Educators hired in recent years on H-1B visas for hard-to-fill K-12 vacancies are waiting for renewals, forcing many from their schools — and, in some cases, from the country. Their sudden, unexplained departure has left students confused and brokenhearted.

The White House has also imposed a , inserting an obstacle cash-strapped schools can not overcome. 

sued the government last year over the charge, which was announced in September. A federal judge earlier this month , calling it an but the Trump administration has vowed to appeal. Like other immigration-related disputes involving the president, it could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

No matter how that case plays out, the need for foreign-born educators has not abated: The Dallas Independent School District, home to 8,649 teachers, had 412 H-1B visa-holders on staff this school year, a spokeswoman told the 74. 

Public schools in Washington, D.C. had roughly 225 of ŽÇ±č±đ°ùČč±ô±ô.Ìę

“These staff members have brought global experience, multilingual expertise, and broadened worldviews as valued members of their school communities,” D.C. schools’ spokesman Evan Lambert said in an emailed statement. 

He would not elaborate on what the district might do without them. A Dallas schools spokesperson also declined to answer questions about the impact of federal immigration policies — or about plans to fill classrooms in these staffers’ absence.

Three teachers in South Carolina’s Lexington District One went out on unpaid leave earlier this school year because their work visas were not renewed on time, a spokeswoman said. Their classrooms have been covered by various educators, including substitutes.

A mother of two young children in the district started a May 6 to draw attention to their plight and “to publicly acknowledge that they are loved and valued.”

The woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said the district is scrambling to fill these newly opened slots, leading to concerns about quality instruction. 

“These dedicated educators have been a LEGAL and vital part of our community for years, enriching our classrooms with diverse perspectives and unparalleled dedication,” she wrote in the petition, which has been signed by more than 1,100 people. “Losing them isn’t just a loss for our school district; it’s a loss for our children, our community, and our future.”

The woman told Âé¶čŸ«Æ· she hoped the petition would alert other parents as to why these educators were suddenly gone. 

“We are in a deep, deep conservative state and it didn’t seem to be at the forefront — or even something people were aware of,” she said. “I can’t change federal policy. I can’t change how these people are being treated or the things they are losing, but I can bring awareness to it.”

Her elementary-aged daughter lost her tutor, who provided instruction in French in a dual-language program.

“I loved that whenever she would teach us, she would explain the steps really slowly — and if we didn’t get it, she would explain it a little slower,” the child told Âé¶čŸ«Æ· this week. “She was always just really nice. She is my favorite teacher ever.”

The little girl said she cried the first time she walked into the woman’s classroom after she left. She has seen her since, but can’t yet accept that the teacher might not be back.

“She paid some visits to the school and I have given her a hug, but I haven’t really said goodbye,” she said through tears. “When she left, all of the happiness she gave me, I thought I was going to lose it.”

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement the government enacted the H-1B visa fee to address concerns about the program’s integrity and to protect American jobs. 

“We disagree with this blatant judicial activism dismantling President Trump’s historic efforts for immigration reform,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “Under President Trump and Secretary (Markwayne) Mullin, our immigration system is being reformed to serve American citizens, American workers, and American families and to preserve our national identity — not to rapidly import foreigners who take American jobs, commit crimes, burden our welfare system, and erode our cultural and social fabric.”

The National Education Association found in 2025 there were in the United States, spread across some 500 school systems. Texas, North Carolina and California public school districts employ the greatest number of these educators, the organization reported. But the figures are an undercount because they do not include charter schools. 

The international teaching pool is critical for districts large and small, said , chair of the education department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She said, too, if the $100,000 fee were to stand, it would only harm students.

“U.S. schools in general do better with stable teacher populations,” Bartlett said. “And so when we bring in folks through the international labor market, we ought to be looking to see if they meet the standards of what we need for teachers to keep them, retain them, and then, our students will do better.”

She added that while the issue plays out in the courts, schools might turn to another solution, the far cheaper J-1 visa. But it isn’t a flawless alternative, she said, because such visas are short term and prompt higher rates of turnover.

A showed that South Carolina in 2023 employed some 1,200 staffers with J-1 or J-2 visas, which allow for varied lengths of stay but often cap at three to five years. These hires had, on average, 11 years of teaching experience. Half taught math, elementary education, special education and Spanish. 

Ninety percent served in moderate to high-poverty schools, compared to 70% of the overall teacher workforce. Sixty percent taught in town or rural districts — 15 percentage points higher than the statewide average. These educators were concentrated in areas with greater attrition rates.

J-1 teachers generally plan for far shorter stays than H-1B visa holders, who can typically remain in the country for six years and often seek permanent residency. At 388, Dallas ISD employed close to the same number of J-1 teachers this year as it did H-1B visa holders, according to the district.

The 20 states that sued the government over the added fee noted H-1B’s importance in education in their , which cited a nationwide shortage of these and other “vital” personnel, including nurses, doctors and researchers.

“Without access to skilled overseas workers, public schools would be forced to subject American children to larger class sizes, public research centers would lack staffing to support cutting-edge research, and hospitals would lose capacity to treat seriously ill patients,” they wrote. 

The H-1B visa category was established in 1990 and has been used to bring over millions of high-skill workers in STEM and other fields: Some 400,000 such applications were approved in 2024, more than twice the number in fiscal year 2000, according to . Approvals peaked in 2022, when 442,425 applications were authorized.

Education and labor market experts say the administration’s efforts to curtail the H-1B program are in line with its other anti-immigration initiatives, including an attempt to dismantle the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or , from which thousands of teachers have sprung. 

U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston, after rejecting each element of the government’s case in defense of the H-1B fee, said . 

“The Defendants’ miscellaneous arguments that the President has the authority to impose the $100,000 tax based on his ‘immigration and commerce powers’ are nowhere to be found in the authorities they cite,” he wrote in his June 8 ruling. 

Ulysses “Uly” Navarrete, executive director of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents, said the fee is not a policy, but a price tag, adding there is no way smaller school districts, community colleges and nonprofits can absorb the cost. 

“This is another attempt by this administration to attack diversity, equity and inclusion for all educators, students and the communities that we serve because when you simultaneously restrict who can enter this country and price out entry-level positions, you’re not protecting American workers … you are shrinking the talent pool of resources, especially at a time when we’re already facing a national educator shortage,” he said. 

Gustavo Balderas, the new superintendent of the Puget Sound Educational Services District in Washington state, served at seven school districts before landing in his current position earlier this year. 

Three of those school systems employed foreign teachers, mostly on J-1 visas. Balderas said these educators filled critical slots as much needed native Spanish speakers, helping schools with their dual language programs. 

“It really is beyond the language, though,” he said. “They are from the country and they are able to express the true authenticity of the culture to the kids.”

At AcadĂ©mie Lafayette, a 1,400-student French immersion school in Kansas City, Missouri, two second-grade teachers had to stop working this spring because their H-1B visa renewals didn’t come through. Renewals for 13 others were coming up, a school leader .

Bartlett, of the University of California, said there are simply not enough American teachers to fill these spots and she’s not seeing any policy movement to fix that domestic shortage. 

So, instead, she said, schools have been benefiting from an international labor pool. But it comes at a cost — and not just in terms of high visa fees. 

“When we recruit overseas, we are usually taking the most qualified teachers from those other countries,” she said. “Almost all countries that are economically less well advantaged than we are, and we are pulling from those countries, most notably, the Philippines — and Jamaica. Also Mexico. We disadvantage their schools, their economies and their children’s ability to learn and develop. So in many ways the whole system is problematic.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, released guidance Thursday to states to proceed with . 

Child and nutrition advocates are glad to see it resume, but have concerns about the multiple steps needed to relaunch SNAP — particularly around states’ ability to quickly arrange payments through third-party vendors. 

Some 42 million Americans — including 16 million children, the elderly, veterans and those with disabilities — rely on SNAP for food.

“This is a unique situation,” said Claire Borzner, director for Share Our Strength and its No Kid Hungry campaign. “There has never before been a pause in SNAP payments or a recommendation for partial benefits.”

Borzner said states that issued incomplete payouts will need to ensure participants receive the remaining allotment.

The Trump administration first threatened to withhold SNAP benefits entirely for the month of November and then twice went to the U.S. Supreme Court in its legal quest to pay out only some benefits. It also moved to claw back money from states that went ahead and distributed 100% of benefits to their needy residents last week during a window of time when the USDA was authorizing it. 

SNAP benefits have historically not been cut off during prior shutdowns and President Donald Trump faced criticism that he tried to leverage Americans’ hunger— 1 in 8 receive SNAP benefits — to break Democrats’ opposition to ending the shutdown. 

Crystal FitzSimons, president at the Food Research & Action Center, said states are moving quickly to resume aid, though she understands some families might not feel relief until it arrives. 

“It is very fluid and moving in real time,” she said, speaking of getting the program up and running again. “The delays have created so much stress for the people who really need food on the table. I totally understand why they would be worried, but the shutdown has ended and as soon as people see the money in their card, they should be able to take a deep breath and move forward.”

But Melissa Boteach, chief policy officer at , an early childhood advocacy group, said “there has been a lot of undermining of the basic government infrastructure necessary” to get SNAP operational again. 

Boteach noted families have been suffering needlessly since the start of the month, making tough choices about whether to eat or pay rent and utility bills.  

“These are the conversations American families have been having around the kitchen table,” she said, calling SNAP a miracle and crediting it for preventing starvation-levels of hunger in this country since the 1970s. 

Part of the confusion about when the aid might arrive centers around the uneven distribution of benefits. Stewart Fried, a principal attorney at OFW Law in Washington, D.C., and an expert on SNAP, said 19 states have already issued full November payments — the ones the administration told to “undo” those actions after the fact — while another 18 delivered partial allotments. 

Fried, who has represented many SNAP-eligible retailers on a wide variety of issues before the , Congress and in the federal courts, said states that issued partial payouts might need at least a week to disperse the remaining monies. The 13 states that sent out no money in November may face the easiest turnaround time.

“For states that have not issued any November benefits, that process should be quicker and benefits will hopefully be issued in the next few days,” he said. 

Meanwhile, low-income families have been across the country all month while also relying on schools to help fill the nutrition gap for their kids, child advocates say. 

Ian Coon, spokesman for the Alliance for Education, an independent, local education fund that supports Seattle Public Schools, said his group set aside $150,000 for grocery store gift cards in October. The school community raised an additional $70,000 in recent weeks to bridge any further gaps as kids head home for the holidays, some to empty cupboards.

The alliance has already distributed $154,000 in funding for kids and families in need.

“There have been increased donations to food pantries,” he said. “Nearly every local business has a food collection bin in the door and restaurants are still providing community meals or fundraising. This isn’t the time to standby. It’s the time to act and we’re so grateful to have the support of our community.”

Erika Roberson, senior policy associate at The Institute for College Access & Success, a research and advocacy group that addresses issues like food insecurity in secondary education, said she’s glad for the 1.1 million college undergraduates who rely on SNAP. 

“When students receive their benefits, they will worry less about where their next meal will come from and will be able to focus on their studies,” she said, adding those who wrestle with food insecurity are more likely to struggle academically, taking on extra hours of work and leaving them less time to attend class. “It’s a huge disadvantage.”

SNAP benefits have been ensured for a full year and therefore won’t be subject to disruption when to fund the government that was approved this week runs out in January. Recipients also still face the effects of the $186 billion eliminated from SNAP as part of the administration’s landmark signed into law this summer.

Borzner called the most recent chaos around SNAP a manufactured crisis. 

“Families should not have had to go through this pain,” she said, adding that the government had the resources to pay benefits in full. “This program could have continued to operate for November as it normally does. None of this needed to happen.”

Lancaster, Pennsylvania 

After surviving more than a decade in a Tanzanian refugee camp where learning was limited, Riziki Elisha, 11, wanted nothing more than to attend the elementary school just a few hundred yards from her front door. 

Though she could see the playground from her porch, she wasn’t permitted to partake: Paperwork delays left her sitting at home for weeks, spending long afternoons watching CoComelon, a cartoon created for babies and toddlers.

“I was very frustrated,” she said with the help of a translator on a recent afternoon. “I felt bad.”

It’s been nearly nine years since the School District of Lancaster was for denying or delaying enrollment for young refugees — or for sending them to an off-site, for-profit alternative school focused on behavior management. The case was settled in  

But families, staff and advocates say the district, which serves kids in an , is once again erecting barriers that have left dozens of newcomer children idle in the past few years — some for months. A major contributing factor, they say, is Lancaster’s insistence on tuberculosis testing. 

Other Pennsylvania districts with sizable multilingual learner populations have chosen not to require a test for the infectious lung disease, including Philadelphia, Reading, Norristown, Harrisburg City, Pittsburgh, Lebanon and Chambersburg. Upper Darby does require TB testing. State officials told Âé¶čŸ«Æ· schools “should not delay a student’s enrollment while TB test results are pending” and that parents or guardians concerned about this issue should .

Another holdup, newcomer families note, is the district’s need for birth certificates. They can be hard to obtain quickly, and, according to federal guidelines, their absence Proof of address, they say, has also been an obstacle as some families initially struggle to secure permanent housing. 

Immigrant advocates, including staffers inside the district, say these students should be seated immediately while their families are given time to produce the requisite paperwork. The new arrivals, many of them behind their American-born peers, would be able to make fast gains, they argue, if granted speedy enrollment.  

Âé¶čŸ«Æ· presented its findings to the district, which said it wants students to be enrolled “as quickly as possible when all requirements are met,” — and those include TB testing for some kids.

It said the district’s clinic provider contacts families directly to schedule the tests and that it recently added a full-time bilingual enrollment navigator to identify and work with families “who are slow to complete the process.”

State officials said schools have been able to opt-out of student TB testing since 1997 — and many do. But not Lancaster.

It asked the state to keep its TB testing requirement for a specific group: newly enrolling students who have been outside the U.S. within the past six months. The district cited recommending testing for those who are at higher risk of exposure, including people “who are born in or frequently travel to countries where TB is common, including some countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.”

The state is clear that enrollment should not be held up pending results.

Riziki’s father, Elisha Sumaili, who hails from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told Âé¶čŸ«Æ· through a translator that he was confused by the delay, which stemmed from his inability to immediately produce a lease. The family tried to enroll October 25, 2024, but his daughters were not admitted until November 22. 

Sumaili wants his children to hold tight to their education so they might one day become doctors. Instead, Riziki and her high school-age sister were kept out of the classroom.

“When the kids were home, it was really bad,” their father said in Swahili. “It was bringing the family a lot of distress.” 

Carolin Cruz, 29 and from the Dominican Republic, has always prioritized education, both for herself and her daughter. Cruz completed more than two years of college — she dropped out because of the cost — and wants 10-year-old Ferolin to go even further, which is what prompted the pair to move to the United States last fall, she said. 

“I want to see her become a great professional so she can have what I cannot,” Cruz said. 

Public education in her home country is and expensive, she said: She’d have to pay for her daughter to learn English. Plus, her local school was overcrowded. 

“If there are 30 or 40 students, there is no way a teacher can pay attention to any one student,” she said. 

She hoped for much better in the United States, but her daughter’s start date was delayed by two months, primarily because of the TB testing requirement. When she tried to schedule the shots, Cruz said she was told the only available appointments were weeks out. 

On two occasions, she said, the appointments were cancelled. 

Ferolin, a fourth grader who loves mathematics, said she felt sad sitting at home. 

“I was not doing anything,” she said through a translator. “I wanted to go to school so I can learn more. I would get up, help my mother around the house, and then I would be on my mother’s cell phone watching TikTok and YouTube.”

Fifteen-year-old Kevin, whose family asked that their last name not be used because of immigration-related concerns, suffered the same fate — except his went on for several months. 

His family fled Cuba because the country lacked a “functioning economy,” Kevin’s mother Neydis told Âé¶čŸ«Æ·. They arrived in the U.S. in March 2024. 

Neydis’s husband, a medical doctor in his home country, wanted his son to enroll in eighth grade right away. Kevin tried to register for school on April 16, 2024, but wasn’t seated until the next school year on August 26 — mostly because of immunizations and the TB test. His mother said they sent the TB results to enrollment staffers several times and assumed they would call back with a start date, but the call never came. The family was forced to restart enrollment because the process had dragged on for so long.

Kevin spent those months at home surfing the internet and watching nature programs. 

“It was boring, I would just sit on that sofa,” he said through a translator, pointing to a cream-colored couch in the living room. 

By the time the district admitted him, he had missed the rest of his eighth-grade year and had to go right into high school.

Born in a forest

Such delays are not unique: Rwamucyo Karekezi, who served as Âé¶čŸ«Æ·â€™s translator with the Sumaili family, is a refugee and immigrant community organizer with Church World Service. He estimates that he’s helped more than 100 children register in Lancaster public schools between 2021 and 2024. 

Karekezi, who noted that he was not speaking on behalf of Church World Service, said month-long delays are common — most of the children he worked with experienced them — and stressful on the families. 

Vaccinations play a key role in the delays, he said, as does proof of address. Many families initially live in temporary housing — Airbnbs and hotels — and can’t quickly prove they reside in the district, he said. 

“Sometimes it takes months to find a house,” he noted. “This becomes a challenge for registration to go smoothly.”

As for birth certificates, some children around the world aren’t issued such formal documents upon their birth — or their families might lose them in their chaotic journey to safety. Karekezi, 30 and who is also from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, understands their plight.  

“I never had a birth certificate,” he said. “I was born in a forest, not a hospital. In Congo, they don’t register kids like that. And even when you bring a birth certificate, they don’t recognize it: It’s a scrap of paper in another language.”

Karekezi said he sent the district follow-up emails on students’ behalf, but they did little to expedite the process. 

While Lancaster has its own history of refusing or slow walking newcomer students’ registration, related issues are now playing out on the national stage: President Donald Trump pledges to deport undocumented families — — and opened schools to immigration enforcement actions. 

His conservative allies in multiple states seek to in a direct challenge to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision.

Likewise, federal budget cuts have crippled the agencies that help immigrant families most, including , a faith-based group founded just after World War II that resettled more than 100,000 people in the United States in its first decade. Trump recently and even though that move was blocked in the court, he said it will . 

Lancaster’s local Church World Service office has recently shrunk in size and capacity. Once located inside a massive building on a well-traveled block, it’s now squeezed into an alleyway hidden by parking garages. It had to drastically cut services when it was forced to furlough 40 of its 67 staff members for three months at the end of January. Valentina Ross, its director, said she hopes to call some of those staffers back into the office soon.

After lost learning, big gains

Riziki Elisha has made great strides since starting elementary school just days before last year’s Thanksgiving break, her English language development teacher Laura Kanagy said. 

“In three months, Riziki went from knowing three- or four-letter sounds to reading and writing short sentences,” the educator noted. “She can identify the hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere. She can add and subtract triple digits and fractions. Imagine what she’d be doing if we had been able to work with her for those extra months?”

Kanagy, who has taught at the district for 14 years, said she and her fellow educators “want the most time possible” with these new students. 

“Each day that they sat at home in front of their TVs was a lost day of learning: 10 new vocabulary words, a few letter sounds closer to reading, a math skill important to navigating the grocery store, a social phrase to connect with peers,” the teacher said. 

Enrollment also means these students — and their families — have access to myriad services, including English and GED classes for their parents, help obtaining eye glasses, clothing, food, dental care and other necessities.  

“The sooner they have access to English and literacy/math skills, the sooner they — and, therefore, their families — can make more of their own choices about how to live and participate here,” she said.

Once admitted, Neydis’ mother said her son, Kevin’s experience at the school was excellent.

“The teachers are nice and just go out of their way using different teaching strategies — a game or whatever they could come up with — to help him learn,” she said. “He would come home very excited, very, very content. And this was a huge relief for me.”

When Ferolin Nunez Cruz finally enrolled — she started the process on December 2, 2024, and wasn’t seated until January 27 — she thrived in the classroom. Since then, she’s begun using simple phrases in English around the house, her mother said, including “yes,” “hi” and “good morning” and shares what she’s gleaned with her mom and other relatives, helping them crack the language divide. 

“She is more focused in regards to her learning,” Cruz said of her daughter. “She is very motivated. And I want to say that I have received a lot of support from the teachers. They are paying attention to my daughter. I appreciate that very much because I really needed that.”

Asked what she loves about the experience of an American education, Ferolin’s answer was simple: Everything. 

If she could speak directly to Lancaster school administrators, Ferolin said she would ask them to make the enrollment process easier for students like her.  

“Help us,” she said. “They have to help us to make it possible to go to school. They should help me get into school so I can learn many things so I can help my family prosper, to help them when it’s my turn.”