Immigration Watch International (2): NYC scrambles as hundreds more migrant kids enroll in school

Thursday, August 31, 2023

NYC scrambles as hundreds more migrant kids enroll in school — just days before classes return

The Big Apple is scrambling to get up to speed for the first day of school next week with 500 new migrant kids enrolled for the first time and a possible school bus strike looming. And yet, New York City School Chancellor David Banks claims it’s just business as usual.

“Everything has been okay,” Banks assured New Yorkers at a press conference Wednesday. “We have room for the students, our principals, our superintendents, outside communities have worked extremely well.”

Just over 19,000 kids in temporary housing are enrolled in the city school system — the overwhelming majority of whom are asylum seekers, according to the Department of Education.

As classes get started on Sept. 7, another 500 have been added to the mix this week — with more arriving weekly.

Banks says the district has 3,400 English as a new language teachers and about 1,700 teachers who are fluent in Spanish, the primary language spoken by the vast majority of the nearly 60,000 migrants overall who are now being housed by the city.

Migrant parents who have arrived in the Big Apple in the past year are now scrambling to get their kids enrolled in New York City schools — with some telling The Post that getting clothes and supplies for school has been a challenge.

This week, state officials warned Empire State school districts that they have no choice but to make sure that migrant children are enrolled in school. “We recognize that this specific student population faces additional challenges and that the schools need the additional resources to fully support them,” Banks said.

“Our focus remains undeterred on the education wellbeing, holistic development of every student that steps into the public school, regardless of where they come from, or the language that they speak at home.”

However, educators say they have been left to handle it themselves. “I mean, there’s a plan from me,” one frustrated principal told The Post. “But not from the DOE.”

City Councilman Eric Dinowitz (D-The Bronx), who sits on the Education Committee, said he worried that there hasn’t been enough coordination between city agencies, including social services.

“I know they [the DOE] struggle a lot to coordinate efforts with other city agencies, although they have been responsive when specific needs have been brought to their attention,” Dinowitz said.

“I hope that their plan going forward isn’t just waiting for local council members to call.

“It’s hard enough for people who have been here and lived here with years to deal with getting enrolled in school and getting services,” he continued.

“It’s going to really be challenging and has been challenging, for migrants. I was in the DOE for almost 14 years, and too often, bureaucrats are more interested in looking like they’re doing the right thing than helping students.”

“We didn’t bring anything with us, just the clothes we were wearing,” said Jackie Alvarez, a 28-year-old from Belize who crossed the border with her partner and two children, who are 8 and 4 years old. “I don’t have school supplies for the kids,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I bought the kids some clothes at the Salvation Army. They don’t have enough clothes or footwear or school supplies. I have some pens and paper in the shelter but not proper school supplies.”

Karen Maldonado, a single mom from Ecuador, said she was only able to get her children, who are 6 and 7 years old, enrolled in school at the Family Welcome Center on Friday.

“I don’t know if the teachers at the school can speak Spanish,” she said. “I hope so because my daughters want to learn English. We fled our country to come to America for a better future, so it is important my daughters learn English.”

https://nypost.com/2023/08/30/nyc-scrambles-as-hundreds-more-migrant-kids-enroll-in-school/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.

The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Thursday, August 31, 2023

NYC scrambles as hundreds more migrant kids enroll in school — just days before classes return

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