NEW YORK — New York City education, housing, and immigration officials Friday promised a coordinated, cross-agency effort to enroll more than 1,000 recently arrived migrant children in public school before classes start next month.
The plan, “Project Open Arms,” follows a New York Daily News story detailing concerns from some advocates and staffers that the city wasn’t moving urgently enough to accommodate the influx of new arrivals, many of whom came on buses sent by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
“Our city has always stood with those in need of refuge and shelter, and this administration will continue that proud legacy,” schools chancellor David Banks said Friday. “Our schools are ready and excited to welcome our newest New Yorkers to class on September 8.”
City agencies have faced a daunting logistical challenge with the arrival of an estimated 6,000 asylum seekers and have opened 13 new emergency homeless shelters to accommodate the influx.
More than 1,000 school-aged children, ranging from age preschoolers to high schoolers, are among the surge of migrants — and all will need spots in public schools and additional services like language support by the time classes start on Sept. 8.
Banks said the Education Department is working closely with city agencies responsible for homeless shelters and immigrant affairs to make sure the DOE is identifying the new arrivals as quickly as possible and referring them to schools or “family welcome centers” where they can enroll.
But some Education Department staffers and advocates said the shortage of people working directly in shelters over the summer has made it challenging to keep up with the volume of new arrivals.
The DOE laid out plans in February to hire 50 more year-round employees to work in homeless shelters, but hasn’t made any hires and recently began posting the positions.
Banks said the agency is now working to “have those counselors in place as quickly as we can.”
There’s also the matter of making sure the new arrivals get paired with schools that have the resources they need.
According to the city’s plan, enrollment officers are supposed to identify and direct families to nearby schools with bilingual teachers and mental health professionals.
Kindergarten to sixth-grade students who live in homeless shelters are also entitled to school buses so they can attend in schools further from their shelters.
The city is planning to open a new center that will act as a one-stop-shop for the newly-arrived migrants in the coming weeks, a spokesman for Mayor Eric Adams said — and the center will have a DOE enrollment officer on-hand.
The influx of new student arrivals comes as many schools are struggling with ongoing enrollment losses, and have seen their budgets slashed after Mayor Adams ended a pandemic policy of holding schools financially harmless for drops in student numbers.
Education Department First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said principals whose schools see significant numbers of new kids signing up can submit budget appeals to get more money to hire additional staff.
“We want to make sure that schools that are getting a lot of students are getting the resources,” Weisberg said. “Ultimately they’re going to get money added to their budget.”
