U.S. schools can’t handle the staggering numbers of new non-English speaking students related to unrestrained immigration. This article focuses on Pennsylvania and the costs and impact on native-born students. However, that’s just a part of the problem. The impact on teachers, who have been leaving the profession in record numbers, and administrators is immense. Have our leaders created an impossible situation?

From Daily Caller. A massive influx in non-English speaking students in Pennsylvania is overwhelming school districts across the state, and the logistical strain on administrators could be leaving other students behind.

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The number of English Language Learners (ELL) in school districts in Pennsylvania has surged nearly 40% since 2021, forcing public schools to shell out more cash to try and meet the needs of these students, according to documents obtained via records requests and open-source information reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The surge for many schools began in the 2021-2022 academic school year, coinciding with the onset of the Biden-Harris administration and the subsequent border crisis.

The surge has walloped already-understaffed schools and taken educational opportunities away from native children, local residents and school district leaders experiencing the influx told the DCNF. …

“The problem is two-fold,” Joan Cullen, who served as president of the Pennridge School Board from 2015 to 2023, said to the DCNF. “You have obviously the financial issue, but also the issue of where to get the personnel in order to provide these services to the students as we have an influx of them coming into the school districts.”

Across the state, there were a total of 71,766 ELL students — those requiring specialized education in learning English as a second language — during the 2020-2021 school year, according to data published by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This number jumped to 99,889 in the 2023-2024 school year, marking a nearly 40% rise in just three years. …

Out of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts, the DCNF identified 62 that experienced a 100% increase or more of English language students between 2021 and 2024. Another 68 districts experienced an increase of at least 50% during that same time period.

For parents in smaller towns that have experienced a sharp rise in migrant students, the impact has proven incredibly personal.

“My daughter was ready to be in Head Start,” Heather Roberts said to the DCNF, speaking about a pre-K program in Pennsylvania that caters to students with disabilities and low-income families. Her daughter fit the former description, as she was born with only one kidney.

“Two weeks before Head Start was set to begin, [the school] contacted me and told me my child was not allowed to attend because of all of the immigrants coming in,” she said. The school was forced to knock her daughter out of the program in order to accommodate more than 20 new Haitian students who came from low-income households, Roberts said.

Roberts serves as president of Local 53G, a union that represents hundreds of workers who produce glassware in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. The small town of roughly 4,000 people has experienced a major increase in ELL spending in just the past few years, according to documents obtained through a records request. …

The percentage of elementary school students requiring English-language classes in this district was in the low single digits just a few years ago, but now that figure has reached roughly 35%, according to the New York Times. The influx has been so dramatic, that one English teacher was reportedly forced to work with students in a closet in the back area of a classroom. …

Charleroi has seen a more than 1,100% increase in the number of English learners since 2021, according to records obtained by the DCNF. There were 18 English learners in the district’s 2020-2021 school year, with that number exploding to 223 in this current school year. The vast majority of the English learners enrolled in Charleroi have been Haitian Creole speakers, records show. …

The sharp rise in students needing specialized English-language education has, in many schools across Pennsylvania, correlated with an explosion in funding for ELL services. The sharp rise in ELL costs raises questions as to what taxpayers in the state will be forced to shell out in the years to come, should this trend continue at the current pace.

Through public records requests, the DCNF reviewed the English Learner expenses of 16 Pennsylvania school districts. On average, the additional costs were $3,483 per student. Using this average, the DCNF estimates the influx of students could be costing taxpayers over $97 million a year. …

The surge in migrant children — and the allocation of resources to accommodate them — has led to some other, native children falling behind.

“My daughter, who was behind before, is so far behind now,” Roberts said to the DCNF, and noted that her young child will likely have to redo kindergarten.

“What about our kids who are behind?” she asked.

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(Excerpt from Daily Caller. Photo Credit: Kenny Eliason on Unsplash)