By Eleanor J. Bader
This article was originally published by Truthout
A network of 31 public schools is striving to provide “radical welcome, protection and empowerment” to migrant youth.
In Sanctuary School: Innovating to Empower Immigrant Youth, Molloy University assistant professor of education Chandler Patton Miranda presents an in-depth and emotionally resonant look at a network of 31 small public high schools in seven states that provide “radical welcome, protection and empowerment” to migrant youth from 119 countries.
The Internationals Network for Public Schools was initially founded in 2004 in Queens, New York, but it now has expanded to serve schools in California, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., among other locations. This intentional network of immigrant-oriented schools focuses on student well-being and sidesteps standardized testing to allow newcomers to the U.S. to take the time they need — often exceeding the four years typically allotted for high school completion — to acclimate to life in the country. Classrooms are laboratories for collaborative, project-based learning, and instructors and staff ensure that students have the material and social supports they need to succeed.
“Educators, school leaders, social workers and mental health professionals put immigrant students’ needs ahead of testing, compliance, accountability and learning English,” Miranda writes.
It’s an exciting, humane model that, she says, prioritizes “equity and holistic student development.”
Miranda spent several years interviewing students, staff, teachers, administrators, and alumni at one of the 31 Internationals programs, International High School (IHS) in Manhattan. Sanctuary School zeroes in on its day-to-day functioning and the challenges it faces from anti-immigrant policies and racism. The result is an evocative, well-contextualized portrait of a school that should be the gold standard for education nationwide.
In this interview, Miranda discusses how she became involved with the Internationals Network, how the schools are responding to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and addresses the ongoing challenges facing the schools’ students and staff. The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity.
Eleanor J. Bader: Let’s start with you. How did you become interested in the Internationals model?
Chandler Patton Miranda: I was not planning to become a teacher. My parents were teachers, and by the time I was ready to enroll in college, they were both pretty disenchanted with the public school system. I intended to become a doctor.
I attended Smith College, where I took an anthropology class that spoke to me, and I ended up majoring in anthropology and minoring in Latinx Studies. Although I did all the pre-med requirements, after I graduated in 2007, I returned to Texas, where I was raised, and signed up for Teach for America. I was sent to San Benito, a little border town, where I taught physics and biology. Many of my students were considered English Language Learners on paper, but they were an extremely heterogeneous group of kids. The school was considered a Title I program since it had a high-poverty enrollment. Some of the students were migrants. Others were the children of seasonal farm workers, but still others came from families that had been in the U.S. for generations. Another group did not speak Spanish at all. This linguistic diversity amazed me.
Teaching in San Benito was a transformational experience for me and left me with many questions that I did not know how to ask. I stayed there for two years and then decided I wanted to teach outside the U.S. I went to an international job fair and got a position teaching physics in Barranquilla, Colombia. This time, my students were wealthy, but I soon learned that even though they were economically privileged in Colombia, if they opted to attend college in the United States, they would still be subjected to racism and discrimination. I spent two years in Barranquilla and three years in Bogota before returning to the U.S. in 2014 to begin a PhD program in education at New York University (NYU).
What did these vastly different experiences tell you about educational policy, educational equity, and teaching itself?
I realized that when education is discussed, the conversation often touches on race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. It rarely includes nationality and the power of particular passports. I also saw the role of economic privilege in the migratory process. In my program in educational leadership at NYU, I wanted to study how young people were crossing borders for educational purposes and learn about their experiences in U.S. public schools. I wanted to understand how the language used — words like “alien” and “parole” — impacted not only policymakers but immigrants themselves.
How did your involvement with the Internationals Network come about?
I learned about the Internationals Network when it was presented in one of my classes as an innovation that grew out of the now-defunct Coalition of Essential Schools, started by Ted Sizer in 1984. I reached out to Claire Sylvan, who was a teacher at the International High School at LaGuardia Community College and was the founding director of the network. She told me that the schools were designed to give the most vulnerable kids in the city the best education possible. I immediately knew that this was where I wanted to do my research.
Does the Internationals model include elementary and middle schools as well as high schools?
Not elementary schools. There are currently two middle school academics: one stand-alone middle school and a 6-12 school that includes middle grades. Young children who come to school not speaking English tend to learn English by fifth grade and are then “exited” from English Learner programs.
The initial impetus came from the founders’ understanding that many newcomers were discouraged from registering for high school or were pushed out of programs by discriminatory policies. Graduation rates for immigrant youth have always been atrocious because the dominant ethos is that if you don’t speak English, you can’t learn. Many schools only see immigrant youth as English Language Learners, and don’t give them access to art, music, or extracurricular activities that might engage them. Worse, in New York City, everything centers around getting students to pass the mandatory Regents exam.
The Internationals are different. They use project-based learning as a measure of success and give the students autonomy to move beyond passing a test to being able to speak in English, and negotiate, plan and design projects that interest them.
Are students who need “special education” supports incorporated into the Internationals model?
Yes, but staff do not jump in right away to diagnose students. They get to know them, and there is a thoughtful approach to bringing in interventions. There is flexibility in how students are treated and taught.
Do schools in the network include students who came to the U.S. as unaccompanied minors as well as those who came here with family?
The year I started my research, 2016, about 60,000 unaccompanied minors came into the country. This trend has continued, and a lot of the kids who arrive at IHS and other Internationals schools get placed in foster care or with a sponsor by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Every school’s experience with this is different, but staff everywhere understand that a student’s living situation might be precarious. Every network school I visited included students who were living with community members they were not related to. In some schools, teachers had stepped up to be the backup plan for students after a family member was detained or deported. I can’t stress this enough: teachers and staff go way above and beyond for their students.
At the same time, these are kids who are in the throes of growing up and are learning how to mediate conflicts and find their footing.
True, and like other teenagers, they fight over cell phones, boyfriends and girlfriends. At IHS, there is something called Advisory that is built into the school day. The students are in class with the same 20 or 25 kids all day, every day. Disagreements happen, and Advisory brings them together for an intentional, emotional, and intense meeting to talk. The goal is for the students to develop trust between themselves and between themselves and their teachers. Staff want them to feel that they belong in the school and can talk about anything.
Restorative justice practices are used. When conflicts arise, students work together to resolve them in a safe space. They try to find a path forward and repair any damage that occurred. They know that it is a process, and everyone is patient about listening and hearing one another.
IHS and network schools are neither utopias nor conflict-free places. But by developing the tools to help both kids and adults deal with challenges, they navigate conflict while simultaneously working to preserve the childhoods of youths, some of whom have been through traumatic experiences.
Public schools have been under a tremendous amount of government pressure to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion from coursework and admissions policies. How have the Internationals dealt with this mandate?
Most teachers at IHS and other Internationals Network programs are committed to the idea that silence is complicity and are designing curricula that speak to the immigrant experience. They are strategic, but they also work hard to check all the regulatory boxes.
A lot of public schools have shifted to a corporate model of education, but at IHS, the model is rooted in grassroots communities. Internationals schools share a mindset. The network was started by radical educators and organizers with an idea about building meaningful community, and there is great fidelity to the tenets of participatory education. Staff know that what they’re doing is important.
In addition, the principals at the 31 network schools are in constant communication and are continually strategizing. There is coordination of rapid-response protocols to support families at risk of deportation or detention. In fact, when ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Customs and Border Protection started arresting public school students coming to hearings at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, Internationals staff quickly engaged its schools and partners to plan for immediate support moving forward.
In one particularly awful case, the school transported kids to the airport after ICE ordered their parents deported. The children decided to leave with their parents but the school organized a phone call so that everyone could at least say goodbye and get some closure.
Does each school in the network decide how it will handle situations like this?
Yes, but as I said earlier, there is constant communication between programs.
How about curricular priorities?
Every teacher, no matter their subject area, teaches English and literacy as well as socialization and emotional development. The schools also have continual professional development workshops for staff. Everyone is treated as indispensable to student learning.
This enables everyone to help students with whatever they need — whether that’s a new pair of boots, a warm coat, a place to live, an attorney, or counseling.
What is the role of alumni in the network? Are family members encouraged to visit the schools or volunteer?
You can’t walk into an Internationals school without meeting a mom, an aunt, a sibling. The network has more than 90 alumni who work in the schools. One school in Flushing, Queens, for example, has more than 10 alums working in different capacities, as teachers, administrators, and advocates. The network works hard to keep people connected. It’s a cliché to say, “This place is a family,” but in this case, it’s true. People come back. They refer newcomers to the schools, and many return to work at them once they finish their degrees. The network understands that representation matters.
What are the biggest challenges now facing Internationals Network programs?
Some teachers and staff in the network have DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and they are in a precarious position. Similarly, undocumented students have no pathway to either DACA or citizenship, and they need a way to get work authorization.
But network schools have never been bound by walls, and there are constant conversations about whether families should check in with their lawyers if they have an upcoming immigration hearing. They also discuss what to do if people are detained or threatened with deportation. The schools are trying to figure out how they can mobilize a robust response to threats. They’re also working to get kids who are hiding from ICE back in school.
Of course, people are worried. This is the most challenging time in the Network’s history. IHS recognizes the trauma students and families are dealing with, and they and other Network schools are treating this trauma the same way that other schools treat the threat of school shootings.
I am confident that network schools will survive this period. The people on staff are not easily scared. They are deeply rooted in this work and are keeping the focus on the kids and how best to support the school community. People talk about what’s happening. No one simply disappears and is never mentioned again. Constant messaging tells every student that their lives are important and that they, as individuals, matter.
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