Testimony submitted to the New York City Council Education Committee

My name is Michael Mulgrew, and I’m the president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). On behalf of the union’s more than 190,000 members, I would like to thank the members of the New York City Council for holding today’s public hearing on New York City’s response and delivery of services to migrants.

We support the city and the school district’s mission to welcome these new arrivals to New York as part of our city’s long history as a place where immigrants and migrants from around the world have found tolerance and opportunity. The effort to ensure that these migrants and their families have safe and secure housing, access to medical care and social services, and the ability to continue their children’s education in our public schools is worthwhile and urgent. In terms of the support for the more than six thousand migrant students who have arrived in our city’s schools over the past months, we appreciate the challenges of the situation, but we are concerned that the Department of Education’s response has not fully met the level of need. As we noted in our testimony on school funding in November, the situation is especially dire at the many schools across the city that have welcomed these new students without enough new funding to meet their needs. The $2,000 per new student initially allocated to many of these schools was far less than what was necessary to provide services. And prohibiting schools from spending these funds to hire additional full-time staff to work with these students--even when that is the greatest need--remains a concern.

Another source of concern is the support for the migrant students who are English Language Learners, a vast majority of the newcomers. Services for students who are learning English were already inadequate, and the current situation has exacerbated the problem. The suggestions we have received from the field for concrete solutions include better onboarding and orientation for new English as a New Language teachers; access to Audible.com and digital versions of books to empower students and families to use accessibility and translation tools; specific scaffolds to support DOE core curricula; and additional bilingual books and materials in Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic. It’s also important to make sure all schools are aware that the DOE’s Passport to Social Studies workbooks are available in multiple languages. While the DOE quickly released a compilation of resources to support migrant students’ language learning needs, we are hearing from schools that it’s a challenge for teachers to read through multiple documents and implement the resources by themselves. Over the last several years, the UFT has repeatedly asked for a point person from each district to reach out to each school to support educators of ELLs, listen and provide guidance, even if it’s not possible to meet every need. Most teachers we have heard from feel they are on their own as they try to support these students every period of every day. They are not aware of any DOE outreach regarding instruction. The bottom line is, the human touch has been missing.

The lack of certified teachers for bilingual education is an ongoing issue with no quick solution and has taken on greater urgency as our schools seek to support the newly arrived students. The recent mistreatment of the small group of bilingual teachers recruited from the Dominican Republic is one example of the district’s failure to remedy this issue in a systematic and timely manner. As we have argued in the past, the DOE needs to think outside the box in terms of temporary supports for these students and other English Language Learners — for example, funding programs to hire additional paraprofessionals who speak the home language and who could be shared among different classes. Other options are pre-service or retired teachers who speak the home language or who can work one-on-one or with small groups, and high school or college students who could tutor as community service.

Placing so many of the migrant families and their school-age children into our city’s system for homeless students is also problematic. Again, while we appreciate the urgency of the situation and the need to find immediate solutions to the challenge of safe and secure housing for these families, the reality is that the resources available for our city’s students in transitional housing were already grossly inadequate. Our union has provided support for homeless students for many years through traditions such as our annual Thanksgiving dinner and coat drive and our holiday gift program, and we have welcomed the opportunity to connect with and support migrant families as part of these traditions. However, systemic issues such as confusion around connecting shelters and schools, limited transportation options, and a lack of technology and other resources in shelters and other housing for homeless families predated the arrival of these young people. Unfortunately, these issues have made their transition into our classrooms difficult and frustrating for families and schools alike.

Finally, so many of the children who have recently arrived here have gone through unimaginable trauma during their journey to our city. We have worked closely with the DOE and other organizations to increase our schools’ capacity to provide social-emotional supports to students and families, including through the recent expansion of the MindUp program in schools throughout the city. However, this is another area in which the systemic shortage of bilingual staff, especially among our school counselors and psychologists, severely limits our schools’ capacity to fully serve the needs of these newly arrived students and their families.

We urge the City Council to continue to advocate for these families and to monitor their situation as they and their children adjust to life in our city and its schools. We look forward to continuing to work with you to make their lives here stable, safe, and successful.