Hundreds of students have left Chelsea public schools this year, as families exit a community — and a state — that’s become a prime target for immigration enforcement.
Chelsea superintendent Almi Abeyta said school staff tell her some parents are moving to places where there’s less heat on immigrants.
“Parents are saying, ‘Well, we’re leaving … we don’t want to live where there’s ICE on the streets, so we’re leaving Chelsea,’ ” Abeyta said.
Chelsea has long been a community of immigrants, some of whom have been in this country for decades. The city has among the highest concentrations of immigrants in Massachusetts, with 45% of residents born abroad. School administrators said 85% of students live in a home where English is not the primary language.
Across Chelsea, the ramp-up in ICE arrests has parents on edge, according to Daniel Mojica, who runs Chelsea schools’ Parent Information Center.
“It’s got a different feeling in the air,” Mojica said. “The school year’s going to be different, and I think it’s going to continue on like this for the next three years.”
Chelsea doesn’t ask for students’ immigration status, but Mojica said parents worry about whether ICE can enter the schools. He tells them what he knows: Agents can’t go in without a warrant signed by a judge, but he can’t control what happens outside the school doors.
Mojica oversees transfers in and out of the district. He said roughly 990 students have transferred out of the district since last October. Based on those who have submitted transfer forms that indicate where they’re going, Mojica estimates a quarter are enrolling in other districts in Massachusetts. Another quarter are leaving the country for places like Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia. The biggest portion — about half the students leaving Chelsea — are bound for other U.S. states.
Mojica said one striking trend is that most of the families are moving to Republican-leaning states, including Florida, Arkansas, Alabama, Ohio and South Carolina. One day in early September, an elementary school reported four student transfers: two said they were headed for Texas and two planned to leave the country.
The district expects to lose a net 300 students from last year’s 6,100 enrollees, about a 5% decline. That could result in a $5.7 million shortfall for Chelsea schools; the state sends the district about $19,000 per pupil.
The student departures won’t affect funding for the current school year, Abeyta said, but officials will likely have to start planning cuts to next year’s budget.
“We staff according to numbers, and so when we’re looking at numbers, we will have too many staff” for the lower student headcount, she said.
“It’s never a fun conversation when you’re talking about cutting positions.”
Chelsea isn’t the only district that will face hard decisions in the months ahead, said Mary Bourque, a former Chelsea superintendent who now heads the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. Based on a meeting she had Friday with officials from urban districts across the state, Bourque said Chelsea is one of several school systems losing students from immigrant families.
“What we’re seeing is certainly an exodus from our districts,” Bourque said.
Chelsea has six months to finalize next year’s school budget. Abeyta said the city could increase funding for the schools, while Chelsea School Committee member Sarah Neville said she hopes the state will help soften the blow — for example, by tapping into funds raised under the so-called “millionaire’s tax” for investments in transportation and education.
“We might have fewer students, but we still have the same amount of school buildings and we still have the same electrical bills — all that overhead stays the same,” Neville said.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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