Harrison School District 2 says they are feeling strain due to influx of immigrant students

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - Harrison School District 2 says they are feeling the strain as they work to accommodate a large influx of immigrant students enrolling in schools.

This year, District 2 says around 440 new students enrolled who are either migrants, immigrants, or refugees. Between October and February alone, 114 students enrolled that self-identify as immigrants.

Rachel Laufer, an Assistant Superintendent for the district, says over the years they have consistently welcomed immigrants, migrants, and refugees to their schools. However this year, they are witnessing a far bigger jump in student population.

"Really, where the strain comes is because we can't predict what part of our school district, what school they're going to enroll in," said Laufer. "We have to quickly readjust our human resources and other instructional resources."

While they do their best to count the new students, Laufer says it's difficult for the district to pin down exactly how many immigrant students are enrolled because their counting is contingent on the families self-reporting their immigration status.

"Part of the challenge is a lot of the families do not want to identify themselves as either refugees, immigrant or migrant when they come to enroll in our school," said Laufer. "There are some political pressures that would cause a family to be a little nervous."

Given that caveat, Laufer says she would not be surprised if the number of immigrant students is higher.

The district says they have processes in place to welcome newcomers and connect them with resources to learn. However, Laufer says they are struggling with funding, despite trying to predict numbers of student growth.

"Federal funding we get for all of our multilingual learners does not nearly meet the staffing needs," said Laufer.

KRDO13 reached out to District 11 for information on the number of immigrant students they are seeing. A district spokesperson says they are not seeing a strain or an emergency.

Joe Schott, President of the Colorado Springs Education Association, says he has not heard of strain either.

"I spent the past couple of days reaching out to people, and I heard nothing about strain," said Schott. "Some teachers had seen some more students, but the arrival of those students presented no real issues."

El Paso County data reflects that D11 has experienced an increase of 370 immigrant students from October to February.