Helping foreign students fit in

Stella Boateng raised her outstretched arm inside the University Park Elementary School’s library, eager to explain why immigrant children struggle in school.

“People stare at you, like they think you’re not the way they are,” said Stella, a sixth-grader from Ghana.

The Prince George’s County school system is trying to help Stella and other foreign-born students overcome such obstacles with its Newcomer Groups, classes designed to help them break cultural barriers and adjust to life in a new world.

“They’re going to learn English, [and] they’re going to make friends,” said John Haslinger, an outreach counselor who runs some of the classes, which are offered to elementary and high school students.

However, he said the more difficult task is helping students leave the comfort of their families for the unfamiliar surroundings of school.

“That is an emotional bond that is very difficult to have broken,” Mr. Haslinger said.

Yesterday, he peppered Stella and 11 other students from six different countries with lively questions about how they can make new friends and adjust to life in the United States.

Alexander Kashay, a 12-year-old from Eritrea, in Africa, said the sessions, designed by the school system’s International Student Guidance Office, helped calm his first-day jitters.

“I was nervous, nobody knew my language, and I was afraid,” he said. “It helped me. … I learned some words and some ideas that I don’t know.”

More than 4,700 international students have enrolled in the county’s public schools since last fall, officials said. They represent 148 countries and speak 149 different languages.

Officials do not check their legal status because federal law states illegal alien children cannot be denied access to a free public education.

“Sometimes they came on a plane with all the documents they need,” said Mr. Haslinger, who has been a teacher and counselor for more than 30 years. “Sometimes they walked across the Arizona desert, and they have as much post-traumatic stress as any soldier in Vietnam.”

The influx of immigrants also has forced student-admission offices in other school districts to play a more important role.

Many provide students and families with links to such outside services as health care, employment agencies, translation services for transcripts. And staff members serve as interpreters and counselors.

“Very often these people lack all of the safety nets we come to take for granted,” said Diana Jarrett, who runs Fairfax County’s student-registration office, which so far this year has processed 55,473 students whose first language is not English.

She also said enrolling children in school is just one of many priorities for immigrant families.

“They’re trying to find work, [and] they’re trying to make their way in a culture that’s alien,” Mrs. Jarrett said.

About 3,000 Montgomery County students are enrolled in a similar program, through the school system’s International Student Admissions Office. Roughly 34 percent of them came from Spanish-speaking countries, nearly 20 percent came from Asian countries and 15 percent came from African countries, officials said.

“This is the first point of entry, and we want to ensure the students are successful from the first time they enter,” said Nivea Cordova-Berrios, who runs the international-admissions office. “We want them to be successful from the beginning.”