Leveraging Community-based Organizations to Equitably Serve Refugee-background Students in the United States
Image used with permission, City of Refuge
By Emily R. Crawford and Edwin Nii Bonney
27 February 2023
Schools are one of the first U.S. institutions refugee and newcomer families encounter. However, refugee and newcomer students continue to face barriers to equal and meaningful educational access. Even with good-faith efforts, many districts and schools lack capacity, infrastructure, and training to welcome newcomers. The Covid-19 pandemic starkly illuminated these persistent, long-standing gaps in educational access along racial/ethnic and socioeconomic lines and exacerbated these inequalities. K-12 schools and educators cannot – and must not – “go it alone” to redress extensive historical and contemporary barriers to education that will likely be exacerbated as geopolitical conflicts continue to roil the world. Many community-based organizations (CBOs) and refugee support organizations are a first point of contact for many refugee families and children; they provide essential critical support, services, networks, and space for refugees to navigate their new environment. They can identify gaps in services from federal and state governments before, during, and after refugee resettlement in local communities. Yet, CBOs are under-utilized as partners in schooling.
CBOs: Partners in Capacity-Building for Schools
Educators across rural, urban, and suburban contexts are serving more culturally and linguistically diverse students than ever before as U.S. demographics evolve and as climate crises, war, and political strife have displaced a staggering one hundred million people. Schools across the country are at varying levels of readiness and preparedness to serve refugee-background students. CBOs and schools can form powerful partnerships that result in welcoming communities that serve refugee-background families and students more holistically.
CBOs have a long history of fighting for equal educational opportunity by building working relationships with schools; they can earn the trust of newcomer families and community partners alike. They establish long-standing relationships with local refugee communities such that both parents and children see the CBO as a safe space where they can learn and navigate their new environment without prejudice and discrimination. CBOs can enhance refugees’ understanding of U.S. educational and social systems and schooling norms. Simultaneously, these community organizations can bridge educators’ understanding of refugee populations’ linguistic, religious, and cultural practices; they can also smooth paths with schools to ensure refugee families have opportunities to engage in the life of schools. CBOs also signal to non-refugee community members and institutions the importance of intentionally creating spaces for refugees to belong. They catalyze recognition for refugees in the community, strategically building capacity for refugee integration.
City of Refuge (COR) is one non-profit CBO in Columbia, Missouri whose mission is to “…to help refugees and immigrants recover and regain control of their lives.” We have been involved with COR as research partners. We have observed many ways COR lives out its mission: in addition to providing access to basic care and counseling services, COR partners with refugees to share and co-construct knowledge about Pk-12 schooling and educational practices. COR recognized educational spaces as fundamental to refugees’ ability to connect to their new communities. In response, COR began hosting English-language classes and homework tutoring sessions that match refugees with community volunteers—including high school students and graduate students – and expanded their focus on education in late 2020 by hiring a Pk-12 school liaison. The liaison’s role included everything from helping families enroll their children in school and supporting them through various schooling processes and procedures (e.g., school communication systems) to researching early childhood learning centers. The scope of education-related needs continued to grow, so COR also hired a director for educational programming. We have observed that COR sees a need and takes action: in 2022, they initiated a youth mentoring program, and they anticipate opening a preschool in fall 2023 that will bring together children from refugee families and those from non-refugee backgrounds.
Recommendations
We share below what we have learned from our work and research with refugee-serving CBOs and what they do that helps create safe and fun learning environments that respond to the needs of refugee families, especially students. These CBOs:
Start with removing barriers to basic needs for students and families like housing, food, clothing, etc.
Hire a K-12 school liaison or education director as a primary point person for refugee students to assist families with enrollment processes and educational expectations, and broker relationships with public school educators.
Tap their networks to advocate for additional resources for students. They learn where educators have questions about refugees’ experiences or where they need assistance with professional development opportunities.
Ensure staff and volunteers build relationships and connect with families through in-person visits, phone calls, and text messages and virtual meetings when possible.
Receive and reciprocate families’ hospitality; they sit and eat with families in their home when invited; they attend important family and community celebrations like births and weddings and reciprocate the hospitality.
Show intentionality in centering refugee families’ and students’ voices and perspectives in designing programs they need. This means refugee families and students are viewed as experts and partners.
Ideally, schools and educators would also adapt the above strategies to more closely engage with refugee families and students, but they may be limited in doing so. That is why schools can benefit from coming alongside local CBOs already doing the work. Together, CBOs and schools can leverage their collective resources and know-how to ensure refugees do not have just basic access to education but so that the education they receive is high quality, equitable, and meaningful.
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this publication belong solely to the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of REACH or the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Emily R. Crawford-Rossi is an Associate Professor in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri. She teaches in a Pk-12 leadership preparation program. Her research projects explore the intersections among immigration policy, educational policy and leadership, and ethics.
Edwin Nii Bonney is an Assistant Professor of Doctoral Education at Radford University. He teaches and works alongside educational leaders to disrupt and reimagine an education for students that centers the languages, cultures, histories, and knowledge of vulnerable, racialized, minoritized, and historically marginalized groups.