Supports for Newcomer Students
For more than a year, Massachusetts headlines have repeatedly described a “migrant crisis” within the state. News stories frequently highlight the political and policy aspects of the wave of recently arrived families, from overflowing emergency shelters to conflicts between communities and the state over placements within local hotels. On the other hand, news coverage rarely delves into the humanity of the individuals involved—their stories, their fears, or their aspirations for the future.
Similarly, when schools are mentioned as part of this conversation, it’s often to bring up unanticipated costs or resource challenges associated with enrolling recently arrived migrant students. What these stories miss are the day-to-day efforts of school and district staff to orient newcomer students and their families to a novel educational system. Newcomers—a term we use to refer to students with substantially limited or interrupted formal education, as well as those at the lowest level of English proficiency—are often highly resilient and eager to learn. At the same time, newcomer students need heightened academic, language, and social supports compared to other students in order to thrive in an education system that was not designed for their success.
More than ever before, educating newcomer students requires districts all across the Commonwealth—not just the state’s traditional hubs for newly arrived immigrants—to identify and apply effective strategies for developing students’ academic, language, and social-emotional skills. Many suburban and rural communities have enrolled unprecedented numbers of migrant students in recent years. For instance, a 2023 report on high school newcomers in Massachusetts indicates that the number of newcomers more than tripled in non-urban districts between 2008 and 2022.
A new Data Story from the Rennie Center digs into this topic from a different angle, looking at recent state funding data to examine which districts have received the highest amounts of supplemental funding for students under the Emergency Housing Assistance (EA) program. Many non-urban districts received significant allocations under this program—especially when the actual size of those districts’ budgets is taken into account. While not all students eligible to participate in the EA program are recently arrived immigrants (and not all migrant students seek housing through this program), the picture that emerges is of a widespread—indeed, statewide—need to offer better supports for newcomer students.
For schools and districts seeking information on how best to serve newcomer students, the Rennie Center’s Data Story also includes a variety of tools and resources that can help support the holistic development of these learners (and others). We hope these recommendations can serve as a useful starting point for planning and adopting new approaches to academic and social-emotional development for recently arrived students.
While this list is intended to offer initial guidance and direction, we recognize that applying changes in practice to support newcomer students requires more than just awareness of effective strategies. For that reason, the Rennie Center has been working with Waltham Public Schools over the past year to improve the quality of instruction for newcomers. Through this R&D partnership, Waltham’s McDevitt Middle School sought the Rennie Center’s assistance with a pilot program where teachers provide students with access to grade-level content while co-teaching with an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher focused on students’ language development.
Over the past year, Rennie staff have worked closely with the McDevitt to define a specific set of priorities for improvement, including by collecting feedback from educators (through a teacher survey) and from 24 newcomer students (through interviews conducted in Spanish). As of the end of the 2023-24 school year, the McDevitt team had zeroed in on a specific focus area for their efforts—developing instructional resources for teachers working with newcomers. In the coming year, educators at the McDevitt will continue focusing on what they do best—working directly with students—while leveraging the Rennie Center’s ability to identify evidence-based strategies for newcomer students, develop resources that educators can use in the classroom, gather and analyze data on the results, and spread the word about effective practices to educators in other schools and districts.
Even as our work with the McDevitt continues, the Rennie Center is eager to support changes in practice within other Massachusetts schools and districts. We encourage interested teams to contact us for more information about how Rennie can assist with ongoing improvement efforts—for newcomer students and others—through an R&D process.