I know of one teacher who called all families of her students just to say 'I wanted to thank you for entrusting your child to our school. We're happy you're here. I love working with your student.' I heard about the phone call from an older sibling, and it was the first time I'd seen this girl smile in two weeks. Small gestures make a difference.
— Educator response to a Colorín Colorado survey on how schools are supporting immigrant families
Overview
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Schools can use a variety of strategies to get to know immigrant families and let them know they are welcome in the school community. Sharing these messages of support during times of uncertainty can strengthen relationships, make communication and problem-solving more effective, and impact student attendance and family engagement.
Take a look at our ideas below to get started in your setting. For more great ideas, see related strategies on:
Let all families know that they are welcome
Why this matters
The best way to let families know that they are welcome is to tell them. This kind of outreach has always been important for ELL and immigrant families; however, it is even more critical for immigrant families who may:
- feel unwelcome in the school, early childhood program, or community
- not know if immigration status impacts the right to attend school or early childhood program, or even enter the building
- be more likely to keep their children home and avoid educational settings themselves
- keep their children home due to local immigration enforcement activity, threats against the school, or anti-immigrant sentiments
- come from countries where school records are available to all government agencies
Expressing support signals that you value their place in your community and take those concerns seriously. It is also an important message to communicate to staff who are serving immigrant students and who may be immigrants themselves or have ties to immigrant relatives/communities.
Tips for getting started
Educators and school/program leaders can communicate this message by:
- regularly expressing that families are welcome
- posting welcome signs and messages of support on doors in multiple languages
- making statements of support available online in multiple languages
Other kinds of outreach
Schools, districts, and early childhood programs can also share welcoming messages through:
- parent information meetings
- phone calls
- public remarks in the community or local press
- collaboration with community organizations that have a relationship with families (i.e. houses of worship, community centers, and immigrant rights groups)
- Public Service Announcements and interviews with local media outlets in families' native languages, especially for communities with low levels of native language literacy.
Create a welcoming environment
Bullying prevention
8 Tips to Protect ELLs and Immigrant Students from Bullying (Language Lizard)
Why this matters
The environment of a school or early childhood program has a significant impact on students and families. There are a number of things that educators can do to create a welcoming environment for immigrant students and families.
Tips for getting started
Make families and students feel welcome by:
Removing barriers to engagement
- ensuring that families are greeted warmly at the front office in their language
- introducing them to parent liaisons, Family Resource Centers, or other resources
- helping families understand the U.S. school system
- providing transportation, meals, and child care for family events
- identifying specific stressors, such as stimuli that trigger post-traumatic stress
- publicly dispelling myths that are harmful to immigrant communities
Communicating in families' languages
- having access to someone who speaks their language
- making information available in their language and format they prefer
- teaching staff how to use a language phone line or other services with an interpreter
- learning how to pronounce student and family names correctly
- learning a few phrases in families' languages
- welcoming and using students' home languages in the classroom
- connecting students with peers, staff, or volunteers who speak their language
Celebrate students' countries and cultures
- hanging flags of students' home countries
- displaying artwork, photos, and mementos from students' countries
- including culturally responsive books in families' home languages in the library and in classrooms (including books by diverse authors who share students' heritage)
- providing opportunities for students and/or families to share songs and stories from their country or culture if they feel comfortable doing so
- being mindful that some students may not wish to share information about their home country, immigration story, or place of birth and others may not remember or know much about it (see more on this topic in our related section on immigrant students' silence)
Engaging the school-wide/district-wide community
- encouraging students to brainstorm ideas on how to make peers feel welcome
- encouraging activities that foster students' empathy
- reminding the community, including all students and adults in the building, of existing policies on bullying, bias, and discrimination
- taking steps to prevent bullying and addressing bullying incidents when they occur
- sharing these strategies and ideas with colleagues.
In addition, consider adding immigration status as a form of difference that merits equitable treatment in your classroom. Any time you engage in conversations with students about why it is important not to discriminate against others due to their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or other form of social difference, include immigration status (as is developmentally appropriate). If you have signs in your classroom that name different kinds of bullying or hate speech, include immigration status as well (Gallo, 2018).
Addressing bias
For recommendations on how to discuss and address bias, How to Address Bias and Bullying: Resources for Schools.
Recommended resources
Resources from Colorín Colorado
- Supporting Newcomer Students: Resource Gallery
- How Schools Can Partner with ELL Families Who Resettle in Their Community: 10 Strategies for Success
- 8 Tips for Welcoming Newcomer Students and Families to Your School
- Strategy: Creating a welcoming environment for families (ELL Family Engagement Guide)
- ELL Family Outreach: Resource section
- Creating a Welcoming Classroom Environment: Resource section
Toolkits
- Who Are Our Newcomers? (U.S. Dept. of Education Newcomer Toolkit)
- Building Welcome Schools: A Guide for K-12 Educators and After-School Providers (Welcoming America)
News headlines
- Amid Political Attacks on Ohio Immigrants, How Schools Can Support Newcomers (Education Week)
- How Can the Community School Model Support Newcomer Education? (KQED)
- Students Help Refugee Families Settle into Life in America (The Daily Lobo)
- High School Club Aims to Make Refugees, Immigrants Welcome (The Today Show)
Recommended videos 
Video playlist: Creating a welcoming environment for ELL and immigrant students
Video playlist: Building relationships with ELL and immigrant students
Video: What happened when the students realized the Yemeni flag wasn't on stage
Get to know your students and families
Why this matters
One of the most important steps educators can take is to get to know students and families, developing a personal relationship that establishes trust and rapport. It is much easier to address a difficult situation, such as changes in a student's behavior, when you already have a solid relationship.
Tips for getting started
- Learn more about family backgrounds and strengths by talking with families, cultural liaisons, and ELL/bilingual colleagues.
- Invite members of the community or local organizations to share their insights.
- Look for ways to increase the amount of interaction between staff and families.
- Get into families' neighborhoods by planning events in local venues and home visits.
- Give students the chance to tell their stories with tips in this Colorín Colorado article.
Recommended resources
Strategies and background information
- Getting to Know ELLs and Their Families: Resource Section
- Getting to Know Your ELLs: Six Steps for Success
- Making Your First ELL Home Visit: A Guide for Classroom Teachers
- Lessons Learned from Immigrant Families
- Strategy: Make a personal connection with families (ELL Family Engagement Guide)
Books and guides
- The Inner World of the Immigrant Child by Cristina Igoa
- Parent engagement toolkits: Culturally responsive outreach
Student populations
- How Immigration Status Affects Students, Families, and Schools
- Children in Mixed-Status Families
- DACA and Dreamers: What Schools Need to Know
- Special Populations: Refugees, Unaccompanied Minors, and Newcomer Immigrants
- Immigrant Youth: Some Implications for Schools (UCLA)
Recommended videos
Video Playlist: Home visits with immigrant students
Video Playlist: Getting to know your ELL and immigrant students
Video: One principal's journey to a refugee camp
More recommended videos: Documentaries
Learn more about special populations of students
Why this matters
It is critical to learn as much as possible about your students' backgrounds and educational experiences, as well as their talents and gifts, as you look for ways to help them succeed. You may also meet students who have unique experiences, strengths, and needs.
Here are some examples of those experiences:
- Refugee students may have experienced trauma, difficult journeys, and lengthy stays in refugee camps or temporary accommodations with little access to schooling.
- Students with interrupted education may have little or no schooling, or a patchwork of experiences.
- Children of migrant farmworkers may have moved frequently around the country following different harvest seasons. They may not have school records from prior schools. They may be living in poverty and particularly vulnerable to events such as natural disasters.
- Unaccompanied children and youth may have endured long, traumatic, and violent journeys and may be reuniting with family they haven't met or seen for a long time.
- Students displaced by natural disasters may have gone through traumatic experiences, upheaval, and long separations from immediate family members.
- Indigenous students from Latin America may mask their Indigenous identity and language; while schools may provide support in Spanish to these students based on their country of origin, Spanish may actually be a second or third language.
Tips for getting started
- Look for clues about your students' experiences without asking direct questions.
- Build relationships with students and families.
- Find out if colleagues such as ESOL teachers, parent liaisons, or community partners have information about students' prior experiences. If so, invite these colleagues to share their insights with staff.
- Learn more about the context for your students' experiences, such as a civil war that caused them to flee or the conditions that migrants face along particular routes.
- Keep in mind that some students may be reluctant to share their experiences. See ideas for supportive ways to engage students that don't put them on the spot in our related section and our article on student stories.
- Keep in mind that refugees and asylees have different kinds of rights in the U.S.; not everyone that used to live in a refugee camp has resettled through the State Department and has access to the rights and privileges that such a process entails.
- You may also wish to look at students’ schedules and look for ways to reduce the number disruptions and transitions where possible, particularly for newcomers. See our related section on this topic.
Recommended resources
- Special Populations: ELL and Immigrant Students
- Getting to Know Your ELLs: Six Strategies for Success
- Refugees and Displaced Students: The Story Behind the Story
Serving Afghan refugee families
If your school is welcoming new refugee families from Afghanistan, please see the following:
- How Schools Can Partner with Afghan Refugee Families
- Welcoming Afghan Families: Lessons Learned from Austin ISD
Identify student and family strengths
Why this matters
All students and families have strengths and assets. Recognizing those strengths can create a foundation on which to build an effective partnership. It is an important shift from a "deficit" approach, in which families and students are defined by their needs and challenges.
Tips for getting started
- Be sure to highlight student and family strengths and celebrate them publicly and regularly within the entire school/program community.
- Look for families' strengths and successes in overcoming and managing their challenges and caring for their children.
- Ask students and families to describe their skills, interests, and talents, and ask for additional input from colleagues and community partners.
- Look for ways to do this in the classroom. Encourage teachers to look for students' strengths (using this chart of asset-based language as a starting point), as well as contributions that members of the students' communities have made locally and to American society.
Recommended resources
- Strategy: Look for ways that ELL parents can participate and volunteer (ELL Family Engagement Guide)
- "Using a Strengths-Based Approach with ELs: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence, and Chronic Stress" by Debbie Zacarian, Lourdes Álvarez-Ortiz, and Judie Haynes (article)
- Teaching to Strengths: Supporting Students Living with Trauma, Violence, and Chronic Stress by Debbie Zacarian, Lourdes Álvarez-Ortiz and Judie Haynes (book)
- Strengths-Based Instruction for ELLs (Colorín Colorado)
- A Strengths-Based Approach to Teaching English Learners (Cult of Pedagogy)
- Finding Students' Hidden Strengths and Passions (Edutopia)
Recommended Videos
Video: Building upon students' strengths
Video: Getting to know students through parent letters
Video: Our parents value education and their children's teachers
School Attendance
Finally, making families feel welcome can have a positive impact on attendance. Talking with families about the importance of attending school regularly and scheduling long family trips during vacation times can help improve attendance overall. (These multilingual tip sheets from Attendance Works highlight helpful information for families at all grade levels.)
At the same time, there may be other pressures on families that are prompting them to keep children home, especially if they feel that school may be unsafe. For example, schools in Springfield, OH have received several threats that have led them to close for periods of time and left families wondering whether it is safe to send children to school.
Immigration enforcement
Researchers at UCLA studying the impact of immigration enforcement on schools reported that 68% of school administrators who were surveyed in late 2017 and early 2018 report an increase in absenteeism among immigrant students to be a problem, with nearly 11% considering it to be a big problem.
A number of districts have also seen attendance drop sporadically when immigration enforcement activity is reported in the local community, as in the case of a 2017 raid in Las Cruces, New Mexico, or the case of a 2018 immigration workplace raid in Tennessee. Other districts have been concerned about school enrollment and registration at the beginning of a new year. These absences not only impact student achievement and teacher planning; they have a financial impact on school districts as well in states that fund districts based on average daily attendance (Gándara, 2018).
An administrator from New Jersey reports, "The kids are scared and sometimes they hide for days when there are immigration raids in the area. Some of the students have no food or place to live because the parents do not have a job and they go day by day" (Gándara and Ee, 2018a, p. 14).
The same is true in the early childhood community. Due to heightened concerns, researchers from the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) interviewing early childhood educators documented "drops in attendance, fewer applicants, trouble filling available spaces, and decreased parent participation in classrooms and at events," in addition to fewer trips to community activities at the library, park, or even shopping (Cervantes, Ullrich, & Matthews, 2018, p.3).
The CLASP researchers note that young "children are losing out on enriching early childhood experiences that are important to prepare them for success in school and in life."
Related research: The impact of police cooperation with immigration enforcement on school enrollment
A Stanford University study released in the Fall of 2018 indicates that local police cooperation with immigration enforcement officials can impact the enrollment of Latino students in nearby schools. The researchers estimated that such partnerships in 55 jurisdictions nationwide displaced more than 300,000 Latino students between 2000 and 2011.
Related resources
See more from the following:
- Going to school when your family is in hiding from ICE (The Hechinger Report)
- Social-emotional support for immigrant students
- How immigration issues impact students
- Ideas for supporting young children in immigrant families