US teachers face language barriers, student trauma as record migration reaches classrooms

Dana Smith had been teaching first grade at the public school in the small Pennsylvania town of Charleroi for more than 16 years when she found herself confronting a new challenge last year: a sharp rise in students from Haiti who did not speak English.

She started using a phone app to translate lessons, but the constant pauses for translation frustrated her. She wondered if she was hindering the learning of American students who knew some of the basics she was reviewing, a complaint raised by a vocal segment of parents in the district.

"It was very stressful," she said. "We never know when we're going to get new ones coming in, where their levels are, how adjusted they are to this culture. The unexpected."

More than half a million school-age migrant children have arrived in the U.S. since 2022, according to immigration court records collected by Syracuse University, exacerbating overcrowding in some classrooms; compounding teacher and budget shortfalls; forcing teachers to grapple with language barriers and inflaming social tensions in places unaccustomed to educating immigrant students.

An immigrant student attends first-grade teacher Dana Smith's class at the public elementary school in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 25, 2024. Reuters

To gauge the impact of immigration on public schools across the U.S., Reuters sent a survey to more than 10,000 school districts. Of the 75 school districts that responded, serving a total of 2.3 million children or about 5% of the public school population, a third said the increase in immigrant children had had a "significant" impact on their school district.

The responses spanned school districts across 23 states, from Texas to Alaska, and include the largest urban district of New York City as well as the tiny and rural Hot Springs Elementary School District in southern California, with just 16 pupils.

Forty-two districts said they had hired more English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers and consultants. Fifteen districts described difficulties communicating with parents or a lack of interpreter services.

"Textbooks are not in their language. Resources are not easily available. Google Translate does not work that great," the Springfield City school district in Ohio said in its response to the survey conducted between late August and late September.

Migration: Trump vs Harris

Republican candidate Donald Trump has made immigration a top talking point in the November 5 presidential election, blaming his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris for record numbers of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during President Joe Biden’s administration.

Trump also faults Harris for a Biden program launched in late 2022 that allowed legal entry to 530,000 Haitians and others with U.S. sponsors.

At a rally in Arizona last month, Trump used Charleroi, a town an hour south of Pittsburgh, as an example of the negative impacts of immigration.

Julnise Telorge, an 18-year-old high school senior, shows a TikTok video of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris during the last presidential debate at the home table in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 25, 2024. Reuters

About 2,000 immigrants, including about 700 Haitians, live in the town with many arriving in the last few years, according to Charleroi Borough Manager Joe Manning, swelling a population that declined from over 11,000 a century ago to 4,200 in the 2020 census.

"Charleroi, what a beautiful name, but it's not so beautiful now," Trump told supporters. "The schools are scrambling to hire translators for the influx of students who don't speak, not a word of English, costing local taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Washington County, where Charleroi is located, backed Trump over Biden in 2020 by 23 percentage points, symbolizing a part of the rural vote that could help Trump win Pennsylvania, the most important of the election battleground states that could decide control of the White House.

The Harris campaign touted $130 billion directed to schools under Biden's 2021 economic stimulus package. Harris “will build on those investments and continue fighting until every student has the support and the resources they need to thrive,” Harris campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said in a statement to Reuters.

White House spokesperson Angelo Fernandez Hernandez said the Biden administration has increased funding to address teacher shortages and requested $50 million in new funding to support English language learning.