Minneapolis public schools have seen an influx of Latin American migrant students. How are schools responding?

CATHY WURZER: We've been following the big holes in the Saint Paul and Minneapolis Public Schools' budgets. The more than $100 million deficits are the result of the end of federal COVID funding and years of declining enrollment. Language and cultural programs have helped curb that decline in both districts. In Minneapolis, some dual language Spanish classes are on the chopping block. That's according to reporting from Sahan Journal.

And this comes as a growing number of students are arriving from Latin American countries, sometimes by way of other Cities in the US. Our next guest is in charge of helping these students learn. Marion Tizón is director of Minneapolis Public Schools' Office of Latine Achievement. And she is on the line. Marion, thank you for taking the time.

MARION TIZÓN: Thanks so much for the invitation.

CATHY WURZER: Let's talk about these enrollment numbers. How many newcomers have enrolled this school year?

MARION TIZÓN: So I wanted to make a note that we are a sanctuary community, so we do not track immigration status, nor the date that our students arrive in the country. So the best I can give as a figure is an approximation. And it's around, right now, 2,500 newly enrolled Spanish speaking or home language Spanish students, which, the majority are newcomers. And we know this because our first level of English language learning classes has gone up drastically since last year as well.

CATHY WURZER: So do these new learners have at least some familiarity with the language?

MARION TIZÓN: For our level one students, no. It starts at zero level. So as they increase their vocabulary and their familiarization with the language, they move up in levels. But it's a good measure of how many newcomers we have. In January, we had about 2,400 students enrolled in the EL1 level in our district.

CATHY WURZER: What help do you provide learners in the classroom who might not have extensive English skills? How does it play out?

MARION TIZÓN: So we have EL services, English language services, that are provided in all of our schools. So it depends on the level of English that they need. But it can be in the form of specific classes that are for English learners. It can be in the form of co-teaching with an EL teacher and many other things.

And what my office is doing-- and we really exist to support all of our Latine students in the district. We are working with our Latine newcomers and our Latine students that have been in the district for a while to help with language support at schools. So we have professionals that go into the classroom to help in schools where they might not have Spanish speakers or enough Spanish speakers on staff.

We also have-- we've been running a couple break camps. We had a first winter break camp that my office led with multilingual at a shelter downtown for our homeless newcomers, Spanish speakers. And we're going to do it again, this time on a bigger scale in a couple of weeks during our spring break. So we've really been trying to connect the services that we already have in our district to make them accessible for our newcomers and our Latine students.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you brought up shelters. What challenges are these newcomer students facing? Obviously, permanent housing seems to be a big issue.

MARION TIZÓN: It is. And right now, we're seeing about 40% of our incoming Latin American students, new to district, are qualifying as homeless, or highly mobile is the term that we use. So it is an increasing need in our community. And so housing is big on the list. It used to be that newcomers to our community would come because they already had family members or friends that could take them in.

And we're seeing, really, a wave of new-to-country families that are coming to our district, to our city, without the supports that they might have had in the past. So that's a big one. But all the basic needs are on the list, food, clothing, medical insurance, or medical assistance is very important to a lot of our families, and it's a hard system to navigate in our in our country. And also it's not very accessible.

CATHY WURZER: Yes.

MARION TIZÓN: So those are some of the things.

CATHY WURZER: We hear that from newcomers, yes. I'm wondering, this is a lot that the district is doing. And you mentioned folks going into classrooms. Does Minneapolis have the bilingual staff it needs to give these students an education? How many more people do you need to hire?

MARION TIZÓN: Yes, well, especially this year with this rise in Spanish-speaking students that are new to English, we don't have enough staff. And we're really prioritizing the services and hiring of bilingual, bicultural staff so that we can have adequate staffing in all of our schools to support these new kids, but also our other language learners, who might be new to country, but perhaps in the last couple of years, rather than just this year.

So it's an issue. And we're working on it. We're also working long term, creating pathways for bilingual educators. So in high school, we have clubs for hopeful educators, who are bilingual, to try to help them get their careers started early. But yes, there's always a shortage. And there are a lot of positions that aren't filled that we're still looking for.

CATHY WURZER: Now, obviously, you work for the district, and I'm sure you don't want to speak out of school. But it's clear that Minneapolis Public Schools have budget problems and the Spanish immersion classes, we're hearing, are facing budget cuts. Do you worry about the future cuts to resources as you try to provide for these students?

MARION TIZÓN: Yes, absolutely. The cuts have been across the board. There's not a school that hasn't had to cut teacher positions, or at least in part, maybe in terms of the percentage of time that you have a teacher available to your students. And we see, really, all the wonderful services that we provide for our students across the board, it's really hard to make cuts because they all are necessary.

However, there is a big push within the budget cuts to impact schools less and especially our students that are at highest risk for an education to be able to support our students, so our newcomer students, our immigrant students, new to country, our students of color, our students that are low income.

So there have been increases, small increases, but there have been increases, for example, in the number of EL, English language teachers for next year. And there has been less cuts in equity programming that are really working with the students to try to boost outcomes and help them integrate and achieve more, essentially.

CATHY WURZER: Marion, you've outlined a lot of work that you and your staff are doing and staff across the district to help these newcomers. And I'm wondering, as you know, a lot of the budget issues do deal with declining enrollment in Minneapolis. But with this influx of newcomers, might that help the situation in the district when it comes to enrollment?

MARION TIZÓN: Well, definitely. As a district, we are very excited and honored that we are a top destination or a top choice for a lot of new-to-country families. So we really see it as an asset to our community, not just in terms of student numbers, that yes, they have helped us stabilize our dropping enrollment this year anyway, but we really see it as an asset. It's a language and cultural asset to our to our schools that they bring with us. So we really want to present this as an opportunity to the community to welcome a new group of people. And we've really been trying to do that well.

CATHY WURZER: Marion, I wish you well. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us.

MARION TIZÓN: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Marion Tizón is Director of the Office of Latine Achievement at Minneapolis Public Schools.