Venezuelan immigrant Maria Alejandra Larez, center, walks with her son Ronald Larez, right, along with Estephany Perez, second from left, and her daughter Carla Perez, 8, second from right, next to Ogden International School in Chicago as they go to register on Aug. 17, 2023.
After all the turmoil they have experienced, she hopes teachers can provide a safe space for Ronald, not only to learn a new language, but to cope with the traumas they have experienced, leaving behind everything they knew and facing an uncertain future in a temporary shelter.,” Larez said. Her son is nervous to start school, but eager to begin.
Last year, about 290 schools established bilingual advisory councils, and CPS had nearly 3,000 teachers with a bilingual endorsement, an increase of 900 iover the prior five years. The sudden addition of asylum-seekers who enrolled at Haugan Elementary in Albany Park over the past year required a lot of pivoting and collaboration from teachers, staff members, community partners and parents, said Principal Heather Yutzy.
“The mothers are saying, ‘My child is traumatized. I need help,’” Yutzy said. Many of the younger children have separation anxiety and cry at school because they’re worried they won’t ever see their parents again, she said. “I tell him to be patient, that this won’t be our forever,” Larez said. “I tell him to pray, to have faith.”
During a recent visit to a city-run shelter, Aimee Hilado, a professor, clinician and an expert on immigrant trauma at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, said she noticed the high level of stress and anxiety in which children live, but which many won’t express. “We have thousands of kids that are entering public schools, and we just need a sensitivity that there is an emotional wellness need that is there that needs to be addressed before we even think about academics,” Hilado said.
“But the school needs to have an understanding of the way in which trauma might be showing up for these children, how that may be impacting their ability to feel safe in the school, their ability to make friends or their ability to focus on their academic success,” Hill said. Yutzy plans to hire a retired therapist from Colombia to help the new students at her school, she said.