{"id":2734,"date":"2025-10-15T01:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/2734\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T01:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:15:12","slug":"amid-trump-crackdown-nyc-schools-panel-urges-boosting-support-for-immigrant-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/2734\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid Trump crackdown, NYC schools panel urges boosting support for immigrant students"},"content":{"rendered":"

As President Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown catches New York City students in the crosshairs<\/a>, an influential panel appointed by the chancellor is recommending steps for local schools to take to better defend immigrant children and their families<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 50-member advisory council on multilingual education<\/a> said all schools should form teams of teachers and staff, who receive training to serve as advocates for multilingual and immigrant students. A team liaison would coordinate on issues that arise with the Education Department\u2019s district and central offices.<\/p>\n

The panel also called on principals to repurpose space in their buildings as welcome centers and \u201ccare closets\u201d \u2014 filled with school supplies, clothes, food and other basic necessities for families. Districts should help the school administrators partner with local organizations, according to the recommendations.<\/p>\n

\"FederalFederal law enforcement officers are pictured in the hallway outside immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza Tuesday, June 10, 2025 in the Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

The proposals were part of a sweeping, 10-page plan<\/a> released Tuesday on how to promote multilingualism in the city\u2019s schools, whether that involves expanding services for students learning English or native English speakers who want to learn a new language.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome students no matter where they\u2019re from,\u201d said Naveed Hasan, who sat on the panel, \u201cand what language they speak, because that\u2019s the fabric of New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we continue this and stand up to sort of federal overreach and hateful rhetoric,\u201d he added. \u201cI don\u2019t see it taking root in the city in any meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Driven in part by the registration of tens of thousands of minors seeking asylum in the United States, nearly 1 in 5 of the city\u2019s students are now classified as \u201cEnglish Language Learners,\u201d collectively speaking more than 156 languages.<\/p>\n

There have been no confirmed reports of federal immigration enforcement inside the city\u2019s schools during Trump\u2019s second term. However, several high-profile student detentions and deportations \u2014 with increased frequency over the summer<\/a> \u2014 have put undocumented and mixed-status immigrant families on edge, and unleashed a wave of informal rapid response teams<\/a>, made up of impassioned parents, immigration advocates and teachers.<\/p>\n

At the crux of their report, the advisory council \u2014 announced late in the 2023-24 school year<\/a>, several months before Trump was re-elected \u2014 called for greater investments in bilingual programs and certified teachers.<\/p>\n

There are two types of bilingual programs in the city\u2019s schools: transitional bilingual and dual language classes. In transitional classrooms, all children start out speaking the same language and, as their vocabulary improves, gradually spend more time learning in English. Dual language programs, as the name suggests, offer instruction in two languages and can foster multilingualism and cultural exchange between native English speakers and students just acquiring the language.<\/p>\n

Most English learners are not in bilingual programs, but in classrooms with certified English as a New Language teachers, who are trained in language acquisition strategies but do not necessarily speak the same language as their students.<\/p>\n

Twenty-eight new bilingual programs opened this school year, for a total of 566 such programs citywide. Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, during her State of Our Schools speech last month, announced a new pilot program to standardize English language development curriculum<\/a> across 80 schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are already starting to incorporate these recommendations into our work,\u201d Aviles-Ramos said Tuesday at a Brooklyn press conference to announce the recommendations.<\/p>\n

In her first sit-down interview with the Daily News after she was appointed chancellor, Aviles-Ramos, who frequently speaks of her own Puerto Rican heritage<\/a>, said last year that one of her goals was to promote multilingualism and expand transitional bilingual programs<\/a>. Before her appointment, she served as the point person at school system for the influx of migrant students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other countries, it is an expectation that you know more than one language,\u201d Aviles-Ramos reiterated\u00a0at P.S. 331 The Detective WenJian Liu School of Civics and Entrepreneurship, a new elementary school in Dyker Heights with a transitional bilingual program in Chinese.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so, it baffles me as to why in this country, speaking multiple languages is something that we look down upon. But regardless of what\u2019s happening in the rest of the country, here in New York City, we stand together when it comes to diversity \u2014 linguistic diversity, racial diversity, ethnic diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As President Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown catches New York City students in the crosshairs, an influential panel appointed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,67,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-2734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-new-york-county","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-the-bronx","18":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","19":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}