When immigrant students arrive in U.S. high schools with limited English proficiency, schools face a dual challenge: help them develop their language and academic content skills and do it in a short amount of time.
Schools across the country have faced this reality for years despite limited research on high school newcomers specifically, and what works to promote better outcomes for them.
A new report from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, published in July, highlights these challenges and strategies in Massachusetts, where about half of all districts enrolled more than five high school newcomers in the 2023-24 school year.
Researchers highlighted how districts have creatively addressed common scenarios with older newcomers, such as balancing students’ need to work with flexible school schedules, as well as how changes to federal immigration policies and enforcement have affected schools serving these immigrant students.
“For research, for policy, for practice, everybody is kind of playing catch up now in terms of how do we build a base of evidence? How do we make policies that support these students? And then how do we actually educate them in the classroom,” said Ann Mantil, a research scientist at the Annenberg Institute and co-author of the study.
Newcomer services vary by district
In 2023, researchers at the Annenberg Institute studied the demographics of high school newcomers across Massachusetts.
The latest report focuses on older students who often enroll in U.S. schools for the first time at age 16 or older.
Among key findings, researchers found variation in services and programs for these students district by district. For example, older newcomers in Springfield, Mass., are 38 percentage points more likely to be placed in 9th grade when they start than are similar newcomers in Boston.
Because many older newcomers come to the United States seeking employment, some districts developed alternative programs or pathways that feature more flexibility for attendance and course scheduling requirements, allowing students to stay in school and work, Mantil said.
Newcomers also require flexibility given that many arrive after the start of the school year, thus missing out on start of the year rituals and programs designed to help them and families navigate school.
While career and technical education programs could be a boon for older newcomers seeking a fast track to employment, researchers found that in Massachusetts, newcomers have virtually no access to the state’s regional vocational schools, and in a lot of high schools their CTE participation is substantially lower than that of other students.
When newcomers do gain admission to CTE programs, districts have a hard time supporting them in their path towards certification in their chosen field, Mantil said.
Bilingual education programs are some of the most effective instructional programs for English learners, including older newcomers, yet in Massachusetts and nationally such programming can be hard to find at the secondary level, according to new research from the Migration Policy Institute.
While the Annenberg Institute findings focused on Massachusetts, many of the realities they identified exist elsewhere, including Houston, where schools also contend with delays in assessing newcomers’ transcripts from their home countries, said Itzia Medrano, a newcomer teacher in the Aldine Independent School District and a recipient of the National Newcomer Network’s fellowship for teachers sharing stories of their experiences working with immigrant students.
“Sometimes we have kids that are 18-years-old in a freshman English class because we’re waiting on their credits. Then a couple months later, their credits come through, and now they’ve lost a semester, and then we can move them up to junior or senior year,” Medrano said.
Houston schools also experienced a shift reported in Massachusetts in the 2024-25 school year: declines in enrollment tied to immigration policy concerns.
Schools forge ahead in serving newcomers
Massachusetts districts reported drops in enrollment of newcomers in the 2024-25 school year.
Researchers across the country have tied absenteeism and enrollment declines since 2024 to shifts in federal immigration policy, including the Trump administration rescinding a longstanding policy in January 2025 that largely shielded schools from the presence of immigration enforcement.
In a national EdWeek Research Center survey of 753 educators online from March 25 to May 5, about 18% of respondents who work with immigrant students said their enrollment declined or was declining due to federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Though some schools have reported their immigrant populations declining, researchers and educators alike say schools’ responsibilities to these students remain.
“Immigration isn’t something that is going to stop forever. We don’t know what the next election will bring, but kids are going to keep coming, and these families are here,” Medrano said.
Looking ahead, Mantil said there remain opportunities to improve outcomes for newcomers. For instance, the report found that newcomers’ graduation rates lag behind their peers and among those who do graduate, not all attain high levels of English proficiency.
Historically, state graduation requirements created a barrier for newcomers to graduate. As the state currently reviews its requirements moving forward, Mantil hopes newcomers are kept in mind when making final decisions.
