"Arrive on Sunday, school on Monday..."  So went an old saying in the immigrant neighborhood.

Public education is a central receptor of future Americans.

Immigrants with children prize education. For a significant portion, the education system in the United States is also very foreign and formidable. At the top and bottom of the achievement spectrum are the foreign born or the 1.5 generation children born to newcomer couples. One of every five children in public education is foreign born and one in four has a foreign born parent. 

The future of America has long rested on the pillar of education, but in a literal sense our future Americans are being fashioned in today's classroom. Amazingly, this is not a major focus of those most likely to help- school social workers.

Migration stress, acculturation complexities, family separations, status fears, language barriers and educational differentials play out in daily dramas within the school. The classroom teacher seeks to understand and to address student differentials but is clearly facing more work than time allows. Schools on the other hand have little incentive to assign personnel to the reception and integration of foreign born students, leaving them to cope alone and families to trust a system that enrolls but often fails to address the particular challenges of the newcomer.

A Russian parent is dismayed that his child was placed two years behind the work she had been doing before coming. A Somali refugee family, who fled war and suffering, disrupted education, and all manner of hardships, cannot understand the system in which they find themselves. The growing Latino agricultural community in Missouri is recruited to labor on the farm, but their children are deserted in the school house.

With over a quarter of a million school social workers in this country, a veritable army exists to address the need of newcomers and immigrant integration. Of course, the agenda is already full. Overworked staff try to address testing, placement and truancy and are not positioned, in the vast majority of situations, to offer programs of cultural orientation, of fostering parent engagement, of identifying community resources and of connecting families and agencies to one another. But when it happens, immigrant integration happens. New Americans -rather than marginalized ethnic minorities- emerge where there is attention to school culture, to origins, to orientation and to family dynamics impacting education. 

Of the 49 million children in public schools, well over 8 million go home and speak another language. At London's Institute of Education, Dina Mehmedbegovic writes about the success of schools where pluralingualism is the value. Three MILLION Londoners are foreign born. In schools where every parent regardless of English fluency is asked to come and to share something with their child's class the results are notable. Chaos? No. Rather, there is increased trust and engagement.  Students in schools with harsh 'English only' rules have been studied in comparison to students in culture affirming schools and the results illustrate the impact of school cultural decisions. Bilingual schools outperform monolingual ones, but there is a larger issue than language pedagogy at play. Where affirmation and attention is paid to national origin, mother tongue and one's cultural background, there is higher retention, attendance, graduation and matriculation into higher education.

When adjustment counselors are empowered to identify newcomers, address family needs, provide orientation and connect families to resources, similar outcomes are achieved. Early intervention, in reception and assessment and in facilitating cultural mediators and volunteer mentors (be they big brothers or adult members of the community) accelerates the newcomer's trajectory into social and civic life, as well as into educational attainment. It is clear that schools lack cultural models for all students and often cannot include speakers of all the native languages but multilingual notices, liaisons and interpreters at special parent sessions are giant steps toward a more intentional model.

 In a recent report of new arrivals into the LA International High School, 65% of children had clinical symptoms of PTSD.  Averaging three traumatic events, children are particularly vulnerable and schools receiving unaccompanied minors are experiencing a significant need for concentrated mental health interventions.  Remembering that foreign-born children regularly  perform at the top of the achievement scales (approximately half of Boston's valedictorians are foreign born), the variety of situations suggests a great need for initial assessment and care. 

Many related issues demand attention, from the need to prepare future voters with civics classes (knowing these lessons also go home) to the human needs of children whose parents are out of status and their fears (as we wait for the legal challenge to President Obama's Executive Order to clear the courts.) Uncertainty due to the broken immigration system wastes young lives and taxpayers' investment, but the challenge on the immediate level of how school adjustment counselors see themselves can be addressed. If this army of 277,000 school and education related social workers were to be at the forefront of welcome, inclusion, social connection and family engagement, the larger issues of social cohesion, the building of a strong future America, would be in good hands. 

 Westy Egmont, Director