AURORA, Colo. — Until early this year, Alberto, 11, had never stepped into a classroom.
“I wanted to go school, but Dad wouldn’t let me,” Alberto said through an interpreter. (The Hechinger Report is identifying Alberto and Yuliver and other migrants by only their first name because of concern for their safety or privacy.)
Last summer, Yuliver and her son left their home country, walking across two continents before arriving six months later in Denver, where Yuliver’s sister lives. Alberto enrolled in suburban Aurora Public Schools as a fourth-grader, and he has learned enough English that his teachers hide their smirks when he makes a particularly witty, and inappropriate, pun.
Alberto is one of about 2,800 migrant and refugee children who have arrived in Aurora, located just east of Denver, this academic year. The Denver school district — the state’s largest, with a total enrollment of about 88,000 — similarly has enrolled at least 3,700 newcomer students since last summer. In May, Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, started sending immigrant families by the busloads to the Colorado capital, adding it to a destination list of other Democratic-led cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington.
Aurora and Denver, like many school systems in Colorado, have long welcomed students new to the United States. In recent years, they have designated specific campuses to serve as resource hubs for migrant and refugee families. But the ongoing surge of immigrants — local educators hesitate to call it a crisis — have exposed clear signs of strain: Classrooms don’t have enough seats for students. Teachers are fatigued by large class sizes and discipline issues. And state and local leaders are increasingly resistant to helping shoulder the costs.
The City Council in Aurora, for example, recently passed a resolution restricting migrants from receiving local public services, a move that opponents fear will place undocumented residents at risk if they experience a fire, medical emergency or violent crime. But when it comes to schools, requirements under the U.S. Constitution are clear that states are obligated to allow children living in the country without legal documentation to access a basic education. That’s created a dilemma for schools in communities such as Aurora and Denver: The steady arrival of newcomers has all but reversed years of declining enrollment, staving off budget cuts and layoffs, but the costs associated with addressing the new arrivals’ basic needs are steep.
“It doesn’t matter what your opinion is. You have to serve these kids,” said Julie Sugarman, an associate director for K-12 education research at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “There are civil rights that support these kids, but it does come with real, significant costs.”
In a typical year, Denver Public Schools enrolls about 500 students who have just moved to the country. The district so far this year has been receiving an average of 250 each week, according to Adrienne Endres, the district’s executive director of multilingual education.
“We have some very full classrooms,” she said. “We hear most from teachers, ‘This is kind of overwhelming. There’s a lot more kids and they all need a lot more from me.’”
The majority of migrant families in Denver have chosen to place their kids in schools with existing bilingual programs, Endres added. But many students who have little, or any, formal experience with education find a better fit in one of the district’s newcomer centers. Denver opened its first center back in 1999, in an unused gym at Denver South High School.
The district has since expanded the program to six campuses, where students learn literacy skills for one to two semesters before gradually moving into general classes.
On a recent morning at South High’s newcomer center, teacher Karen Vittetoe worked with 14 teenagers from nearly as many countries — including Burundi, El Salvador and Sudan — on how to tell time and describe a daily schedule in English.
“Marta goes to work at 9:50 in the morning. Is that 9:15 or 9:50? Do you hear the difference?” she asked as two teaching assistants walked around the classroom.
The adults together speak six different languages, allowing them to help during small group and one-on-one instruction. But that’s not nearly enough in Vittetoe’s larger second period, where 33 students speak 11 different languages.
“Can you imagine?” she said. “I don’t even have enough desks for them all.”
One of her students, 18-year-old Momena, spoke no English when she first enrolled at South High late last year. Her family left Afghanistan, where the Taliban banned girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade.
“I like everything about this school — except the food,” Momena said. “They have a nice curriculum and also kind teachers.”
Momena hopes to one day work in the medical field.
“This is very important for me,” she said of getting an education in the United States. “I want to go to college, go into nursing. I try hard every day.”
Like Momena, most students in Vittetoe’s classes arrived after Oct. 1 — the date on which Colorado determines its annual funding for K-12 schools based on enrollment. Only 10 other states rely on a single count day to allocate funding to districts. And in Denver, that has required central administrators to draw from cash reserves and other department budgets to make up for the roughly $17.5 million that the district hasn’t received in per-pupil funding despite enrolling so many migrant and refugee children since last fall.
State lawmakers in February fast-tracked a plan to provide $24 million — to be split among districts across Colorado — to ease the strain on local school budgets. Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed the legislation in early March, but the money has yet to trickle down to local districts.
“Without action in D.C., it’s up to each state if schools get any support at all,” said Jill Koyama, vice dean of educational leadership and innovation at Arizona State University’s teachers college.
At Boston P-8 School in Aurora, the first few weeks made for a rough transition for Alberto.
He failed a vision screening test and received a voucher for an eye exam, but passed it. Teachers eventually determined he had such little schooling that he simply couldn’t identify letters to follow along in class. The school nurse also learned about trauma Alberto had experienced back home and on his journey to this country. School staff members would have placed him with a therapist on campus, but no one on the mental health support team speaks Spanish. Many newcomers, including Alberto, have been referred to an online therapy service.
The school, however, had recently hired Danielle Pukansky, one of two English language development teachers who, in a tiny and cramped room, lead daily 45-minute classes for multilingual learners such as Alberto.
“The trauma showed when he first got here,” Pukansky recalled, noting he had been aggressive toward other students. “How to re-regulate when these big emotions come up in such a little body, that is part of my background — and thank goodness.”
Boston P-8 is one of six community schools in Aurora that provide intensive support services — such as medical care, food, clothing and adult education and language classes — to help stabilize families so kids can focus on academics in class. It’s similar to the community hub model that Denver Public Schools operates at six campuses.
Late on a Wednesday afternoon, Yuliver sat in Boston P-8’s community room with her head in her hands. A worsening toothache had kept her awake for days. After making a couple calls, a staff member booked her a tooth extraction, free of charge, at a nearby dental clinic.
“This is the only place I feel supported,” Yuliver said. “Clothes, WiFi, food, shoes — they help with everything.”
Statewide, enrollment has fallen for two straight years, prompting school closures, budget cuts and potential layoffs. But in the Denver area, the surge of students from other countries has more than made up the difference.
So far this year, Ellis Elementary in southeast Denver has absorbed 60 more students than initially expected. The large class sizes and student turnover have been tough on teachers: Principal Jamie Roybal said that on hard days, many of her staff members contemplate leaving the profession.
“We’re swimming in the deep end,” she said, looking into a classroom. “That’s a first-grade teacher with 35 newcomers. That’s a lot. When she goes home, she’s exhausted.”
By winter break, Denver’s Hamilton Middle School had absorbed 100 additional students over its projected enrollment. Priscilla Rahn, a Republican candidate for the Douglas County board of commissioners who teaches band and orchestra at Hamilton, said it’s been a joy to welcome so many new musicians who have never had an instrument of their own.
Still, Rahn wondered whether the community’s generosity had been exhausted.
“We’re cutting city services,” she said, referring to the mayor’s budget. “As a teacher, we can’t ask if you’re legal. It doesn’t matter. I teach all kids. But as a city, we’re pretty much at capacity.”
Teachers who speak Spanish are in particularly high demand. Some Denver principals have been able to recruit migrant parents who used to teach in their home countries, but the checklist of requirements they must meet for eligibility to work in the state is long. At Ellis Elementary, for example, a classroom aide from Venezuela finally got her teaching license approved in Colorado — three years after she first applied to teach in the United States.
The latest bipartisan immigration reform proposal, which collapsed in Congress in February, would have expedited access to work authorization for asylum seekers, potentially allowing people like Yuliver to begin employment before the current six-month waiting period.
Without a job, Yuliver has struggled to afford an apartment — even one without hot water or central heating — for her and Alberto. She would like to work in a beauty shop, doing nails and hair, but already has considered making the trek back to Venezuela if she can’t find employment.
“I wish for him to keep studying,” she said of Alberto. “He’s intelligent. He just wants to learn everything.”
Alberto, meanwhile, said he misses his friends and swimming at the beach back home. But here he’s learning to ride a bike — provided by the community school program — and has already made five new friends at Boston P-8.
During a sunny but chilly recess, Alberto drew a heart with wood chips on the ground in his school’s playground. He placed a stray feather in the middle and said it was for those friends he had made at his first-ever school.
This story about Denver migrants was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
