New York City charter schools have enrolled a wave of children from asylum-seeking families that have recently arrived in the five boroughs in an effort to help address the ongoing migrant crisis.
Democracy Prep, one of the city’s largest charter school networks with 14 schools in The Bronx and Harlem, has begun taking in arrivals in at least three schools that currently have no waiting lists — including Harlem Prep Middle School, Harlem Prep HS and Democracy Prep Endurance HS.
Other charter schools that have enrolled migrant kids include Family Life Academy in The Bronx, Voice Charter School in Long Island City, Growing up Green in LIC and Jamaica and Hebrew Language Academy in Brooklyn and Staten Island, charter school sector sources said.
There have been 19,000 children enrolled in city shelters since July 2022, and Mayor Eric Adams’ office said most of them are migrant kids.
“We’ve already enrolled 40 [migrant students] across our middle schools and high schools concentrated on the east side of Harlem,” said Democracy Prep regional Superintendent Emmanuel George.
“Since the surge has happened, we want to help. We want to bring kids into our doors.”
There are several emergency shelters near Democracy Prep schools. The superintendent said Democracy Prep admission staffers went to the shelter on 97th Street to directly enroll migrants.
“We are a community charter school, you’ve got to serve. You’ve got to act,” George said.
Charter schools with waiting lists of students from prior random lottery drawings are forbidden from enrolling migrants or other students. But schools are permitted to enroll children in cases where there is no backlog.
“Some [grades] have waiting lists and some don’t. “People can apply, they can get in,” George said.
“We want to abide by the state lottery rules but at the same time the wait list will not be a barrier for us in schools where we are still seeking enrollment. If there are migrants entering into our communities, we want to make sure enrollment is not a barrier.”
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He said enrollment officers distributed applications in English, Spanish and French to parents of kids in migrant shelters.
“We had people who can speak the language,” George said.
Seats are still available for children to enroll in Democracy Prep’s Harlem Middle School in grade 6.
There are 274 charter schools in the city serving 142,500 students. Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately managed and mostly non-union schools that operate independently from the city Department of Education. Many have a longer school day and school year and outperform their neighboring traditional public schools, test data and studies show.
Like traditional public schools, charters have seen a decline in enrollment with a decline in the city’s student-age population. The city’s public school enrollment has plummeted from 1.1 million students a decade ago to under 900,000.
In The Bronx, the Family Life Academy Charter school has enrolled 16 migrant students in the lower grades — including 6 on Thursday, said founder Raymond Rivera, a member of the Black, Latinx, Asian Charter Collaborative.
“It’s our mission to educate undocumented and immigrant students and particularly help them learn the English language,” Rivera said.
New York City Charter School Center CEO James Merriman said, “Charter schools across the city that have open seats have eagerly pitched in to work alongside our traditional public schools to see that these children get the education they need to grow and thrive.”
The mayor’s office said city Department of Education enrollment staffers have been aggressively enrolling kids at migrant shelters into traditional public schools, overseen by First Deputy Chancellor Daniel Weisberg
“When a counselor meets with a family, it takes roughly 30 minutes to enroll them,” the City Hall rep said.
