Migrants overwhelming school districts in Pennsylvania, saddling taxpayers with hefty price tag

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – A massive influx in non-English speaking students in Pennsylvania is overwhelming school districts across the state, and the logistical strain on administrators could be leaving other students behind.

The number of English Language Learners (ELL) in school districts in Pennsylvania has surged nearly 40% since 2021, forcing public schools to shell out more cash to try and meet the needs of these students, according to documents obtained via records requests and open-source information reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The surge for many schools began in the 2021-2022 academic school year, coinciding with the onset of the Biden-Harris administration and the subsequent border crisis.

The surge has walloped already-understaffed schools and taken educational opportunities away from native children, local residents and school district leaders experiencing the influx told the DCNF. 

Records collected by the DCNF reveal a staggering increase of English learner students and swelling costs in small-town school districts in particular under the Biden administration, which has presided over a record-breaking illegal immigration crisis.

“The problem is two-fold,” Joan Cullen, who served as president of the Pennridge School Board from 2015 to 2023, said to the DCNF. “You have obviously the financial issue, but also the issue of where to get the personnel in order to provide these services to the students as we have an influx of them coming into the school districts.”

Across the state, there were a total of 71,766 ELL students — those requiring specialized education in learning English as a second language — during the 2020-2021 school year, according to data published by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This number jumped to 99,889 in the 2023-2024 school year, marking a nearly 40% rise in just three years.

“It has made us stop to think, ‘how will we provide for these students?’” Cullen said. “That’s what I wish people would emphasize, and I think that [Ohio GOP Sen.] J.D. Vance did that the other night during the debate when he said ‘we’re not angry with the people that were put in this situation, we’re angry with the elected officials who are just completely disregarding what this does to a small town.”’

The increase in English learners came despite a drop in the overall statewide student population, education department data shows. There were 1,696,022 students in the 2020-2021 academic school year, and that number fell to 1,685,859 in the 2023-2024 school year.

Out of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts, the DCNF identified 62 that experienced a 100% increase or more of English language students between 2021 and 2024. Another 68 districts experienced an increase of at least 50% during that same time period.

For parents in smaller towns that have experienced a sharp rise in migrant students, the impact has proven incredibly personal.

“My daughter was ready to be in Head Start,” Heather Roberts said to the DCNF, speaking about a pre-K program in Pennsylvania that caters to students with disabilities and low-income families. Her daughter fit the former description, as she was born with only one kidney.

“Two weeks before Head Start was set to begin, [the school] contacted me and told me my child was not allowed to attend because of all of the immigrants coming in,” she said. The school was forced to knock her daughter out of the program in order to accommodate more than 20 new Haitian students who came from low-income households, Roberts said.

Roberts serves as president of Local 53G, a union that represents hundreds of workers who produce glassware in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. The small town of roughly 4,000 people has experienced a major increase in ELL spending in just the past few years, according to documents obtained through a records request.

The Charleroi Area School District spent a total of $105,000 on English learners during the 2020-2021 academic school year, covering teacher salaries and other ELL administrative costs, according to documents provided to the DCNF. That number ballooned to $505,00 for the 2024-2025 school year.

Charleroi’s story similarly echoes what’s happened in Springfield, Ohio, which exploded onto the national stage when former President Donald Trump made mention of it during the presidential debate last month. Trump had made similar comments about Charleroi and its own immigration crisis while on the campaign trail.

The percentage of elementary school students requiring English-language classes in this district was in the low single digits just a few years ago, but now that figure has reached roughly 35%, according to the New York Times. The influx has been so dramatic, that one English teacher was reportedly forced to work with students in a closet in the back area of a classroom.

Roberts reiterated the logistical nightmares that have ensnared the Charleroi public education system, noting one instance when her family went to visit her daughter’s elementary school for a function that “should’ve taken only half-an-hour, but ended up taking three hours” because of the number of interpreters needed to assist everyone.

Charleroi has seen a more than 1,100% increase in the number of English learners since 2021, according to records obtained by the DCNF. There were 18 English learners in the district’s 2020-2021 school year, with that number exploding to 223 in this current school year. The vast majority of the English learners enrolled in Charleroi have been Haitian Creole speakers, records show.

Also like Springfield, the town of Charleroi is experiencing a rash of Haitian drivers getting into car wrecks, according to Roberts. She recounted a time when the landlord of her union hall called her and said they wouldn’t be able to hold their union meeting the next day because a Haitian driver ran into their building and “cut down all the wires.”

“The Charleroi Area School District (CASD) is dedicated to providing a high-quality education for every student within a safe, supportive, and inclusive learning environment,” Charleroi superintendent Ed Zelich said in a prepared statement. “This commitment extends to our growing population of English Language Learners (ELLs), who enrich our school community with their diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.”

In an interview with the DCNF, Zelich added that the enormous increase in English learners has “put a stress” on the district.

“I would be negligent to say ‘everything is fine,’” he said. “The truth is we need more resources. We’re asking for more help.”

Charleroi is far from the only Pennsylvania community experiencing a sharp uptick in migrant students needing English-language classes.

The Shaler Area School District witnessed an increase of 466% in its ELL population from 2021 to 2024, according to records obtained via records request. In the Shippensburg Area School District, the number of ELL students in that same time period rose from 46 to 175 — marking a 280% increase.

The Philadelphia City School District, the largest in the state, went from 16,530 ELL to 23,337 in the same period, marking an increase of nearly 7,000 non-English speaking students in just three years.

The sharp rise in students needing specialized English-language education has, in many schools across Pennsylvania, correlated with an explosion in funding for ELL services. The sharp rise in ELL costs raises questions as to what taxpayers in the state will be forced to shell out in the years to come, should this trend continue at the current pace.

Through public records requests, the DCNF reviewed the English Learner expenses of 16 Pennsylvania school districts. On average, the additional costs were $3,483 per student. Using this average, the DCNF estimates the influx of students could be costing taxpayers over $97 million a year.

Covering ELL education in the Shippensburg Area School District only cost roughly $185,000 in the 2020-2021 academic school year, but taxpayers in the district are now shelling out more than $600,000 in this current school year, according to documents obtained via records requests.

In the Montrose Area School District, a rural community nestled in northwestern Pennsylvania, roughly $65,000 was spent on ELL teacher salaries and benefits for the 2020-2021 school year. That budget more than doubled by the 2023-2024 school year, costing more than $135,000.

In the Bethlehem Area School District, records provided to the DCNF reveal their budget has allocated nearly $24 million on ELL spending since fiscal year 2021.

“We’ve definitely had an increase of students needing those services,” Cullen said of her school district’s situation.

Cullen said that, while Pennridge — which sits roughly 30 miles north of Philadelphia — hasn’t been inundated with thousands of migrant students like other school districts in the state, she has noticed an uptick in the number of English learners in the local student population.

Cullen also noted that knee-jerk accusations of racism when discussing this subject were not helpful in addressing what she stressed is a legitimate issue for educators across the state. The problem is real and requires serious discussions, she said.

“When people turn around and say ‘Oh, you’re just complaining because you’re a bigot.’ That is so wrong and it’s not helpful to getting these towns what they need to take care of the native people in the town and migrants coming in,” Cullen explained.

A sudden rise in migrant students can cause other logistical issues for administrators, according to staffers who spoke with the DCNF.

One unique problem the migrant influx has created for schools is that many English-language learners enroll and then leave within an academic year, explained former Council Rock School Board president Ed Salamon. This leaves districts with funds allocated for English learners essentially wasted and ELL staff on payroll who are no longer needed.

The surge in migrant children — and the allocation of resources to accommodate them — has led to some other, native children falling behind.

“My daughter, who was behind before, is so far behind now,” Roberts said to the DCNF, and noted that her young child will likely have to redo kindergarten.

“What about our kids who are behind?” she asked.