BUFFALO, N.Y. — With over 500 asylum seekers now here in Western New York that number now includes some families of migrants with school-age children, and many of them do not speak English.
2 On Your Side studied this still-evolving subject and here is what we learned so far.
We have learned that 570 asylum seekers are now housed here in Erie County hotels with the possibility of more on the way brought in by the subcontractor firm DOC GO in its $432 million migrants care and relocation deal with New York.
Local leaders like Erie Niagara School Superintendents Association president Michael Cornell say they were originally told no school-age children would be among them with the understanding that any such relocation could be extremely disruptive in the lives of young children.
But Cornell added: "With about 48 hours notice a couple of weeks ago, the first group of families with school-age children got here, and there have been a couple of other groups who have come since. So right now we have 115 school-age children as I understand it today."
New York City is estimated to have over 18,000 new children from families of asylum seekers. Many of them do not speak English, and there may be various dialects involved as well.
So along with traditional new school year issues such as guaranteeing staffing levels, there may now be the need to hire more specialized English Language Learner teachers.
"Finding ELL teachers, it's a highly specialized certification you're in within education. There are also all sorts of restrictions and requirements in terms of how we educate ELL students," Cornell said.
Some educators like Superintendent Shannon Shine of the Mohonasen Central District in Rotterdam, near Schenectady, told a reporter that is definitely an extra cost for districts.
"We can handle a short term blip as long as money comes later. But it is a concern to folks, that hey, why should we suddenly be footing this bill. So the state does need to kick in? And they may well do that. It's so new to everybody. I can't really say, 'Oh the state's not doing this yet.' I think this is hitting them just as fast as it's hitting us," Shine said.
So what do those in Albany actually say to that? The New York State Education Department says that through their regional BOCES extension programs they will offer assistance, guidance, and other resources to districts. But there will be no additional funding.
And Gov. Kathy Hochul is reportedly quoted as saying the record $34.5 billion provided for school districts in last year's state budget (which was originally slated to provide more funding for school mental health programs and recovery efforts for the COVID impact on student learning with school shutdowns) should help cover these costs as well.
New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who visited the Buffalo area on Thursday, did not sound that encouraging on that point as well.
"I don't want any local community anywhere here in the state by being good humanitarians to now have to be financially challenged. So, like I said, my conversations with the governor, we'll do what we can, but I still think the state is limited," Heastie said.
We asked Heastie further: "The state education department has supposedly told them no more funding, we'll help you through BOCES but no more funding. What would you say to those school districts and the local taxpayers?"
Heastie responded: "I don't rule anything in or anything out. I think we have to look at the situation and help as best we can."
We then also asked Cornell about that potential impact. and what he was hearing from other superintendents, "If any taxpayer is watching this, what would you say to them if they do have concerns?
Cornell replied: "We don't know yet. We haven't had a single child walk in the door of the school yet, so we don't know exactly in which school district they're going to be educated in, or what that's gonna look like yet, so there's just a lot we don't know."
Reporter: But there is planning going on behind the scenes?
Cornell: "Yeah, there are people trying to figure out exactly how to address the challenge that we're confronted with."
It's also been proposed that state education officials could try to shift some of these students to districts with better established English Language Learner programs from smaller, less experienced, rural districts. But that is also a complicated process.