Immigrants study English without cost at California schools. Below Trump, some are skipping class

By Delilah BrumerCalMatters

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They converse Farsi, Cantonese, Spanish and at the very least two dozen different languages. Some earned grasp’s levels of their house international locations, whereas others by no means completed center faculty. At California’s neighborhood schools, greater than 290,000 college students take free, non-credit English as a Second Language courses.

As immigrants, many of those college students enroll within the courses to combine into American life, advance of their jobs, help their kids or construct neighborhood. The courses have grown in recognition lately — an enrollment brilliant spot for the state’s neighborhood school system, which has struggled to completely rebound to pre-pandemic scholar counts.

However as information of worldwide scholar visa revocations and studies of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids throughout President Donald Trump’s second time period unfold throughout the state, many neighborhood schools have seen a few of these college students swap to on-line studying, or cease displaying as much as class altogether.

Up to now there’s no statewide knowledge on 2025 enrollment in non-credit ESL programs at California’s neighborhood schools. However a number of anecdotes from professors and enrollment numbers from particular person neighborhood schools paint an identical image: A heightened concern of ICE is driving college students away. Within the San Fernando Valley, one professor has misplaced about 15% of her enrollment this semester. In San Marcos, a number of lecture rooms abruptly transitioned from principally in-person instruction to partitions of Zoom squares.

Because the semester goes on, ESL professors are providing “Know Your Rights” playing cards to college students and informing their courses of the neighborhood school system’s pledge to not take part in federal immigration enforcement efforts. They’re additionally persevering with to attach their college students with campus sources reminiscent of meals pantries and tutoring facilities.

ESL courses have expanded post-pandemic

Los Angeles Pierce School started providing non-credit ESL in 2021, and final 12 months the school employed a full-time professor to spice up this system. Enrollment within the courses skyrocketed from about 50 in 2021 to greater than 350 in 2024. Dennis Solares, the grownup training coordinator at Los Angeles Pierce School, stated that college students in search of to enhance their job alternatives drove the current ESL enrollment progress.

“We offer an opportunity that can help them communicate more, get acclimated with the community and get better jobs,” Solares stated.

The courses appeal to a various swath of scholars. Azucena Hernandez, 42, enrolled in ESL at Palomar School in San Marcos in order that she might higher help her three youngsters with day-to-day duties. She began as a monolingual Spanish speaker, however after a number of semesters she will be able to comfortably have conversations in English.

Hernandez now volunteers within the newbie ranges of ESL as a peer teacher. She stated her most essential takeaway from these programs is “the family made at school.”

“Every day we are learning something new, and there is companionship,” Hernandez stated. “We are united to learn.”

Hernandez’s professor, Sheri Cully, has taught ESL for greater than 40 years. She prioritizes civic engagement and real-world studying in her courses. One long-term venture that her college students work on is sustaining a neighborhood backyard and advocating for its affordability and accessibility at native authorities conferences. Cully stated she admires her college students’ work ethic and resilience.

There have been 30,000 extra college students enrolled in non-credit ESL programs throughout California’s neighborhood schools through the 2023-24 tutorial 12 months in comparison with the 2018-19 tutorial 12 months, based on state knowledge. The expansion has been pushed by a number of elements, together with heightened demand for workforce coaching because the state’s economic system expands and the school system’s push to increase ESL after the pandemic, based on a written assertion to CalMatters from the California neighborhood school system’s chancellor’s workplace.

ESL programs carry state funding to neighborhood schools primarily based partially on enrollment, so a number of schools have been working to proceed this growth after enrollment dropped through the pandemic. However scholar fears about immigration enforcement could thwart these efforts.

Fears of ICE coming into faculties

An estimated 100,000 school college students dwell in California with out everlasting authorized standing, and three.3 million Californians dwell in mixed-status households, based on knowledge from Fairness Analysis Institute, a USC analysis group. A few of these college students query whether or not coming to class is well worth the threat of coming into a public campus the place ICE has entry, and so they have opted to take programs just about. However not all college students have entry to a pc or Wi-Fi at house, and a few older college students might not be snug with the expertise required for school programs.

Jessica Buchsbaum, the ESL division chair at Metropolis School of San Francisco, oversees a  program serving about 6,000 college students, starting from youngsters to octogenarians. She stated the non-credit ESL enrollment was “growing intensely in the fall semester, but it has now softened.”

“We’ve definitely heard that students may be afraid to come to school,” Buchsbaum stated. “In an environment when there’s so much hate directed at immigrants, we are here to serve this population. These are people who bring incredible energy and hope to our communities.”

In January, the Trump administration threw out insurance policies applied in 2011 that restricted the flexibility of ICE brokers to arrest individuals at church buildings, faculties and different areas designated as “sensitive locations.” A press release from the Division of Homeland Safety stated the change was vital so “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”

California’s neighborhood schools are public campuses, which means they’re restricted by federal legal guidelines from making an attempt to stop ICE brokers from coming onto or close to areas which might be usually thought-about open.

Over time, the California neighborhood school system has supported immigrant college students, reminiscent of providing Dream Useful resource Facilities and connecting college students with nonprofit authorized providers. The system has pointed school directors to a 2017 state regulation that prohibits campus police departments from “generally providing personal information… about an individual for immigration enforcement purposes, including, but not limited to, the individual’s home address or work address, unless that information is available to the public.”

The chancellor’s workplace refused an interview request from CalMatters for this story. In a written assertion, the workplace stated, “The mission of the California Community Colleges is to educate and provide social and economic mobility to all Californians seeking to improve their workforce and workplace skills as well as improve their English language literacy.”

ESL professors present help and college students continue to learn

Rachel Cerdenio is an ESL professor at Los Angeles Pierce School and the daughter of immigrants from the Philippines. She stated the years she spent watching her dad and mom wrestle to navigate life in america with out robust English expertise spurred her to show ESL.

For Cerdenio’s intermediate programs, she created a curriculum targeted on connection to the school and scholar success. She just lately assigned college students to go to a campus useful resource like the scholar well being heart or the library, ask questions on it and share the data with their classmates.

“I wish my parents had the experiences that I am giving my students now,” Cerdenio stated. “I want them to succeed, and I want them to be part of the campus and know about the resources that are here.”

Solares has given shows in grownup training programs, together with Cerdenio’s courses, about immigrant college students’ rights and the sources out there to college students, no matter their immigration standing.

“We had a huge influx of students, but with the change in politics students are naturally scared, and so there’s students who choose not to come to classes anymore,” Solares stated. “The vibe is more tense. It’s more scary. But we support the students, and we equip the professors to support their students.”

Delilah Brumer is a fellow with the School Journalism Community, a collaboration between CalMatters and scholar journalists from throughout California. CalMatters greater training protection is supported by a grant from the School Futures Basis.

This text was initially printed on CalMatters and was republished below the Artistic Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.