NEW ORLEANS — A decade of court oversight of special education services in New Orleans public schools, the result of a legal settlement, will most likely cease by the end of the year, the judge presiding over the legal settlement said Wednesday.

The decision, if it comes to pass, would come at the request of the Louisiana Department of Education and the Orleans Parish School Board, which have been subjected to intensive monitoring under a . The agreement settled a 2010 class-action lawsuit that alleged the city’s charter schools discriminated against special education students in their application processes and did not provide them appropriate educational services, as federal law requires.

The case was brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of parents and guardians of special-needs students in New Orleans schools. Though problems with special education continue to be identified at some New Orleans charter schools, the consent decree was intended to address systemic issues — whether the state and district are catching those issues and implementing plans to correct them — not individual students’ experiences, said U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey.

For the past eight years, an independent monitor assigned by the court has found the defendants — the Department of Education and OPSB — in substantial compliance with all provisions outlined in consent decree. Citing those findings, the state and school board earlier this year an end to the agreement.

The plaintiffs , arguing that the state and NOLA Public Schools district have not created sufficient monitoring, oversight or complaint systems. Their opposition hinges on a 2024 from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor that found faults in the state’s monitoring of special education programs — most districts self-reported their compliance with federal rules dictating education plans, without on-site monitoring. (However, some of those problems resulted from the fact that much of the state’s monitoring capacity has been directed toward New Orleans schools, possibly as a result of the consent decree, .) The audit also noted that the agency reduced the number of workers dedicated to special education between 2012 and 2019.

Lauren Winkler, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said her team has asked the district to make it easier for parents to bring issues about schools forward to the central office through creating an open complaint system on their website. That was never implemented.

“[There are] really simple solutions that are not super costly,” Winkler said. “We tried to meet with them to agree to some and they just wouldn’t.”

Winkler said noncompliance still exists in the schools. More than people contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center about their negative experiences with New Orleans schools’ special education programs ahead of this week’s hearing.

“If we didn’t have any parents coming forward with issues, we’d maybe have a different position,” Winkler said. “With the breadth of issues in the amount of people that came to us, as we’ve been preparing for this, I think that’s indicative of the systemic issues that are still here.”

But in a , Zainey wrote that the court anticipates ending federal oversight by the end of the year.

“The consent judgement was a temporary measure and was never meant to be a permanent fixture of the school system,” Zainey said in court. “Things have been much improved from how they used to be in Orleans Parish.”

Zainey invited parents to share their experiences with the court and representatives from the Louisiana Department of Education and Orleans Parish School Board during informal hearings on Nov. 12 and 13. Most parents asked the court to continue the federal monitoring of New Orleans schools, but it’s unclear whether their statements will change Zainey’s plans. Zainey encouraged the state’s ombudsman, who connects families with resources and informs them of their rights in relation to special education, to connect with parents following their statements.

But most of the parents speaking at the informal hearing were those who had already tried, and were still trying, to seek recourse through communication with district or state officials.

Grace Thompson spoke in front of the judge Wednesday morning about her son’s experience at Audubon Gentilly. According to Thompson, her son was supposed to receive speech therapy and a one-on-one aide to help in class, but never received them. Thompson said she’s tried to seek help through the district’s accountability office, which, she said, has offered little guidance and has been “slow” and “inconsistent” in its communications.

“I’ve literally been calling them for the last year and a half,” Thompson told the judge. “They know who I am.”

Steve Corbett, CEO of Audubon Schools, said Audubon Gentilly has provided students with all necessary services and has been found fully compliant with federal special education law. The most recent state special education found “no unresolved areas of noncompliance” at the school.

Other parents also spoke of slow communication with the district and the schools their children attend. They said their children weren’t receiving the services outlined in their individualized education plans, that their learning has regressed, that schools were slow in performing evaluations and reevaluations, and that oversight was only afforded to children with parents that could be there to actively fight for them.

District Superintendent Fateama Fulmore and state representatives were present at the hearing. In response to hearing parent concerns, Fulmore said she appreciated the opportunity to hear from them directly and that her team will follow up.

“We have an obligation to every child in this system to get this right,” Fulmore said. “We are doing better.”

Lyric Lee, a former student at Morris Jeff Community School who had an Individualized Education Program and graduated last year, said she learned at a young age how to advocate for herself, her brother and other students who have special needs. She said the consent decree should continue.

“I’ve learned when people are not kept on a watch, they feel like they don’t have to do it, and they’ll do everything possible to make sure they don’t have to,” Lee said.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

After all, her dad said, her true passion is social justice.  

McChristian said the explanation was simple: A lack of access and opportunity in mathematics for all students means many children, particularly kids of color and those living in impoverished communities, are forced to take educational pathways that leave them unqualified for lucrative STEM careers. 

“The role of math in educational equity is really a civil rights — and a social justice and racial justice — issue,” she recalled telling him. 

Broken down that way, friends and family quickly understood why the national policy director role at made sense for the Yale University and Columbia Law School graduate. 

And, its focus on education conjures an old love: McChristian, who holds a master’s degree in early childhood education from the University of Nevada, was once a member of which recruits college graduates to work in high-need schools for two years. McChristian was a Head Start teacher in the Las Vegas Valley. 

But it was an even earlier experience that drew her to the field, she said. Her father, also a Yale grad, worked for IBM and moved his family frequently when McChristian was a child, allowing her to attend schools in several locations, including Japan. 

McChristian, who was born in California but lived all over the East Coast, said the constant relocation created a unique opportunity to observe educational inequity firsthand, both here and abroad. 

“In Tokyo, I was trying to catch up with students at my expat school,” she said. “And then, a year later, I was in Raleigh, North Carolina, reading a textbook to another student in the 7th grade who didn’t know how to read. So that spurred me to want to understand why there are these disparities.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

What do you see as the purpose of your new position? 

There’s a disconnect between the people who live and breathe this work and everyday community members. My entire career has been about breaking down these concepts and these ideas that really impact people’s lives into actionable steps that they can take to change their communities. I’m excited to bring that kind of perspective to the math equity landscape.

What do you see as some of the biggest challenges that we as a nation face in moving kids forward in math?

A lot of times when you just say the word math, people’s minds shut off. They go quickly to, “Oh, I’m not a math person,” or “Math isn’t relevant to me.” They don’t even want to talk about the ideas around why that might be. Maybe they didn’t have access to math coursework that was relevant to their experience, that was culturally responsive. Did they have all the options for the coursework that would get them to the career or the path they wanted to have?

It’s been difficult, but it’s also been invigorating in many ways because it shows me the opportunities for me to add value. I can list why this is a racial and social justice issue. I can show what this means for the average high school student if they don’t have access to math that speaks to them and how that sets them up for their future career.

Historically, what have we been doing wrong in terms of math instruction?

For many, many years, we’ve had this traditional math sequencing without fail, where you go from Algebra I all the way up to calculus — if you’re able to. And that is still an extremely important pathway as calculus is kind of a soft requirement for highly selective colleges. 

But we know some students want computer science or data science instead. These kinds of courses may be more relevant to what they want to do in college — and for their future careers. 

We’re not saying do away with any certain model. We’re saying, make sure students have as many options as possible in terms of math coursework they need to succeed. It’s about adding more to the plate, giving students more resources. 

What would you like to change about how mathematics is taught today? 

First is the traditional sequence, the ending point of calculus for those students who want to go into STEM. We need more options there, additional pathways that can include data science and stats.

Then, once we get to the college admissions stage, we want to make sure colleges — including the more highly selective institutions — reflect this change. Because it’s not helpful if a high school can say, “Oh, now our students can take data science to complete their graduation requirement,” but the university those students want to attend does not factor that into the admissions process.

And then, once students get to college, we want to make sure they have access to other coursework — just as they did in high school — that may be more relevant to their experience. 

How will the Trump administration’s plans for NAEP impact the information we collect regarding student achievement? 

We are a nonpartisan . But I will say we have been very intentional about the push for the continuation of data. Data such as the Nation’s Report Card provides us with an assessment of where our kids are.

How will the defunding of Head Start impact students’ later achievement in mathematics?

At Just Equations, we focus primarily on the high school to college pathway. But as a former Head Start teacher, I feel very passionately about the work that can be done to support students’ social-emotional, literacy and math needs at the early childhood education level.

Why is it important to solve this issue? To bring more students into mathematics? 

For me, it’s informed by my family experience. My dad grew up in South Central Los Angeles and through a program called , he was able to attend a high- performing high school and then go on to Yale University. He had so many opportunities presented to him that he never would if it had not been for this.

My dad always told me, “There’s not a lack of talent, there’s a lack of opportunity.” And so that’s what really fortifies me in this space to ensure that every student, that Black student, that Latinx student, has access to the coursework they need to go into a STEM career. 

So that’s why I go back to it being a racial and social justice issue. We can’t afford for people to tune out of the math conversation as we have these new digital technologies emerge, as we see more of our world go online, as we see technologies to target communities of color.

Disclosure: The Gates Foundation provides financial support to Just Equations and to �鶹��Ʒ.

At the concurrent , teachers, parents and community members called for Maron and Egorov’s removal, citing the Chancellor’s promise, loss of “trust,” and high risk of suicide among LGBTQ youth. Maron was not present.

An elected member of a prominent New York City education council said “there is no such thing as trans kids,” while another claimed the social justice movement is “destroying the country,” in a private parent group chat.  

In the same set of exchanges dating back to June 2022, Andrew Gutmann, a former New York City parent and current Florida congressional candidate, accused LGBTQ people and social justice advocates of being “anti-children,” and trans and nonbinary kids as “indoctrinated” in a “really dangerous cult.” 

Responding to one Brooklyn parent’s concern about the number of LGBTQ children in her child’s school, Manhattan District 2 Community Education Council member Maud Maron responded “the social contagion is undeniable” and called hormone blocking drugs “an abomination.” 

On the same day in another exchange about LGBTQ kids, Maron said, “There is no such thing as trans kids [because] there is no such thing as transition i.e. changing your sex.” 

The “social contagion” phrase, equating an aspect of a child’s identity to disease, was used by a northern California school board member earlier this year who . 

In a statement, a NYC Department of Education spokesperson called the remarks “despicable and not in line with our values.”    

In WhatsApp logs obtained by �鶹��Ʒ, an additional parent leader made crude remarks levied at a state senator, while another shared a worksheet that defined hate speech as “usually constitutionally protected” and an “expression of opinion.” 

Maron also hormone therapy causes permanent, harmful effects for teens taking the drugs. “Some of these kids never develop adult genitalia and will never have full sexual function. It’s an abomination,” she wrote on November 11, 2022. 

When asked for comment on the remarks, Maron asserted her position by stating, “Radical trans ideology as taught in our public schools is regressive, homophobic and often deeply misogynistic.” She added telling gender expansive kids they need to be “fixed” by transitioning “leads to grave, irreversible harm for so many young people.” 

The  has supported access to , as have all leading medical associations in the country, according to the , who also cited research that  improves long-term physical and mental health, and reduces suicidal ideation.

Local leaders and advocates have called for Maron and fellow CEC member Danyela Souza Egorov to resign or be removed by NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks. Elected members, serving two-year terms, advise education officials on 32 CECs throughout the city. 

“If they’re not going to be removed, they have to engage in training … There has to be a level of accountability when grownups are the ones that are harming children,” said Panel for Education Policy member Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a CUNY school of medicine neurology professor appointed by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “My heart breaks.”

In addition to calling the comments “despicable,” a DOE spokesperson said the department “does not condone the opinions expressed” in the log and added “all children deserve protection, including LGBTQ+ children.”

“Our educators work every day to make New York City public schools safe and supportive environments for LGBTQ+ youth,” the DOE spokesperson said.

Chancellor’s regulation prohibits discrimination or harassment based on gender and other protected classes, stating “the DOE does not tolerate disrespect towards children.” The regulation also states that, after an investigation, the chancellor may remove or suspend members if conduct poses a “danger to the safety or welfare of students” or “is contrary to the best interest” of the district. 

The department receives complaints against CEC members who are thought to be in violation of the chancellor’s regulations by email. 

Manhattan City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who represents families and children in School District 2, also denounced the remarks and encouraged disciplinary action. 

“It is deeply troubling that CEC members are engaging in demeaning, transphobic smears that are reminiscent of playground bullies rather than responsible adults tasked with advocating for the well-being of our kids,” Bottcher said. “Our students deserve better.” 

The chat also revealed some members believe hate speech, racism, white supremacy and other “social justice” jargon are fraught terms used to “discriminate against” white and Asian people. “The anti-racists are so racist,” said Maron.

That parents with these views have gained power locally is unsurprising to scholars who study conservative parent rights movements like Moms for Liberty. The groups and rhetoric are most frequently found in politically purple or liberal areas where parents feel their voices are sidelined for more liberal agendas. 

Pushing back on diversity trainings they find divisive, for example, one parent asked: “So you can pay to become a racist?” in reference to a , voluntary workshop hosted by the teacher’s union entitled, “Holding the Weight of Whiteness.”

Maron replied: “For the bargain price of $25.” 

In an exchange critiquing the United Federation of Teachers training on power dynamics in the classroom, Egorov said “this is poisonous and it is destroying the country.” She did not respond to requests for comment. 

Experts who study civil rights and freedom of speech in the U.S. have witnessed rhetoric throughout the country, but say there’s a key distinction at play here. 

“I think the most dangerous thing about these messages is who they’re coming from,” said Maya Henson Carey, a researcher with the Southern Poverty Law Center, “because these people have power to make change.”  

On November 20, 2022, Egorov sent the WhatsApp group an explainer to help push back on social justice terms. The one pager defined diversity as “an attack on merit and a form of soft bigotry,” adding that accountability is “bullying” and “mob rule.” A parent immediately responded, “this is good.”

The Responding to Social Justice Rhetoric sheet was created in 2021 by a group of academics with the Oregon Association of Scholars, a chapter of the National Association of Scholars, known as a conservative group that has lobbied against diversity policies.

The worksheet serves as a “translation guide,” for anyone “hoodwinked by language” said Peter Boghossian, one of its authors. 

The guide also defined inclusion as “restricted speech and justification for purges,” and a way to make “people feel welcomed by banning anything they find offensive.”

But inclusion for LGBTQ students is top of mind for many educators and families nationwide as the youth mental health crisis worsens. Queer kids, often ostracized from their homes or communities, are and foster care. They are also four times as likely than their peers to contemplate suicide, according to .

New York recently passed a safe haven law legally protecting trans students and their doctors introduced by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal. 

In the WhatsApp chat, both the law and Hoylman-Sigal were subject to explicit vitriol by prominent parent leaders. 

Chien Kwok, former District 2 CEC member and president of local nonprofit Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, wrote, “I would imagine Hoylman would have cut off his penis to transition if he was allowed to run away from his home state of West Virginia to NY. Do you think Hoylman or his husband would have regretted Hoylman being a eunuch?”

Kwok responded to requests for comment by reiterating his question for the state senator and adding “the radical transgender ideologies that [Hoylman-Sigal] supports and turned into law have harmed countless children and teens in the US and around the world.” 

A few hours after Kwok’s original comment, Gutmann, a former NYC private school parent who denounced his , chimed in: what LGBTQ people and social justice “ideologues” have in common is “not wanting children, which has made them anti-children (hence anti-family).” 

Gutmann later told �鶹��Ʒ that while the private messages were written “quickly” and “in a casual tone,” he stands by “everything I have written in this and any other private chat group in which I have participated.” 

Hoylman-Sigal said the “cruel and frankly outrageous” chat history makes clear that, locally, the CEC members are not able “to safeguard learning for students. The disrespect and intolerance that is evident in these chats shows just the opposite. To them, LGBTQ kids, specifically transgender children, are second class.” 

The logs are a “call to action,” he added, for CEC leaders, Banks, and parents to vote them out of office. 

Though the outcomes of recent school board elections nationwide show many parents disagree with conservative parent leaders’ emphasis on limiting classroom discussion of sex and gender, parent leaders like Gutmann, Kwok, Maron and Egorov have been hoping to expand their reach. 

“We need to organize ourselves to recruit CEC candidates so we can expand our influence and keep it where we have [a] majority,” Egorov wrote to the group on January 1, 2022. 

They came close.  

Forty percent of Community Education Council members endorsed by PLACE, the conservative parent advocacy group co-founded by Maron and Kwok, .

Lawmakers and experts at local LGBTQ nonprofit are advocating for a new , sponsored by Hoylman-Sigal, requiring that all New York school districts establish policies to protect nonbinary and transgender students.

The summit will be held at a downtown Marriott from June 29 through July 2, despite from LGBTQ rights advocates and others who object to the group’s stance on social and education issues. 

The American Historical Association sent to the Museum of the American Revolution on June 26, urging its president to reconsider the decision to let Moms for Liberty hold a portion of the summit there.

“Moms for Liberty is an organization that has vigorously advocated censorship and harassment of history teachers, banning history books from libraries and classrooms, and legislation that renders it impossible for historians to teach with professional integrity without risking job loss and other penalties,” the letter read.

Neither Moms for Liberty nor the Museum of the American Revolution responded to a request for comment about the letter. 

The summit is a must for Republican leaders, a reflection of the organization’s influence. Some high-profile speakers, including DeSantis, are returning for a second round: The governor spoke at last summer’s event alongside Sen. Rick Scott of Florida and former secretary of housing and urban development Ben Carson. 

This year’s event has proven an even bigger draw for conservative politicians and their followers. Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said the 650-ticket summit has already sold out. 

The vocal, right-wing parent organization was formed in Florida in 2021 by school board members Tina Descovich and Justice and by , who is married to the of the Florida Republican Party. 

Moms for Liberty members originally targeted COVID protocols but have since focused on critical race theory, diversity and inclusion, social-emotional learning and LGBTQ issues, among other topics. The group claims 285 chapters and 120,000 members across 44 states.

The organization gained national recognition after members disrupted school board meetings across the country, with of those who oppose their views. Local chapters have mounted highly successful efforts targeting materials related to racism, slavery and gender. 

Moms for Liberty was recently labeled an by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

Justice called the characterization shocking and absurd. 

“I think they’ve really shot themselves in the foot,” she said. 

Her group’s mission is to empower parents and support their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children, she said. 

“That includes their education, their medical care and their morality and their religion,” she told �鶹��Ʒ. “And it seems like we’re in a tug-of-war with the federal government in our nation’s schools.”

President Joe Biden also was invited to the summit, but his office did not respond, Justice said. The Biden campaign did not answer emails requesting comment.

Moms for Liberty has endorsed across the nation, many of whom have gone on to win. 

Despite its ability to attract high-profile politicians and zealous parent advocates, some experts question whether education will be a key issue in the 2024 presidential race.

Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said he thinks it will likely take a backseat. 

“Education is one of those issues that is tempting politically because it gets a fervent response for a subset of voters, particularly parents,” he said. “And that can be attractive because it lets you mobilize people who don’t always like to turn out — or are on the fence. But … it can backfire.”

School politics, he said, “can take sharp twists and turns” that leave politicians exposed.

“Today’s cheers for a strong stand against so-called ‘smut’ in texts can morph into indignation at book banning and perceived attacks on treasured schools and teachers,” he said. 

Frederick M. Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said politicians once used education to appeal to voters in the middle. Now, he said, they use it to court their base. 

“If Trump is the nominee and you don’t like him, it’s not likely that his stance on Title IX or school choice will change that,” he said. “And if you’re concerned about Biden, wokeness or federal spending, it’s tough to imagine that a proposal for universal pre-K or student loan forgiveness is going to win you over.”

Michael J. Petrilli, president of the , a research fellow at Stanford University’s and executive editor of , said that if Trump gets the nomination, his views on education or other issues won’t really matter. Nothing will distract from the candidate himself, he said. 

The embattled former president, whose divisive rhetoric has continued well beyond his time in office, is facing a host of legal troubles, including a recent indictment over alleged . 

“If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee, the election will be about Donald Trump,” Petrilli said. “End of sentence. Policy issues will play an exceedingly minor role.”

But if another candidate wins the party’s nomination, Petrilli said, he or she might use the issue of school choice to entice working-class Hispanic and Black voters.

“And it might work,” he said. 

DeSantis has banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity . His Parental Rights in Education Act — often called the Don’t Say Gay Bill — has been replicated .

Haley, a former , has referred to transgender girls participating in girls’ sports as “the women’s issue of our time” on the campaign trail. Placing herself to the right of DeSantis, she has said his legislation isn’t stringent enough. 

Henig said the Florida governor’s overall stance is too extreme to succeed with a national electorate.

“Americans still have a lot of trust and allegiance to their local school communities,” he said, adding that Democrats might frame DeSantis’s efforts as an attack on teachers.

The , derived from numerous sources that track immigration, details these students’ challenges and their impact on districts. Their number, difficult to ascertain on a national basis, represents a fraction of the 491,000 children under age 18 who arrived at the southern border in that same time period and remained in the country with unresolved immigration status in early 2020, according to RAND. The youngest among them were ineligible for school while some of the oldest never enrolled.

Roughly 75 percent of the children in the RAND study landed in just 10 states, including California, Texas, Florida, New York and Louisiana. Their arrival prompted the need for additional hires: RAND calculated that seven states would need at least 2,000 more teachers and other personnel to maintain student-staff ratios.

The need was even more acute in Los Angeles County and Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston: Each would need 1,000 additional educators, the organization concluded.

RAND researchers said they decided to study this population in part because their numbers have grown in recent years—and because their challenges are unique.

“Their needs are fundamentally different from those of many other immigrant children, and they are part of the future of the United States,” said senior policy researcher Shelly Culbertson. “They also have resilience and hopes and dreams—and by federal law they have a right to a public education.”

Despite a in 1982 that prohibited discrimination against students based on their immigration status, many young newcomers have been unlawfully turned away or shunted into inferior programs by school administrators who fear they will not graduate.

Oliver Torres, senior outreach paralegal at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has fought for the educational rights of newcomer children, said anti-immigration laws proposed and enacted across the country in recent years have had a chilling effect on many families, discouraging their participation in all elements of public life, including school.

Torres, a former English as a second language teacher, said new immigrants are so focused on simply reuniting with their loved ones — especially in the case of children separated from their parents at the border — that education has become less of a priority, a phenomenon he called “heartbreaking.”

Looking back to the years covered in the RAND study, he recalled the case of a 17-year-old boy from Guatemala held for more than six months at the controversial in Florida. The teen, who was only allowed outside for one hour a day, said he was pressured by staff to take medication to quell the emotional outbursts he suffered after being repeatedly told he would be reunited with his father only to see that promise broken. By the time of his release, the boy was too distressed to tend to his education.

“The idea of going to a two-hour night school class for English a couple of times a week seemed overwhelming,” Torres said. “It was such a level of trauma, that it was clearly going to take a significant amount of time to heal. All he wanted was just not to cry every day.”

Two districts serving new arrivals well

The teen’s experience echoed that of many undocumented children who have fanned out across the country in recent years. RAND, in addition to its nationwide view, also homes in on Jefferson Parish Schools in Louisiana and Oakland Unified School District in California, both of which have served these children for years. It lauded each for their admissions processes and for the academic support their immigrant students receive, including referrals for outside assistance.

RAND also praised the districts’ efforts to address students’ social-emotional needs, but administrators from both point to numerous ongoing challenges even prior to the pandemic, which caused a massive drop in enrollment among newly arrived students.

Veronica Garcia-Montejano, principal at Oakland International High School, a campus designed for newcomers, said her concerns for her students expand well beyond academic goals to their fundamental needs, including food and housing. Many are transient, moving between family, friends or the foster care system.

“They have a huge hurdle to overcome in developing that relationship with the person who is caring for them,” she said. “And if you are not an unaccompanied minor but haven’t seen your parent in years, you are in the same situation.”

Many newcomers are pulled into the workforce to manage financial obligations: Some have to pay back the smugglers who brought them to America, send remittances home, support themselves and contribute to their household, Garcia-Montejano said.

Her current students include two brothers, ages 16 and 18, living on their own. They have to balance their studies with earning enough money to pay rent.

“They are all they have,” she said.

During COVID-19, some students have qualified for rent relief but others have less formal agreements and are unable to seek official help, Garcia-Montejano said.

“We all have to assume the students are coming to the classroom with complex trauma, which presents itself in many ways, from overstimulation to withdrawal,” she said. “The most important thing for the adults in the building to do is to begin developing positive relationships with these students.”

Deborah Dantin, principal of Alice Birney Elementary School in Metairie, Louisiana, part of Jefferson Parish Schools, said one of her biggest struggles is in communicating with parents who do not speak English. Roughly 90 percent of her newcomer students and their families speak Spanish.

“We have lots of people on campus who speak Spanish, but it’s not the same as a direct call with a teacher or principal,” Dantin said. “We have someone translating, but it’s complicated, confusing and long.”

The communication barrier extends to the students themselves. Dantin would love to have a Spanish-speaking educator inside every classroom but until then, her school must employ other means to serve these children: Teachers sometimes use supplemental materials in Spanish to give students the support they need to make the leap to English.

And her school also offers dual-language classes for native English speakers and newcomers in younger grades. The offering helps Spanish-speakers read and write in their native tongue, a skill that will help them learn English because literacy is a transferable skill.

‘Don’t think of us as aliens’

Sua Ramos, a 17-year-old senior at Oakland International High School, remembers those early days trying to adapt to a new culture. Ramos, who identifies as non-binary, fled Honduras with their family after sixth grade rather than risk injury or death because of gang-related shootouts, common in their community. It was a difficult transition: they left friends and family behind and could barely utter a word in English.

“It was like I was on a different planet,” Sua said. “I didn’t know what the teacher was teaching. I was so confused. But as I got to know people, they helped me. I learned English little by little.”

RAND, in an extensive, expensive wish list, recommends the federal government improve the tracking of these students and create a records-sharing agreement with the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras similar to the one already in place with Mexico.

It says schools should work closely with local resettlement groups, federal and state agencies to help families access social, medical and legal services — and that the federal government should provide schools with additional funding for these students on a rolling basis as the money often lags their arrival.

RAND’s estimate includes those children who immigrated to the United States between Oct. 1, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2019 and was derived using data from spring 2020, just prior to the pandemic-related school closures that began in mid-March.

It combined three sources of data to formulate an “informed estimate” of where these children live. The first came from the , which had already examined where earlier groups of immigrants settled throughout the country. The second was the , which kept records on where unaccompanied children were placed with sponsors at the state and county level and the third was which gathers data on immigration proceedings throughout the country, collecting records from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

RAND found more than three-quarters of children who arrived with their families were under the age of 12 while 74 percent who came without a parent were between 15 and 17 years old.

Excluded from their study are the thousands of new immigrants who have crossed the border in the years since. Though the flow slowed during the pandemic, it skyrocketed upon news of Biden’s election. Persistent crime, political chaos and ongoing economic catastrophe, sometimes made worse by natural disasters, also played a role.

Some who were part of a massive encampment in Del Rio, Texas, have been admitted to the United States in recent weeks. Their arrival came around the same time that America welcomed thousands of newcomers from the Middle East, a trend that is expected to continue: Biden seeks to bring to the country through 2022.

The president just introduced new rules to for undocumented people brought to the United States as children and plans to admit next year, a figure that will no doubt include a sizable number of school-aged newcomers.

Ramos, the 17-year-old student from Oakland, hopes native-born Americans will reconsider old prejudices about the new arrivals.

“I’d ask them to be patient with us,” they said. “It’s not like we are dumb or something. It’s just there’s a language barrier. Give us a chance. Don’t think of us as aliens. We are people just like them who want a better life.”