful] in terms of delaying, but ultimately, the city’s argument is, ‘we’re transferring to the migrant facilities because we’re gonna provide better services.’ We know that’s just not true. It’s unequivocally untrue. 

We opened up a migrant facility, took it over from the city. They had minimal services. They didn’t have anyone that spoke Spanish on staff. Once we put our staff in who spoke Spanish – we only hired people that did – there was a line out the door. 

They’re like, oh, ‘we’re providing legal services.’ No, they’re not. ‘Oh, we’re providing food.’ I’ve never seen more disgusting food in my life, and I have seen prison foods and all kinds of stuff. 

Again, this is in the migrant facilities specifically? 

This is in the DHS migrant hotels where most of the families are, but there are still some families in the Health and Hospitals sites. Those are the big ones like Floyd Bennet Field [in southern Brooklyn]. Floyd Bennett is not a place where a child should ever be. It’s semi-congregate, it’s unsafe. 

We saw what happened when there was that bad storm a few months ago. Everybody at the last minute was forced to down the street. 

Are there loopholes you’ve been seeing used to move families in other shelters? 

No, because of the court mandate [of the right to shelter]. But my concern based on how the city is moving is that they’re trying to create two separate and unequal systems. 

Every time they’re separate, they’re always unequal because they’re not resourced the same way. This is our history in this country. Their justification is that they’re providing specialized X Y and Z [in migrant shelters], which is the same thing they said for segregated schools in the South. 

I think that they will eventually try to ask the courts and the powers that be to apply the 60 day rule to DHS migrant facilities. They haven’t done that yet. 

It’s murky. This has always been my question to them, OK, so when does somebody become a New Yorker? Is it two years? A lot of these folks have timed out and are undocumented. Do all of our undocumented families have to go through this system too? Is it 10 years? When do they get to use the New Yorker system? 

What have you been hearing and seeing about their needs that you feel like is being ignored right now? 

The kids and the trauma — I feel like no one’s talking about the kids at a very basic level in all of this. This is arguably one of the biggest issues of the presidential election, and no one is talking about the fact that the majority of these folks are families with kids.

We deal with trauma all the time. We work in homelessness, but what we are experiencing is a whole other level. We’re not putting the resources into these kids for them to be able to grow and develop in the best way possible. 

Like I said, they’ve seen violence where they came from, which is often what made them leave … then they come here and it’s complete destabilization and chaos. The only rationale for the 60 day rule is to harass people, make them not want to come to New York.

Some I’m imagining are experiencing PTSD in your care as well. How are they finding support?

The moms to me was a highlight – how they’re helping families navigate all this, advocating. Yes, I feel some kind of way that I’m getting screamed at by this group of angry Park Slope moms. But at the same time, it’s a beautiful thing that these women are out here all day fighting for each other. 

We had a group of kids that went to Central Park and a couple of them freaked out. I’m like, why? 

‘Because it reminded them of the .’

So for us as an organization, we’ve been thinking about trauma informed care. What does that look like for kids that have arguably been through some of the most intense trauma on earth?

How we think about our colors, how we’re interacting with folks, language access. Particularly in our migrant facility in the Bronx, we tried to be able to connect folks into the community. Part of the reason we took the shelter was because of where it was located — we knew we were gonna get lots of people who were gonna be Spanish speaking and this is a Spanish-speaking neighborhood. Just being intentional, because I think so much of what has happened in the past two years has been completely unintentional. 

It’s in emergency mode. But we’ve been in this for two years, we’re going to continue to be in emergency mode. At some point, we have to think about what’s happening for these kids long term. 

Most places haven’t really opened Pandora’s Box because they haven’t had the language access, particularly for mental health services. And if they did it all this stuff would come up. What’s happening is that it’s not, and honestly, in the first six months to year, people are still in shock. But now it’s coming out. It manifests in these really weird and interesting ways. 

We’re talking tens and tens of thousands of the kids that need very specialized support. They may not be able to express it in our language, they may not be getting the services that they need and, or their parents may not know or be familiar with how to navigate our systems. 

I get my haircut, and [my barber] is speaking to me in English the whole time. I was like, how long have you been here? Five months. I’m like, you’re fluent. How did you do that? ‘I want to learn English, I want to be here, I want to work.’ We have not given folks the resources they need to be able to do that. 

The wait time for work permits is also exorbitantly long. Can you share about the work that families have been able to find? 

Honestly, I haven’t heard very many people who are recent arrivals, who came after March 2022, who have work authorization and can legally work. 

People mostly are working out the books. Everybody’s working. And they have to, to survive. 

More so for the men is delivery, which has been interesting. There might be someone who has a Doordash account and he might rent his out to like two or three other people. It may look like he’s doing 12 or 20 hour shifts, but he’s actually doing like, maybe a five hour shift. If you go to any of the migrant facilities, there’s just tons and tons of scooters and motorbikes because that’s what they do. 

For the women, I’ve heard a whole host of different things like cleaning. The folks who are vending on the streets and so forth — we’ve seen that skyrocket, because folks have very limited options. 

People find a way, working manual or dangerous jobs that are often . 

We’ve seen that. We do legal clinics and help them with asylum applications and there was one woman who didn’t show up because she was like, I will lose my job. My boss said I would lose my job. We’re like, well, you need to come here so you can legally work. They feel, but if I do, I might not have a job at all. They dangle [employment] over their heads. 

Often, they’ll say, oh, I’m gonna pay you next week. And then they don’t pay the next week. 

Everywhere you turn in New York, you see and feel this population. Recently a ; . 

It’s a cultural thing. People are here and they’re used to doing certain things maybe in Honduras or Sudan and they can’t do that here with their kids. 

Specifically in shelters, like not being able to leave your 17 year old child at home. You can’t leave anyone in the shelter alone under the age of 18. There’s a lot of these situations where it’s like, if I’m a mom and I’m struggling and I have my four year old that has to be with me and I can’t afford daycare, he’s gonna come with me and we’re gonna sell candy. [That cultural difference] is putting them in really precarious situations. 

And then Mayor Adams’s administration … were passing out flyers about, don’t have your kids street vending. As if that was going to make people stop. 

That’s a piece to this conversation, too, that I think people have not thought a lot about. [Families] may have been in a situation where they’ve never been under surveillance now they’re under hyper surveillance. Their movement restricted. 

For a lot of them, schools become the most stable place in their new lives. Our prior reporting showed some of the relationships jeopardized by the 60 day eviction rule and forced transfers. Can you talk a bit about whether you’ve seen families successfully enroll and stay in a given school?

My barber was just showing pictures of his son at school, how he was so excited to go learn and have friends, be social and play. It allows them to escape. The one thing that [the city] could not do is to mess up the kids’ schooling. At least let the kids go to school. 

In your experience working with these various city agencies, what has concerned you the most?

They are still thinking the way they did about this in August of 2022. Advocates and everyone had warned them about all this years prior. People knew this was coming.

It’s not Governor Abbott – I mean he exacerbated it – but it wasn’t just him. This has been happening for a decade, but people have chosen not to pay attention to it. 

The thing that keeps me up at night is the election and Trump’s immigration plan. Now we have created these systems where basically we’re going to have tens of thousands of kids [like DHS migrant facilities]. Will immigration buses show up and detain people? What does a mass deportation look like? That’s the thing that worries me the most — what are they thinking, are they planning for this? 

The other thing is the way that Adams’s administration has gone about advocating for support from the federal government and the state has been deplorable. We need more resources, we need more support. But [their support] has been haphazard, and they are not thinking about this long term. People are in mass migration around the world that’s not about to stop any time soon. It’s just an utter disregard for reality. 

One last question — the youth that were in Central Park and were triggered when reminded of the journey here, what happened that day? How are they?

I don’t know what the rest of the story was. I heard about it because at our migrant facility, we created a program called LEAD, which is legal empowerment and assistance for displaced families. We provide legal support but also social emotional services. The director has tons of stories.

The asylum process is horrible. It’s the least trauma-informed thing ever – basically tell me about the most messed up thing that’s ever happened to you in detail. We had many people breaking down. We were very mindful of who it was happening to, making sure that they were followed up with a clinical social worker to get some support. How do we make sure they have someone with them that they feel can support them? How do we make sure that if they’re couples that we break them up [to talk] because there might be domestic violence? Making sure they have food, making sure they have childcare so the kids aren’t hearing some of the stuff that may have caused them to leave. 

This is all a work in progress and for us, we’re trying to learn what a longer term model looks like to support families that are going through this level of trauma. 

When I was talking to one mom, I was like, look, my hands are really tight. The best thing that you can do is tell your stories. People need to hear this. People need to see the pain, they need to see what you’re going through.