Texas schools expect to easily accommodate immigrant kids
Posted Thursday, Aug. 07, 2014

Unaccompanied children

Here are the top 10 states where unaccompanied children were placed Jan. 1 through July 7. The federal government updates the numbers at the beginning of each month.

1. Texas: 4,280

2. New York: 3,347

3. Florida: 3,181

4. California: 3,150

5. Virginnia: 2,234

6. Maryland: 2,205

7. New Jersey: 1,504

8. North Carolina: 1,191

9. Georgia: 1,154

10. Louisana: 1,071

Source: Office of Refugee Resettlement

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As the first day of school approaches for an estimated 5.1 million Texas students, public school districts and state lawmakers are assessing the impact of some 4,000 undocumented immigrant children that may flow into the system.

The children from Central America arrived at the nation’s Southwest border earlier this summer, many of them fleeing violence and abuse in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

After they are processed by immigration officials, they move out of temporary shelters to stay with parents, family members or foster families across the country. Of the 30,340 unaccompanied children placed with sponsors Jan. 1-July 7, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, Texas had the highest number with 4,280 children.

Texas school districts are not required to ask about immigration status.

“They are just going to ask, ‘Does Johnny live in our district?” David Anderson, general counsel for the Texas Education Agency told several lawmakers during a committee hearing in Austin. “If the answer is, ‘yes,’ they are going to enroll the student.”

Often, the unaccompanied minors staying in the temporary federal facilities don’t attend public school classes, but have tutors, according to Catholic Charities Fort Worth, school leaders in various school districts and testimony during the committee hearing.

In Fort Worth, where Catholic Charities served about 200 youth who came through between June 2013 and June 2014, only three stayed in Fort Worth, said Michael Steinert, executive director of student support services.

The Fort Worth school district provides a teacher at the Catholic Charities shelter and will continue to do so, he said.

“We have to take them,” said Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, during a telephone interview. He is chairman of the Texas House of Representatives Select Committee on Fiscal Impact of Texas Border Support Operations.

“How much is it going to cost Texas? We think the federal government should reimburse us for those costs,” Bonnen said.

Estimates provided by the TEA indicate the cost would be around $9,500 per year per student. The state projects enrollment growth of about 80,000 new students every year, said DeEtta Culbertson, spokeswoman for the TEA in Austin. That includes a variety of scenarios including students coming from other states and transferring to public schools from private or home schools.

Anderson told lawmakers the state’s overall appropriation for education, currently a little more than $17 billion, could accommodate unaccompanied minors without exceeding the budget.

Hurricane Katrina

Texas public school districts have experience educating displaced youngsters,

Districts have handled influxes of refugees from Vietnam, Somalia, Sudan and Bosnia. Texas schools took tens of thousands of evacuees fleeing Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

During the 2005-2006 school year, Texas schools enrolled 47,783 evacuees. The state received $235 million in emergency impact aid.

“All of those funds were sent to the local districts,” Culbertson said.

The hurricane experience also tested how the Texas handled a large number of youngsters entering a high-stakes accountability system — the state gave districts a break on testing evacuees for a year.

Texas already has provisions for unschooled children, children seeking asylum and new students who don’t speak English. In the case of unschooled children and those seeking asylum, they don’t test during the first year. There are also tests that accommodate language issues.

Supreme Court ruling

School districts can’t impose consequences for an answer to an immigration question, or for a refusal to answer such a question, said Culbertson. The issue was addressed at the Supreme Court level in the 1980s. In Plyler versus Doe , the court “held Texas could not deny an education to resident illegal aliens,” Culbertson said.

She said the federal Departments of Justice and Education have gone further, warning against practices that might discourage enrollment based on immigration status, such as requiring a Social Security number.

Lydia Martin, deputy superintendent for Educational Operations for the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district, said the district follows the federal and state laws and rules.

“The district in which a child resides (whether they live with their family, a guardian, or are homeless) has the responsibility to enroll and serve the student,” Martin said. “However, we cannot enroll any child without them at least having the required immunization started.”

Earlier this summer, Alabama schools made headlines when the Southern Poverty Law Center complained that many school enrollment forms denied or discouraged access to education by requesting Social Security numbers or U.S. birth certificates.

Alabama’s State Superintendent of Education sent a memo to city and county school leaders stating they cannot require Social Security numbers or birth certificates for enrollment.

“No child is to be denied enrollment in any school or participation in school activities and programs based on the immigration of the child or the child’s parents/guardians,” the memo states.

“I don’t expect there to be chaos or overflowing classrooms,” Bonnen said. “Texas is a large state. We are a dynamic state.”

Diane Smith, 817-390-7675 Twitter: @dianeasmith1

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