BRUNSWICK — While it is unclear how many of the town’s incoming migrants may start school in Brunswick this fall, school department officials say they are ready and waiting.
So far, at least 18 individual asylum seekers have relocated to Brunswick from Portland, where they were staying in the city’s emergency shelter at the Portland Expo. As many as 10 more families may arrive in the coming weeks, according to Chris Robbins, community director for Brunswick Landing Venture, a housing development where many of the families are staying.
The families are primarily from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, and speak Portuguese, French and Lingala, a language spoken in the Congo. A task force of three town councilors and three school board members has mobilized to create a plan to best serve these families, but the school department already has a plan of action, starting with language instruction.
“The good news for the school department is that we have a plan and program that we’re ready to put in place,” said Shawn Lambert, assistant superintendent. “We only represent education. We don’t represent all the other services the town is grasping with,” he said.
Starting Aug. 12, Emily Darby, coordinator of the English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) department, and members of Midcoast Literacy will lead three concurrent English language instruction groups at Curtis Memorial Library. There will be two groups for children, one for elementary-aged students, the other for adolescents and a group for adults. The instruction is not solely for the migrant families, and is open to any non-English speaking families in town who may need the help.
They are not sure yet how many people will attend these sessions, but many of the families already knowing what they want to learn first, Darby said.
Already having an English-language program in place, they are “in a fantastic position to get going and get started,” Darby said. For now, these sessions are essentially cost-free for the department as they are “all doing this in good faith” to get it off the ground. The program will run until Aug. 22.
“This is a great opportunity for the community to not just put its best foot forward, but also to grow in diversity,” Lambert said.
There are currently at least 23 languages spoken in the district, including Portuguese, Arabic, French, Tagalog and Mandarin, among others. Last year there were 26 students who qualified for the English-language program, Darby said. There were about 50 speakers of other languages in the district last year.
According to student demographic data, in 2017, the most recent data available, the schools were 87.4% white. Of the 2,451 students in the district, there were just 20 students in the English-language program. There were 74 Hispanic or Latino students, 63 Asian students, 44 black or African American students and six American Indian or Alaska Native students.
For years, the ESOL program has been serving students somewhat “under the radar,” Lambert said, but is starting to “ramp up” under Darby’s direction. It’s a small department with just Darby and two “district resource assistants” according to the school department website. They have a practical approach based on individual student needs, he said, and with the sudden increase this summer, ‘it “takes (Darby’s) work and puts it to the front burner.”
Lambert was the assistant principal at Lewiston High School in 2001 when the population changed seemingly overnight due to an influx of Somali immigrants, he recalled during a meeting Wednesday night.
In his experience, “the challenges you expect are not usually the ones you expect,” he said. In Lewiston they were prepared for language barriers and complications with staff understanding how the English-language program works. What they did not anticipate were some of the cultural differences that were difficult to explain and the rumors that got circulated around the community. There will need to be open communication to make sure the transition process runs smoothly and everyone understands what is happening, he said.
Lambert also commented on the outpouring of support in Brunswick. Both town and school officials have been inundated with offers to help and volunteer.
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