How NY schools will handle student influx as 'large numbers' of asylum seekers arrive

New York school officials are expecting an influx of migrant children in public schools soon as asylum-seeking families continue to arrive in New York City and some are relocated to hotels around the state.

With classrooms set to reopen in weeks, state officials announced Monday that they had met with New York City school leaders that day to discuss supporting school districts with the "arrival of large numbers of asylum seeker and migrant students."

"All students deserve access to an equitable, quality education," Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young Jr. and Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said in a joint statement. "We are grateful for the work being done by local school districts and their communities in support of these families and their children. We look forward to having further conversations with our partners in government and education."

Where would asylum seekers arrive, go to school in NY?

The statement gave no details about how many new students are expected and in which districts. Tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been bused to New York City from the southern border over the last year, and since May the city has moved hundreds to hotels in at least seven counties around New York as the city's shelters have filled.

Those upstate transfers continued on Monday night with the reported arrival of 77 asylum seekers in Rochester.

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A Schenectady County school district was expecting 68 migrant children to enroll, all from asylum-seeking families who had been placed at a Super 8 motel in Rotterdam, the Albany Times-Union reported last month.

Not all asylum seekers New York City has placed upstate have brought school-age children.

As of Monday, Westchester County had about 400 migrants from New York City staying in three hotels, County Executive George Latimer said. That total included 275 adults and 125 children, none of whom were old enough to attend school, Latimer said.

In May, the city placed 186 asylum seekers in two Orange County hotels and 86 in a Dutchess County hotel before court orders prohibited further placements in those two counties. All were men who had come on their own, without children.

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NY schools preparing to address language barriers

A central challenge for that and other districts is serving more kids who don't speak English. State officials said in their statement on Monday that they were working with regional agencies — known as Boards of Cooperative Education Services, or BOCES — to identify districts that can best accommodate those students. That includes school systems with "wraparound services" for English learners and their families.

"We also are exploring the possibility of providing regulatory flexibility for districts that are experiencing significant increases in their student populations, especially increases in the number of ELLs (English Language Learners), due to this crisis," the statement read.

State officials say they can offer those districts various forms of assistance, but no emergency funds to accommodate the influx. The state's help includes "technical assistance, training, classroom tools, and professional development" to teach English learners, including "newly arrived asylum seeker and migrant students."

Adams weighs in on schooling obligations

At an unrelated press conference in the Bronx on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the city plans to release updated cost estimates on Wednesday for the schooling of migrant children. He didn't answer directly when asked later if the city will hire more English language teachers for them.

In response to another question about schooling, Adams echoed his rebuttal to upstate officials who blasted his plans to relocate migrants: that the rest of the state must help the city absorb its growing migrant population.

"But it's also our other counties upstate," he said, after listing steps the city had taken. "We believe our other counties upstate have an obligation. New York City is the economic engine of not only this country but the state, and we believe everyone should step up and play a role in this crisis that New York City has been carrying, for the most part, on its own."

At another event last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul had noted that state and city officials were set to talk on Monday about which schools could best serve the migrant children.

"There are some schools that have capacity that would make more sense than others," she told reporters.

As for funding, Hochul pointed out that New York school districts had gotten a huge increase in state aid this year that could help cover additional costs.

Hotel contracts and court fights

Roughly 97,000 asylum seekers have been bused to New York City since last year, Adams said.

Since May, his administration has transferred at least 1,600 of those migrants to hotels in Westchester, Orange, Dutchess, Albany, Schenectady, Erie and Monroe counties, according to USA Today Network reporting and other published accounts.

Each hotel signed agreements with a company that New York City hired to find temporary shelters around the state for asylum seekers. New York City is paying for the migrants’ lodging, food and others services through its contract with DocGo.

A slew of state and federal court cases are being waged over the city’s ability to place asylum seekers outside its borders.

County and town officials in Orange, Dutchess and Rockland counties have won temporary court orders that prevent the city from housing migrants in any of those counties – besides those it had already placed in Orange and Dutchess – while those cases are pending.

New lodging, eight hours from Manhattan

Monroe County got its first arrivals on Monday, when two buses carrying 77 asylum seekers from New York City pulled up to a Holiday inn in Rochester. As they disembarked, they were greeted by a platoon of government and nonprofit employees who had gathered food and toiletries and came to offer assistance.

Monroe County Executive Adam Bello had issued an executive order in May that barred hotels from contracting to house asylum seekers without first submitting a comprehensive plan detailing how they would be provided for. The Holiday Inn submitted such a plan Aug. 4.

“What we’re not going to do is be a community where buses of people are just coming here in the middle of the night and being dropped off in a parking lot,” Bello said on Tuesday. “People who don’t know where they are, why there’s here and who’s going to take care of them. That’s not going to happen in Monroe County.”

Justin Murphy, staff writer for Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, contributed to this report.

Chris McKenna covers government and politics for The Journal News and USA Today Network. Reach him at cmckenna@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Schools prep for migrant students as more asylum seekers head to NY