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Teacher Christopher Baughman works with newcomer students at Emerald STEAM Magnet Middle School. (Megan Wood/inewsource, 8/28/17)

As immigration policies see-saw, refugee children are arriving at schools across America in unpredictable numbers, forcing educators to scramble to meet their needs. In the Cajon Valley Union School District in a San Diego suburb, one in five students is a refugee – one of the highest numbers in the country. Last year, 897 students arrived under President Obama’s refugee resettlement policy’s higher quota, double the number from the year before. The district ran out of seats in classrooms and had to hire new teachers.

“It’s a challenge. We don’t get any information about it when it happens,” says Eyal Bergman, head of the district’s family and community outreach. Adding to the challenge is the emotional stress travel ban turmoil and anti-immigrant rhetoric can cause refugee families once they arrive. The district has embraced these challenges by creating a robust newcomers program involving teacher training, parent involvement and mental health counseling.

Staff Development

As refugees arrive, Bergman makes student placements among the district’s 26 schools and works with them on lesson content, English instruction in the classroom, and student assessment. Training includes issues of cultural sensitivity, trauma, and parent-school involvement, for instance making home visits to overcome communication breakdowns between home and school.

“Teacher training programs don’t include anything about family engagement. Yet the research is unequivocal that the more you build partnerships with parents, the more you can amplify kids’ success,” says Bergman.

Due to the wave of new arrivals last year, eleven “newcomer teachers” were added across Cajon Valley schools to teach students who aren’t ready to be mainstreamed.

Parent Involvement

Bergman also oversees an outreach program for refugee parents, working with paid community liaisons who speak some of the families' native languages: Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Swahili, or Spanish. They meet one on one with newcomer parents soon after their arrival to discuss their kids’ academic backgrounds and hopes and dreams for them. They then introduce them to school staff, and follow up with home visits. Parents can attend classes on such things as reading to their child.

Mental Health Counseling

Since many refugee students arrive with mental health issues, including PTSD, the district provides training on trauma for students and teachers. It has also hired four counselors devoted to working with children affected by trauma.

Counselors and teachers sensitized to mental health issues have helped students and their parents deal with fears for their families back home as refugee policies tighten. During the presidential campaign last year, Cajon Valley responded to the anxiety aroused by anti-immigrant rhetoric by holding private meetings with families and classes for parents. Teachers and principals have bought into the newcomers program – one of the keys to its success, says Bergman. Another is that Bergman’s team listened to the community about what they wanted, and put in place what they knew would help achieve it, he says:

“Refugees come here seeking a better life for their kids. They know that the American dream is wrapped up in the schools.”

Superintendent David Miyashiro, school district board member Tamara Otero, and Eyal Bergman of the Cajon Valley Union School District meet with California Rep. Susan Davis at her office in Washington, D.C.

A third reason for Cajon Valley’s success is its ongoing advocacy for resources. Bergman, whose background is in community organizing, is constantly advocating within his district for resources. Last April, the district successfully lobbied state lawmakers for a $10 million one-time funding award for districts with high numbers of refugees. In January, Bergman joined the district’s superintendent and a school board member for a trip to Washington, DC, as part of the National School Board Association’s annual gathering to raise awareness about their program and lobby their California delegation for additional federal funds.

“We’ve shown that we do good work. We invested a lot of funds in evaluation,” he says.

Do schools in your local district have programs like this? Please share on our Facebook page. Would you like to help start a newcomer program? Google the Cajon Valley Union School District to find numerous media accounts of this three-year-old model program. Take Eyal Bergman’s advice: “Do strong work and make yourself indispensable to key stakeholders.”

By Tony Agnello

Guest Blogger

Members of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Buffalo along with Friends of Afghanistan's 2016 Starfish Award recipient, Orchard Park High School Educational Outreach, served Thanksgiving dinner to 150 immigrants and asylees at the Vive Refugee Center in Buffalo, NY, on Nov. 19. Tony is on the right, serving.

The Peace Corps Alliance for Intercultural Understanding is one of the newest affiliates of the National Peace Corps Association. Its mission is to “educate, advocate and organize” around the enduring principles of Peace Corps.

The Alliance is dedicated to promoting the ideals of President John F. Kennedy, who proposed establishing a corps of young American men and women who, “…would be willing to serve their country and the cause of peace by living and working in the developing world.” Through Peace Corps’ Third Goal, volunteers pledged that upon returning to the U.S., they would “help to promote a better understanding of other peoples and cultures on the part of our fellow Americans.”

The Alliance is dedicated to offering Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) creative new opportunities to fulfill our pledge and serve as intercultural ambassadors of goodwill.

The seeds of the group were sown in the lead-up to the 55^th anniversary Peace Corps Connect Conference in Washington, D.C., last September.  Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Dr. Hamdullah Mohib, had inquired about what the Friends of Afghanistan, a well-established NPCA affiliate, was doing to oppose the rising tide of Islamophobia exploited during the political campaigns. At that time we had no concrete answer.

Less than a month later, a response began to organically grow within the community of RPCVs who had served in nations with majority Muslim populations.

At the NPCA affiliates meeting held at the conference, Millard Mott, president of the Friends of Pakistan, stood up and implored the groups’ leaders to jointly address the rise of Islamophobia in America. Within weeks, leaders representing volunteers who served in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan began engaging in an extended organizational discussion about the role and nature of a Peace Corps anti-Islamophobia effort that RPCV groups representing majority Muslim nations and regions could support.

One of our conclusions was that while we would remain true to our individual Peace Corps experiences as respected and welcome guests in Muslim cultures, we would address Islamophobia not in isolation, but more broadly as a symptom of xenophobia and a lack of intercultural awareness. Consequently, we remain firmly committed to promoting dialogue that reveals the incompatibility of bigotry, racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of discrimination with traditional American values.

We seek to establish a broad intersectionality among NPCA affiliates. Join us in a renewed effort to “educate, advocate and organize” in partnership with NPCA country of service, geographic, regional and cause-related affiliates such as Peace Corps Community for the Support of Refugees.

In another promising alliance, we are developing partnerships with Rotary International. We project that as influential RPCV organizations begin to work in coordination with Rotary and local school and community groups, a pathway of intercultural understanding will begin to emerge.

Helping a refugee or other immigrant family settle in your community, organizing an intercultural dinner, or promoting an international music group in your area all have potential to lead us from our current state of division to a place where we will reaffirm that all Americans are members of “one nation, under god, indivisible,” and that we will offer “liberty and justice for all.”

We invite all concerned RPCV groups and like-minded individuals to learn more about us by visiting our website: www.pcaiu.org.  Click on What We Do and then Projects to find resources from Tim Resch, President of the Friends of Morocco, with ideas to address Islamophobia among the 60 percent of Americans who have never met a Muslim.

Tony Agnello is co-founder of Peace Corps Alliance for Intercultural Understanding and longtime president of Friends of Afghanistan. He served in Samangan, Afghanistan, 1972-1975.