© 2024 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY · WNPR
WPKT · WRLI-FM · WEDW-FM · Public Files Contact
ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

How One New Haven High School Supports Immigrant Students

Diane Orson
/
WNPR
A classroom at the International Academy at Wilbur Cross High School.
In large, diverse, urban high schools like Wilbur Cross, many students are coping with life challenges.

Some of the unaccompanied minors who made the dangerous trek across the border between Mexico and the United States are in Connecticut now, and are enrolled in local public schools.

One high school in New Haven has created a school within a school for immigrant students, both documented and undocumented. The International Academy at Wilbur Cross High School is designed to help recently-arrived young people adjust to their new lives here.

Francisco, 18, arrived in New Haven last year from Honduras. He came to see his mother after ten years apart, he said, to meet for the first time his sisters and brothers who live here, and to have the chance at a better future.

"At first, it was pretty sad," Francisco said in Spanish. "I missed my sisters in Honduras, and the grandparents who’d raised me, but it was very exciting to meet my siblings and start to make up for the years I’d been separated from my mother."

We were seated in a small office in Wilbur Cross High School, in a part of the building set aside for the International Academy. With us was Javier, 16. Both young men asked that we not use their last names.

Javier was just four when his father left Ecuador to come and work in the U.S. His mother left when he was nine. Last year, he flew by plane to Honduras. Over the course of a month, he traveled by foot, car, and even swam at times through Central America, and across the border between Mexico and the U.S.

"I walked three days and three nights without eating, [and] without drinking water," Javier said in Spanish. "Nothing. They treat you bad. They hit you. They mistreat you. If you have money, you eat. If you don’t, you’re just left hungry."

Credit Wilbur Cross High School
/
Wilbur Cross High School
Ann Brilliante, assistant principal of the International Academy at Wilbur Cross High School.

Francisco and Javier are classmates at the Academy, which opened last year, and is run by assistant principal Ann Brilliante. "The majority of our students are speaking Spanish," she said, "but Arabic is the rising second language, and French for the French African countries. Actually, we have a student this year that was really tricky to support, because his main language is Kurdish. We really didn’t have anybody to support him, so that was tough."

Supporting these students’ emotional health is critical for their future academic success, Brilliante said, so she began a partnership with New Haven’s Post Traumatic Stress Center. Clinician Lizzy McAdam visits the school each week.

"There are a lot of students who are working through having family members who are undocumented, the pressure of trying to keep families together, and just what it's like to acclimate to a new life," McAdam said. She said kids describe a wide range of experiences. Challenges include "coming from a culture that is incredibly different from that here in Connecticut, and also just the secrecy around it, and the fear of having members of your family be deported."

Current funding only allows McAdam to work with students for two and a half hours a week, but she said even small interventions are helpful.

Credit Wilbur Cross High School / Facebook
/
Facebook
Students with perfect attendance at the International Academy pose for a photo last fall.

Initiatives like these at the International Academy are rare, and retired school social worker Dina Pollock said there’s not nearly the kind of attention paid, or money allocated, to adequately address immigrant students’ complex needs.

"Often the immigrant children are very quiet," Pollock said. "They don’t want to talk about what they’ve been through. They really want to take advantage of school. They want to be well-behaved and unnoticed. They’re very cognizant of the fact that immigration… the attention of the authorities shouldn’t be brought upon them."

There are creative ways to provide students with constructive support, and it’s not always through counseling. Pollock said one of the best is to offer opportunities for kids to incorporate their life stories into the regular curriculum. "Kids need an opportunity to engage in activities that help them process and understand their experience," she said. "After all, they’re children. They’re learning about life."

Credit Garth Harries / Facebook
/
Facebook
New Haven schools superintendent Garth Harries, center, visits with International Academy students in September.

In large, diverse, urban high schools like Wilbur Cross, many students are coping with life challenges.

"We need to recognize the educational and mental health challenges that students and families may come with," said New Haven schools superintendent Garth Harries. "We also need to recognize the strengths that they bring." He said language and cultural differences should not been seen as deficits to overcome; they’re rich resources to share. "I think if we’re doing a good job," he said, "we will help these kids to rise, just like we help all other kids to rise."

Back in the International Academy office, I asked Francisco about his plans for the future. "My dream has always been -- because I come from an agricultural family -- I want one day to become an agricultural engineer," he said.

Teachers, counselors and social workers at the International Academy at New Haven’s Wilbur Cross High School will be doing their best to help him get there.

Diane Orson is a special correspondent with Connecticut Public. She is a longtime reporter and contributor to National Public Radio. Her stories have been heard on Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and Here And Now. Diane spent seven years as CT Public Radio's local host for Morning Edition.

Stand up for civility

This news story is funded in large part by Connecticut Public’s Members — listeners, viewers, and readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

We hope their support inspires you to donate so that we can continue telling stories that inform, educate, and inspire you and your neighbors. As a community-supported public media service, Connecticut Public has relied on donor support for more than 50 years.

Your donation today will allow us to continue this work on your behalf. Give today at any amount and join the 50,000 members who are building a better—and more civil—Connecticut to live, work, and play.

Related Content