Refugee Children Find America Through School

About 90 child refugees, most from Africa, are enrolled in the Family Immersion Center summer program at Jane Adams Elementary School in Sioux Falls. The program focuses on acculturation, English instruction and some academic content. Although many of the students have had some English training in their homelands, none are proficient. The immersion center is one of the first steps in the children’s transitional process.

(Video by Tirrell Thomas, AIJI Staff)

By Amelia Quiroga

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Imagine if the economy put the nation in an upheaval: Fuel is a luxury, money is hardly attainable, and food is scarce. Anarchy spreads through the nation in militia war over commodities, and you have no choice but to flee with your children to a country abroad. You enroll your children in school, and classes are taught in a language in which neither you, nor your children, are proficient.

About 90 child refugees, most from Africa, are enrolled in the Family Immersion Center summer program at Jane Adams Elementary School in Sioux Falls. The program focuses on acculturation, English instruction and some academic content. Although many of the students have had some English training in their homelands, none are proficient. The immersion center is one of the first steps in the children’s transitional process.

Yassin Issak, 14, from Somalia, has lived in South Dakota for nine months. He’s attending the family immersion’s five-week summer school. He enjoys writing, studying science and learning about the human body.

“If I’m learning something good, I can get good job,” Yassin said. “And [be] good worker.”

Yassin lives with his mother, father and four siblings, he said. Three are enrolled in the immersion program. He enjoys living in Sioux Falls because “African and American people, they are same,” Yassin said. “People are people.”

Experts who work with Sioux Falls refugee community have no solid count of the number of child refugees living here. Estimates range from 400 to 800. Kevin Dick, the principal of Jane Adams, guessed that 600 to 800 refugee children live here, but called his estimate a “shot in the dark”

Whatever the number, most refugee children are not proficient in English and need special training to transition into classrooms. Children can find language help through a variety of organizations including Lutheran Social Services, the Family Literacy Center, the Sioux Falls Multicultural Center and at Jane Adams.

For some of the children, Jane Adams is their “first educational experience in the U.S.,” said Pam Meyer, who conducts English testing and placement.

Depending on the time of year they arrive in Sioux Falls, refugee children are usually enrolled in school within the first 30 days, Meyer said. But if they aren’t enrolled by the last day of school, they’re not eligible for summer school classes, she said.

The immersion center’s student program is designed for children who have been in the United States less than a year, Dick said. The children come from homes in which no English is spoken, he said. The summer classes are offered so students stay active in English training.

Before entering the program, the children are tested for their proficiency in speaking and listening. In the fall, the test will include a writing section as well. The classes are divided by age groups but students range in proficiency.

Students show a wide range of ability, said Cheryl Bosma, Jane Adams summer math teacher. “You have to really modify the class for them, based on what they can do,” she said.

Success rates among the children vary, Dick said. Most students stay in the program for one year but are allowed two years.

Children succeed more often when parents, or other family members, have resettled before the student arrives and can provide the children with a stable home. Students have often suffered in refugee camps, Dick said. What they learned to survive might get them in trouble in a mainstream American public school. So teachers and staff at Jane Adams help them adapt. They teach the children that they are safe in school, they will not be tortured or hurt, and they must follow rules, he said.

“Those are lessons that don’t come naturally,” Dick said.

Yassin said that he and his family cannot go back to Somalia, which has seen war, famine and disease since its government failed in 1991. “Now they are fighting,” he said. “But this is free country.”

In terms of maturity, refugee students differ from the average American student, said Clara Hart, summer liaison at the immersion center and a former refugee from Mozambique.

“They have a three year jump in maturity level,” she said. “I don’t see that as a negative, it’s a plus.”

Hart has worked at the immersion center since it opened in 2000 and has lived in Sioux Falls for 20 years.

The immersion center has welcomed several ethnic populations among its student body, Dick said. The newest refugee population is from Iraq and the next will be from Bhutan and other parts of Asia, he said.

“The population changes every year,” Dick said. To know which ethnic population will enroll next, one just has to follow the conflicts of other countries, he said.

Although refugees are “met with different levels” of acceptance, Dick said, the community for the most part embraces the diversity and is accommodating. Sioux Falls represents 74 countries and 56 language groups, Dick said.

Dick and the Jane Adams staff do extensive research on incoming students and their homelands to get a sense of the children’s experiences.

“It’s a way to show them some compassion and care,” Dick said. “If I can be a part of that, then that’s what’s fun and motivating for me. I would miss this at times if I were not around.”