Plan to remove older International Newcomer Academy students worries supporters

Last year, Fort Worth school officials announced plans to keep a school for refugee students and other new arrivals together after months of uncertainty about the school’s future.

But when school begins later this month, more than half of the International Newcomer Academy’s students will be in school somewhere else. District officials plan to send the academy’s students who are 16 and older to Success High School, a school for under-credited students.

Up until now, students who came into the district as refugees or other new arrivals typically spent a year or two years at the academy before moving on to Success or another school.

District officials say the plan will ease overcrowding at the academy and eliminate the need for older students to change schools after a short time in the district. But supporters, teachers and former students at the academy say the program is a critical piece of newcomers’ success in the American school system, and that pulling older students out of it could make their transition harder.

“It would just be putting unnecessary stress and pressure on the student,” said Laisha Verdusco, a former student at the academy.

Many students came to Fort Worth as refugees

The academy will continue to cover grades 6-9, as it did before the change. But a large number of students at the academy who were classified as freshmen were 16 years old or older. That’s because many of the academy’s students came to Fort Worth as refugees fleeing conflict in their home countries. Many didn’t set foot in a classroom for years before they arrived at the academy because of circumstances in their home countries. Some never learned to read or write in their own languages before coming to the United States.

Last year, Fort Worth school officials announced plans to move the district’s administrative offices into the building that previously housed the academy and another school, the Applied Learning Academy.

Teachers and supporters of the International Newcomer Academy worried the district would divide the school among several campuses or shut it down entirely.

Last spring, district officials met with focus groups made up of teachers and others to talk about the academy’s future. A district spokesman said the need to keep the school together at a single site was one of the main themes of those conversations.

Then, in April, district officials told the Star-Telegram they planned to move the academy from its home on Camp Bowie Boulevard to a vacant school building on Valentine Street, about a mile east of Arlington Heights High School. At the time, the academy’s supporters celebrated the news that the district wouldn’t divide the school up. But weeks later, when district officials made the decision to send older students to Success, many of the academy’s supporters were disappointed about the change in plans.

Mahika Jhangiani, a social studies teacher at the academy, said the move would never have been necessary if the academy hadn’t been “evicted” from its previous campus. The academy’s new building is smaller than its old home, meaning space could be a concern. Teachers at the academy don’t want to be overcrowded, Jhangiani said. But that wouldn’t have been a concern if the district had left the academy at the Camp Bowie campus, she said.

If it had been handled differently, Jhangiani thinks the decision to move older students to Success could have been helpful. Teachers at the academy had been advocating for a stronger partnership with Success for years, she said. Some had suggested allowing guidance counselors from the academy to work with Success, or even housing the two schools at the same campus. But Jhangiani said she thinks the district’s timeline for the change is unworkable. If the district had waited a year before making the change, teachers both at Success and the academy would have more time to prepare, she said.

Academy’s graduates question decision to move older students

District officials declined an interview request for this story. Clint Bond, a spokesman for the district, said officials were unable to respond to questions from the Star-Telegram because a long list of duties leading up to the first day of school, including registering new and returning students for classes, handling required back-to-school vaccinations and explaining COVID-19 protocols to parents.

In an emailed statement, Jerry Moore, the district’s chief academic officer, said the move eliminates the need for those students to change schools after only a year of schooling. Because so many students move to Success after a year at the academy, Success is equipped to offer academic and language support to the academy’s students, Moore said.

But Verdusco, the former student, said she thinks the decision is unwise. Verdusco, now a nursing student at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, came to the United States from Mexico with her family in 2016. She enrolled in the academy as a 16 year old and spent a year there before moving on to Success.

When she came to the United States, Verdusco couldn’t speak, read or write in English. She credits the academy with helping her learn the language and getting her ready to finish her schooling in the United States. Although her classmates at the academy came from all over the world, they were all in a similar situation. That removed some of the pressure she would have felt in an ordinary classroom, she said. The fact that all her classmates wanted to be able to talk to each other also gave them added motivation to work on their English, she said.

Verdusco thinks it would be possible for newcomers to have a good experience at Success without beginning at the academy. But for that to happen, Success teachers and administrators would need to replicate the experience students get at the academy, she said. If the district can’t find a way to do that, Verdusco thinks the move could make life more difficult for older students who have just arrived in the United States.

Laurent Shumbusha, now a criminal justice student at Texas Christian University, enrolled in the academy in 2013 after he came to Fort Worth from Zimbabwe. One of the main benefits of the academy is helping new arrivals understand how life in the United States works.

When he started school at the academy, his first instinct was to stay quiet and keep to himself. But because teachers there had training and experience with students like him, they knew how to help him. That helped him get comfortable with the idea of asking questions when he didn’t understand, he said.

But Shumbusha said he doesn’t think that process would work as well in another setting. A teacher without the training and experience teachers at the academy have might not understand that a student who has only been in the country a short while might be quiet because they aren’t comfortable in class and don’t understand how things work. And because teachers’ attention is generally pulled many directions at once, they may not have time to offer those students the support they need, he said.

If he had to go back and start school in the United States again, Shumbusha said he’d choose to begin at the academy. Most of his friends from there say they’d do the same, he said. He thinks it’s a shame that many newcomers won’t have that option in the future.