The first day of classes kicked off in New York City on Thursday as schools grapple with the influx of migrant students, with some buildings turning away kids as 21,000 children seeking asylum inundated already jam-packed classrooms.
The line to get inside Newcomers High School in Long Island City stretched around the block early Thursday as frustrated teachers vented that the building had already hit capacity, pushing students at Gotham — a different school inside the building — to a facility across the street.
“It’s a capacity issue,” a teacher told The Post. “They should have worked this out two days ago!”
Many of the migrant students were beaming and proudly wearing their Queens shelter IDs around their necks.
Among the students gleaming with excitement was 15-year-old Jose Gonzalez, a Venezuelan migrant who said he wasn’t nervous to be starting school in the Big Apple.
“This is the best! I’ve been living in a shelter in Queens for a few months and I’ve been waiting for this. I’m so happy to see all these people. This is going to be great!” he said to Bolivian migrant Fernanda Beccera, 19.
Another translator who speaks Arabic, 12th-grade science teacher Fatima Ayou, 45, was looking forward to helping the incoming migrants, her husband Amir Farouk, 45, told The Post.
“She’s happy to do this important work for the community, for the kids. I’m very proud of her. She was very excited this morning and she knew today was going to be a challenge,” Farouk said.
Despite the chaotic scene — lines of students wrapping around the corner and people on cellphones using Google Translate to communicate — many still seemed optimistic.
One migrant dad from Angola who speaks Portuguese, Paola Jose Marquis, 40, said his 14-year-old son, Ricardo, would fare better than he since he knows some Spanish.
“My wife, Yolanda, was worried. I told her he has his ID and he is prepared,” he said. “I am happy he is going to school. This is a blessing.”
He added, “He was able to understand a little better than I was because he speaks a little Spanish. I do not speak Spanish. I told him to go on the line and follow everyone else.”
Migrants coming from the shelters said they would be given all the school supplies they’d need, including pens, notebooks, books and backpacks.
Bolivian asylum seekers Donald and Sonia Becerra, 56 and 53, brought their youngest, Luciana Becerra, 14, to enroll in class.
Their eldest daughter, Fernanda, 19, translated, telling The Post, “The school gave us all the supplies. The pens, the notebooks, the backpack. They say all the books that you need and the packets they will give her today when she gets inside.”
While many parents seemed hopeful about sending their child off into the masses, others expressed frustration with the DOE for a lack of organization going into Day 1.
“Why not have them come in earlier so the teachers could show them where to go and work out all these IDs and paperwork and stuff?” said 38-year-old Rosa Rodriguez, who lives in Astoria and works as a waitress in Manhattan.
Her son, Alex Gonzalez, 14, felt overwhelmed ahead of his freshman year.
“I wanted to get here early because I’m new. I’m going to be lost and so are all of these guys? I think they should have let them come a day before. I hate being stuck in crowds and this is definitely my worst nightmare. I’m just going to be going crazy!”
George Kara Lekas, 14, from Astoria, was supposed to start at Gotham on Thursday but was told he had to stand aside and wait for the principal to usher him and his classmates across the street as migrant students overwhelmed the building.
“They gave us crap! No information! I’m getting a late start and I left early! I’m two subway stops away. I mean, look at this? I’m going to try and transfer into the Academy of American Studies, like as soon as I can!”
He added, glancing at a long line of migrant students, “Yeah, it’s because of this!”
It was also a disorderly scene outside PS 143 in Queens, where thousands of students rushed toward the building, some carrying brown paper bags brimming with rolls of paper towels, notebooks and crayons.
Some children were crying as their parents dropped them off.
Teachers stood by balloons — one to indicate first grade, two for second, and three for third — and helped shuffle kids into the building.
One parent from Ecuador, Maria, told The Post that she was only able to buy her son a notebook and pencils from the supply list she was given “because I didn’t have enough money.”
“This is his first day. He is 10. He is in the fifth grade,” she said.
Ahead of Day 1, the DOE gave teachers a bare-bones guide on how to deal with the influx of migrants.
In the letter, educators were warned that they would be on their own when it comes to procuring additional supplies and bridging any language barriers with their students, the majority of whom do not speak English.
The paltry, two-page instruction manual came just a day before teachers welcomed some 21,000 migrant kids into their classrooms, about 2,500 more students than officials said last week.
The letter also suggests that the DOE cannot tell schools how many migrant students any one school will be taking in, because it does not track immigration status and warns that administrators “should not turn away any students.”
And if there is still any trouble, the DOE offers only red tape, telling schools with problems to “Please complete the Central Project Open Arms Team-Support Request form.”
The title of the letter, Project Open Arms, is the name of a partnership between the DOE and city social service agencies that has allocated money to shore up classroom aid for the new student migrant population.
The DOE has hired 188 teachers licensed to teach English as a new language, plus another 175 new teachers who are bilingual over the last year — meaning there were about 3,400 English as a New Language-licensed teachers and over 1,700 teachers who speak both English and Spanish on hand Thursday.
