It’s scary to be the new kid in high school. It’s especially frightening for kids who arrive not only new to the school, but to the country.
Newcomer students, defined by the Department of Education as any foreign-born students and their families who have recently arrived in the U.S., don’t know the language let alone the complex social and academic ecosystem of a typical American high school, making them feel even more like outsiders.
“We have almost 50 newcomer students this year,” says Emily Grijalva, Community School Coordinator at Felicitas & Gonzales Mendez High School, a community school in eastern Los Angeles. “The students, mostly from Central America and Mexico, have been displaced and many have gone through trauma.”
Read more on the National Education Association.
