Around the country, many school districts are reporting attendance concerns related to their immigrant, English Learner (EL), and Multilingual Learner (ML) students. While we are in the midst of flu and cold season, many are pointing to heightened fear around immigration issues as a factor. Below are short lists of suggestions for those in central office, principals or other school-based administrators, student services, and immigrant community leaders who are all working on this issue.
Central Office
Recognize and Validate the Fear. The fear being felt by immigrants around the U.S. is very real. This is partly due to the increased enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but it is also because many of the programs people have legally come over on have been eliminated, such as Humanitarian Parole (for example, many Ukrainians) and Temporary Protected Status (for example, many Venezuelans).
Take the Lead in Reaching Out. Superintendents need to reach out to their local immigrant and refugee community-based organizations and immigrant community leaders, including faith-based leaders, to assuage fears. This will be much easier if you have already done this relationship-building, but even if not, now is a good time to start. Please do not put this responsibility solely on your EL/ML Coordinator. The message needs to come from higher-up! Without proactive messaging to reduce fear, it is unlikely attendance issues will resolve.
Create Policies and Protocols. Every district, regardless of the political leanings of their state, needs a protocol in place for if Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) visits their school. Secretaries and other front office staff, in particular, need to know what to do. Plenty of sample protocols/policies can be found here.
Communicate these Policies in Multiple Languages. Any new policies or procedures related to ICE (as well as long-standing policies related to not asking immigration status per Plyler vs. Doe) need to be shared with immigrant families and communities in multiple languages as well as modalities that are commonly used. Be creative and enlist the help of immigrant community leaders (see #2) to figure out the best way to get out the message.
Stay Informed. District administrators, including general counsel, need to keep abreast of changing immigration policies and how they could impact students and families. (Tip: follow the National Immigration Law Center for digestible information.)
Principals and other School-Based Administrators
Coordinate with your central office administrators on many of the items above, especially on outreach with immigrant community-based organizations and community leaders. These organizations and leaders are incredibly busy and stressed right now and likely cannot handle multiple requests for phone calls with individual administrators (let alone attendance officers, social workers, and so on).
Host a virtual gathering of your EL/immigrant families. You may wish to enlist the help of your ML/EL teachers to put on something like this, but please do not ask them to do it alone. They are overwhelmed with everything going on, and they need your leadership on this. As to whether to host it in-person or virtual, it would likely work best online, particularly if you’re trying to reach the families with attendance concerns. For outreach, advertise via WhatsApp if possible, and other tools that most immigrant communities use. Make sure you have interpreters (preferably not just someone who is bilingual) who can help with the meeting. Discuss families’ concerns, reiterate any messaging coming from central office, and do a lot of listening! Ask families what they need in order to feel comfortable sending their kids to school.
Be sensitive about home visits. In some districts, relational home visits are a part of the culture and might make sense if trust has already been established between the educators and the families they are visiting. For other districts that don’t have a culture of home visits, now is not the best time to ask your staff to start this practice. If you absolutely need to do a home visit for the first time with a family, you may need to enlist an immigrant community leader or other trusted member of the community to go with you.
Student Services and Attendance Officers
Recognize and Validate the Fear. The fear being felt by immigrants around the U.S. is very real. This is partly due to the increased enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but it is also because many of the programs people have legally come over on have been eliminated, such as Humanitarian Parole (for example, many Ukrainians) and Temporary Protected Status (for example, many Venezuelans).
Be sensitive about home visits. In some districts, home visits are a part of the culture and might make sense if trust has already been established between the educators and the families they are visiting. For other districts that don’t have a culture of home visits, now is not the best time to start this practice if you can avoid it. If you absolutely need to do a home visit for the first time with a family, you may need to enlist an immigrant community leader or other trusted member of the community to go with you.
Ensure families are connected with local immigrant organizations. Many families will be more aware of the immigrant organizations serving their community than the student services staff trying to help them. That said, student services staff should make sure they do their homework and know which immigrant organizations are the main “players” in their community. Put these resources on a one-page handout for families that can easily be given out if needed.
Use interpreters in your conversations with families. As of now (2/6/25), language access laws that require us to use interpreters in our conversations with non-English speaking families still apply. In conversations with families, get to the root of why the student is missing school. Is it immigration-related fear or something else? Ask families what they need in order to feel comfortable sending their kids to school.
Stay Informed. Educators need to keep at least somewhat abreast of changing immigration policies and how they could impact students and families. (Tip: follow the National Immigration Law Center for digestible information.)
For Immigrant and Refugee Community-Based Organizations and Community Leaders:
Reach out to the Superintendent. We advise Superintendents to reach out to you, but if they don’t, you can try reaching out to them. Explain that you or your organization has a lot of trust with the communities affected by changing immigration policies and you’d like to partner with the school district to make sure kids continue coming to school.
Speak at a school board meeting. In many parts of the country, school and district leaders don’t really understand what the changing immigration policies mean for their students and families and your voice, as a leader, is greatly needed during this time. All school boards have opportunities for public input, whether through in-person public comments during board meetings or emails or calls. Bring along as many members of the community as possible!
Help spread school district messaging. If the school district puts out messaging around everything going on, help them spread the word! Many school district leaders are not aware of how to best get messages out to immigrant communities. Furthermore, some are restricted from using WhatsApp and other tools that immigrants typically communicate with.
Finally, while these suggestions may help your attendance issues to an extent, ultimately the big picture solution lies in comprehensive immigration reform, whatever that looks like to you. Please contact your representatives and share your opinion on all the recent changes in immigration policies and how it affects your work with students and families from all backgrounds.
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