Thousands of Ukrainian, Afghan refugees have enrolled in Montgomery County Public Schools

Impacts of worldwide refugees on Montgomery County schools

Fox 5's Tom Fitzgerald reports on the enrollment spikes Montgomery County schools are seeing due to an increase in Refugees coming to the area.

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Local school districts in the DMV have recently welcomed an influx of refugee students.

The official enrollment for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) was listed as 158,263 students. But that's not the full picture, because it doesn't include 3,473 students that enrolled since the September cut-off date.

Who are they? MCPS says many are refugees from countries like Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Guatemala.

"This year, we knew," MCPS Superintendant Dr. Monifa McKnight said at a recent board meeting. "We expected our international enrollment to grow. We knew that and looked at lessons from 2017 and identified what are the specific schools and spaces we need to have staffing to support that."

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The Federal Government has facilitated many of the political refugee relocations.

Over the past decade, enrollment has dropped in the school district but fueled by newly immigrated students — it's climbing. Nearly half are high schoolers.

They need English language services, mental health services, and staff that are fluent in multiple languages such as Farsi, Ukrainian, and Amharic. MCPS officials say the State of Maryland needs to start providing funding to support the students who enroll after the September cut-off date.

Margarita Bohorquez, the Director Of Student & Family Services for MCPS, says they are currently "in the process of hiring many" English Transition Counselors (ETCs). But right now, the competition to hire in the DMV is extreme.

"It's been a little difficult and challenging to find multilingual, multicultural help professionals, but we keep searching and working with our community partners to find them," Bohorquez said.

This trend is expected to grow. Bethesda Beat's analysis of enrollment trends indicates MCPS is on track to surpass 170,000 students in the next five years.

"We’ll continue to support students and families who have been impacted by multiple hardships such as those arriving from Afghanistan and Ukraine just to name a few," said Everett Davis, the Acting Associate Superintendent for MCPS.