MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As more than half of U.S. Governors announced they would not allow Syrian refugees into their states, many refugee families from around the world are already here.
That includes children.
Shelby County Schools confirmed it has 136 refugee students enrolled this school year.
“We provide a full ESL, English as a Second Language, program and all that support that comes along with it,” said the district’s ESL Program Advisor Andrew Duck.
The attacks in Paris gave the term refugee a political charge.
One of the terrorists reportedly entered the country among a wave of Syrian refugees.
The tension over the term could understandably make it scarier for refugee children to pack their backpacks and head into American schools.
SCS has refugee students enrolled in schools, because agencies placed their families in Shelby County.
“We do have some refugee students, not as many as Nashville,” Duck said.
Duck said most SCS refugee students are Somalian.
Not many are from the Middle East.
He said he does not believe there have been Syrian refugee students placed in the district recently.
Shelby County was not the only district in Tennessee tasked with teaching refugee students.
Nashville has about 830 of them.
Like SCS, Metro Nashville Public Schools has been offering language help.
“If their English is very low, and we have interrupted education, they’re placed in a special environment with a teacher, and they’re with that teacher for a lot of the day,” said Kevin Stacy, who is the Executive Director for the Office of Language Learners in Metro Nashville Public Schools.
He said a lot of work goes in to trying to understand refugee students’ emotional needs.
A program pairs refugee families with others who speak the same language and have experienced similar hardships.
“There’s much more going on in these children’s minds and bodies than just culture shock,” Stacy said.
As states seek to close their doors to some refugees, many refugee families are already here, hoping their children can find peace and an education.
“Our mission here is to educate children, so that’s what we do and we don’t close the doors on anyone,” Duck said.
Both Nashville and Shelby County offer programs to help refugee families learn English too.