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NYC schools with asylum seekers to receive $12 million funding boost
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Gwynne Hogan
Published Oct 31, 2022
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Gwynne Hogan
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Gwynne Hogan
Published Oct 31, 2022
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Mayor Eric Adams is releasing an additional $2,000 in funding per student to schools that received an influx of students seeking asylum in this country, the administration announced Monday.
The city Department of Education has allotted $12 million in additional funds to schools with six or or more new students living in city shelters and hotels. The funding will go towards hiring more Spanish-speaking staff, additional extracurricular programming and more social emotional support for kids, the city said.
Since July, more than 7,200 students living in temporary housing enrolled in public school, according to the DOE, and the vast majority of those new students are asylum seekers.
Advocates say the additional funding is a start, but it falls short of what schools are owed and students deserve.
At a rally on the steps of DOE headquarters Monday morning, Comptroller Brad Lander said his office calculates each school should receive $7,000 per student.
Lander said “$2,000 each, that's great," but added “that is not enough money to hire Spanish speaking teachers to resource and support their dual-language programs and to provide the support that every one of those students need.”
Many schools with asylum seekers across the city had been grappling with budget cuts based on city projections that enrollment would decline. Advocates described how many schools that received an unexpected influx of asylum-seeking students were still awaiting budget adjustments from the city.
As school funding lagged, school communities across the city have rallied around their newest students, gathering donations of food, clothing and school supplies.
Each year, the city reassesses actual school enrollment on Oct. 31. Adjusted funding typically reaches schools’ budgets by January, advocates say.
The city said this year it’s been processing requests for additional funding on a rolling basis and that $25 million had already been disbursed to schools. But Andrea Ortiz, the senior manager on education policy for the New York Immigration Coalition, said none of the schools she’s in regular contact with have received new funding.
“We don't know where it is, and we would like to have more transparency around where it's going and how it's being spent,” she said. Some schools managed to use their existing budgets to bulk up staff, though she’d only heard of them bringing on interns and temporary counselors, not permanent, fully-trained bilingual educators.
The comptroller’s office has also requested more details from the DOE on where asylum seekers are going to school and what funding has been sent to those schools.
Naveed Hasan, a father at P.S. 145 on the Upper West Side — where around 40 children seeking asylum are enrolled — and a parent representative on the local Community Education Council, said even once schools get a funding boost, he expects recruiting the right talent to lead to further delays.
“Finding Spanish speaking social workers and therapists has been a challenge because everyone needs them right now all at the same time,” he said. “Even if we get the money, we have to find a way to make sure that there is a hiring process, a recruiting process from across the country to get the people into our schools.”
Arya Sundaram contributed reporting
Tagged
Asylum Seekers
education
Gwynne Hogan
Gwynne Hogan is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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