NEW HAVEN — Rohullah arrived in Connecticut from Afghanistan in November 2021 at age 17 accompanied by an aunt, uncle and two cousins. They ended up in New Haven, where Rohullah enrolled in Hillhouse High School as a junior.
The experience was overwhelming.
Rohullah remembered entering school right around midterms. He didn’t know what was being taught, and he didn’t speak English.
“It was really challenging,” Rohullah told CT Examiner. “I didn’t know how their grades work, how the assignments work, and how they were going to grade us … from midterms to the final exam, I didn’t know [at] all what was going on in classes.”
As the state grapples with how to connect young people falling through the cracks with an education and jobs, refugees who enter the United States as teenagers or in their early 20s are one population that presents specific challenges.
These young immigrants often come in having experienced the trauma of war or family separation, with little or no grasp of the English language, and sometimes without much – or any — formal schooling.
Traditional programs for helping children learning English aren’t sufficient. State education law does not take into account the unique barriers they face. And school districts are left to bridge the gaps in the short time they have to prepare these young people for adulthood.
Since October 2023, IRIS, a nonprofit agency based in New Haven tasked by the federal government to welcome refugees to Connecticut — has welcomed 220 new arrivals between the ages of 15 and 24. The agency serves in total about 340 refugees between the ages of 14 and 18.
IRIS welcomed about 900 refugees in 2023, including about 400 from Afghanistan.
Data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security showed that 60,000 refugees were admitted into the U.S. in 2023. About one-tenth came from Afghanistan. In Connecticut, 12,650 people were granted permanent resident status in 2023, including 320 Afghanis.
When Rohullah arrived, he was placed in classes for students learning English as a second language. His first day, he was partnered with another Afghan student who was asked to show him around. The student was a Pashto speaker, and Rohullah spoke Dari — two groups in Afghanistan, that don’t always get along.
The classes could also be confusing. At one point, Rohullah was placed in a math course taught in Spanish.
“Thank God that I was good with mathematics. I wasn’t able to understand, and it was really hard for me, [and] especially for my cousin,” he said.
Unlike in Afghanistan, where he would complete most of his note-taking with pencil and paper, the New Haven Schools used technology like Google Docs. On the one hand, he said, the technology made it much easier to write and study in English. But he said that his writing skills might have been stronger if he were forced to write by hand instead of using a program that automatically corrected his spelling mistakes.
“Even right now … I feel comfortable talking, but if I write it down on the paper, I cannot write it exactly with the right spelling,” he said.
There were also cultural differences. Rohullah was surprised by the lack of respect that students at Hillhouse showed their teachers — arriving to class without saying good morning, wearing Airpods, playing on iPhones, and paying no attention to what the teacher said.
“If a student acted like that in Afghanistan, the teacher would kill him,” said Rohullah.
Rohullah said he didn’t participate in any sports or after school activities — he was struggling with depression and anxiety. He missed his parents and seven siblings — particularly the three youngest. All were still in Afghanistan.
“It was not easy at all. [It was] like being blind in society. Like you didn’t know anything. If you go outside — what if you lost yourself? I was always scared. So, I just stayed home,” he said.
Connecticut’s first “SLIFE” program
Over the past few years, staff in New Haven’s Office of Multilingual Services had begun to recognize that traditional programs for students learning English aren’t equipped to help young people in Rohullah’s situation.
Rosalyn Diaz-Ortiz, the supervisor for the English Language Learner programs, told CT Examiner that the district had been getting more and more students who had come in after experiencing a significant gap in their schooling. For example, she said, there were a few students who came in from Turkey who had lost four years of schooling because they were farming.
Diaz said that even when these students were put into “sheltered content” courses designed to support students learning English, they were still falling behind — they struggled with the language, and their academic achievement remained low. So her department decided to try something different.
Over the past year, the district began rolling out SLIFE — Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education — a program for high school refugees who come to America with little or no English and gaps in their formal schooling. While states like Massachusetts and Ohio have this program for refugees, New Haven is the first school district in Connecticut to offer this type of classroom.
On a Thursday morning, five students — three from Guatemala, one from Afghanistan and one from Sudan — were seated in a half-circle around a smart board at the front of the room. They had finished an earlier lesson on capital letters and punctuation, and were now looking at a worksheet on landforms.
Diana Cartagena, an ESL teacher, stands in front of the classroom and points at the pictures on the projector. She’s dressed in a Columbian sports jersey, in honor of Hispanic Heritage month.
“Ocean,” she says. “Which one shows me all water?”
The students pull up pictures of sunsets over ocean waters on their laptop screens.
She flips between English and Spanish, urging the students to respond.
“Mountain,” she says, pointing her arm up at an angle, like a rising mountain. Then, “valley,” she scoops her hand downward, indicating the shape of a basin.
Students in the SLIFE program spend two class periods focused on English-language learning, with topics like social studies integrated into the class. They have a mathematics class, where they learn basic foundational skills, and a Spanish-speaking STEM/technology class where they learn how to navigate programs like Google Classroom.
They join the rest of the school for hands-on electives like art and automotive skills. Diaz said the goal is to have students ready to leave the program and join the larger school community after 10 months.
“The key element of this specific program is to make sure that the students feel safe and they feel connected to the community because the majority of them come and they have no idea how the educational system works here in this country,” said Evelyn Robles-Rivas, the Director for the Multilingual Learners Program in New Haven Public Schools.
Diaz said that last year they had 26 students in the SLIFE program – currently, they have five. She said they could go up to two cohorts of 20 students each in the program. Along with a full-time SLIFE teacher, they have Turkish and Spanish-speaking tutors, a Pashto translator, and a bilingual teacher.
The classroom runs as a “workshop model” where the teacher will teach a specific skill for 30 minutes, and then break the students into groups, where they are able to work at their own level, using programs like Rosetta Stone, books, manipulatives and hands-on materials. Robles said it was critical for them to have a wide variety of resources to make sure that they understand the lessons.
Cartagena told CT Examiner that having the SLIFE program was an improvement to the previous system, where, although these students did have ESL classes, they faced a “sink or swim kind of situation.” She said this system allowed them to learn at their own level and still earn high school credits, rather than feeling completely out of their depth.
“We needed a time period and we needed a class to support them in that and get them caught up. And so this is the idea behind that,” Cartagena said.
Cartagena said the classroom also provides a place where they can be social with peers who also don’t speak English – something Rohullah said made him feel more at ease.
“They are with students that are at the same level and they feel comfortable to share out and talk, which is something that you don’t see,” she said.
“We can barely hold a conversation”
The summer after his junior year, Rohullah got a job at Chabaso Bakery in New Haven. He kept the job when he returned to school for his senior year in the fall, working only weekends. At that point, he said, he’d started to feel more comfortable speaking English. There were a few people in his classes who did speak some Dari, and he said that helped him feel more comfortable. He said it also gave him confidence to be among other students who didn’t speak English perfectly.
Rohullah graduated from Hillhouse in 2022, before the SLIFE program was created, and Diaz said they’ve made changes since then — the Spanish-speaking teacher is no longer teaching math foundations. They’ve started pairing the SLIFE students with ESL teachers for advisory, to address any cultural challenges that might come forward.
But employees of IRIS said that their clients have continued to face difficulties
Lisa Kinney Bajwa, the higher education coordinator at IRIS, said that she wished New Haven’s SLIFE program would spend more time just focusing on English language instruction, rather than teaching other subjects.
But Robles said that although they want to make sure students are able to practice all aspects of the language — speaking, reading, writing — state law requires the students to earn a certain number of credits in specific academic subjects before they can graduate from high school.
Bajwa said that the students who are learning English often receive good grades in their classes, but their grasp of the language remains poor.
“I have kids that are in ESL classes getting hundreds. We can barely hold a conversation. They cannot write a paragraph in English,” said Bajwa, who added that this might lead students to think they are ready for college when they aren’t.
Deb Riding, the director of education and employment at IRIS, said that the majority of the refugee students who graduated from the New Haven Public Schools last year are not ready for college.
She said that she generally recommends that these young people go into adult education first, so they can learn more English before starting at Gateway Community College. Otherwise, they could end up using up their Pell Grant — a government grant given to low-income students who want to attend college, and often the refugees’ only way to pay for higher education — on remedial classes.
“Four years in high school is just not enough time to both learn English, catch up on foundational skills, and build the reading and writing academic level that’s ready for Gateway,” she said.
Much of this comes from the challenge of trying to teach students the English language and trying to get them caught up academically after years of being out of school — a Herculean feat.
Daniel Bonet, the assistant principal at Hillhouse, said that, given that it takes 5-7 years to master a language, it’s “unrealistic” to expect these students to graduate and be proficient in English when some of them have only been in the school for two or three years.
“To be honest, it’s almost impossible,” he said.
Hold back or push forward
Riding and Bajwa also told CT Examiner about instances where they’ve asked if students could stay back an extra year to improve their English — including Rohullah’s case. Rohullah confirmed to CT Examiner that he had wanted to stay back a year, but he was not allowed to do so.
Riding told CT Examiner about a young woman named Muslima, who arrived from Afghanistan last year, at the age of 14. She came from a rural area in the country, Riding said, which meant that she hadn’t had any formal education.
Riding said they’d asked if Muslima could be placed in 8th grade, so that she could have more time to study English and get some foundational skills. But Riding said she wasn’t allowed to because of her age. Instead, she went to high school.
“She had one hour of English language instruction, and then she just went to her other classes. So, you can see that’s not really a program designed for her,” said Riding.
Diaz said that the district looks at a number of factors to decide whether to hold a student back or send them forward, including their social needs and any previous academic transcripts they might have. She said they do have the option to hold students back if they don’t have enough credit — Connecticut law says that a high schooler can remain in school through the age of 21. She said there were different pathways they might recommend for a student, depending on the situation.
“It may be that that student stays there five years, depending on their age. It may be that if the student’s 20 and we see no progress and they know enough English, it may be that … we need to recommend him to adult education. Or Gateway [Community College],” said Diaz.
Diaz noted that sometimes older students don’t want to remain in college, preferring to go to work and help their families. She also noted that because the state ranks school districts based on their four-year graduation rates, holding a student back would negatively affect those numbers.
And Bonet said that it isn’t fair to hold a student back when he or she understands the content of their classes, like math or science, but hasn’t mastered English.
As for the grading, Diaz said, each teacher grades differently, and the teachers have to decide how to best address the needs of the students. She also said some of the grading had changed since the SLIFE program was introduced.
But Bajwa said she hasn’t seen any improvement since the district began implementing the SLIFE program last year.
Robles said the first year of the program presented a lot of challenges because of staffing shortages.
“I think this past year, everyone — the schools, the counselor, the teacher, the staff, everyone that was in the classroom — as they worked together, we were able to identify more strategies, more support, especially personnel that will meet the needs of all students,” said Robles. “At least this year, we feel that we are in a better place.”
“A lot of pressure”
After Rohullah graduated from high school, he began working at a company called Medtronic, which manufactures medical supplies. He originally went to the company as a translator for his uncle, who was looking for a job there. His uncle didn’t want the job, so Rohullah took it. His cousin now works there as well.
Because Rohullah’s uncle has some disabilities, it has fallen on Rohullah and his two cousins to support a household that includes himself, his uncle and aunt, and five cousins. He said he earns money to pay the bills, and also some to send back to his family in Afghanistan.
In January of 2023, about six months after he graduated, Rohullah enrolled in classes at Gateway Community College. He’s now taking English and a remedial math course there, and balancing that with his job. Eventually, he said, once his grasp of English is better, he wants to major in computer science.
Like Rohullah, Riding and Bajwa said teenage refugees often are also subject to intense pressures from their families, either to work or to manage the house. Bajwa said she worked with one young refugee who had to get the gas and electric turned on in his family’s apartment in New Haven and arrange for a moving truck — all while still in school.
“Their electric didn’t get switched over, and then, a couple months later, their electricity gets shut off, and they owe this huge bill,” said Bajwa. “That’s a lot of pressure for a 17-year-old.”
The cost of housing can also be a driver that pushes young people to work. Bajwa said her clients are paying $2500 a month for a three-bedroom apartment. The federal government only provides a stipend for rent for three months — not long enough for most refugees to find a job. This means the high schoolers sometimes have to go to work. Riding said she had one client who was working full time at Amazon.
The older girls are also often expected to help out with the needs of their large families, which can mean they frequently miss school.
“They’ll stay home because the mom’s pregnant, or the baby’s sick, or they just are expected to help,” said Riding.
Trauma can also be a barrier. IRIS works with Clifford Beers, a New Haven-based nonprofit that offers counseling services. But while Riding said the agency did an “amazing job,” she noted that they only had counselors in English and Spanish.
“I think that the mental health needs of refugees are largely unmet,” said Riding. “There are not Pashto speaking social workers … or even Arabic speaking. So I think that the mental health needs are really tricky.”
After Hillhouse
While the SLIFE program is still a work in progress, the district has found solutions to some of the cultural and linguistic barriers that Rohullah and other Afghan refugees initially ran up against.
For example, Diaz said the summer field trips they take on city buses to get the students acquainted with New Haven also help to allay the concerns of some Afghan fathers, who balk at the idea of their daughters taking a city bus to school.
“We do it in mind thinking that they have to learn that skill, especially for the girls,” said Diaz.
They’ve also expanded food options at the cafeteria at Hillhouse. Diaz said that she’s heard the complaint from several parents about the lack of halal food. She said they’d been in touch with the lunch supervisor to make sure that there are non-meat offerings for students, and that the lunch menu now includes a symbol to indicate whether a meal is halal.
Recently, the district also contracted with a Pashto teacher so that Pashto-speaking students can take a class in their native language as a way of fulfilling a state foreign language requirement. Before that, these refugees would have been required to learn another language at the same time they were trying to puzzle their way through English.
Robles said they hope to add more staffing to the program in the future. In an ideal world, she said, they would hire more teachers and create a “school within a school” for the SLIFE students, with a focus on hands-on courses.
“In addition to create math courses, science, social studies, it will be great to create more specific courses about financial literacy, for example— how to navigate a bank or a job or how to understand the districts in the city, in terms of work opportunities, building up a resume and creating these specific courses to help them prepare better, not just for college or career, but the workforce,” said Robles.
Diaz added that she’d like to see career pathways specifically for these students in things like nursing and cooking that included a language component. The district has special programs already for students interested in certain careers, but Diaz said they would be too difficult for a student new in the country to jump into.
The district said they’ve also provided more outlets for students to practice their English, including opening a Saturday Academy last year and running a summer program focused on English. Bonet said they teach refugee students how to use technology to help them navigate the world — including things like an app with a camera attachment that will translate street signs.
“We want them to be independent. We want them to be able to survive outside of Hillhouse,” said Bonet.