PSC-ED-OELA
Moderator: Francisco Lopez
11-19-15/1:00 pm CT
Confirmation # 6021539
Page 1
PSC-ED-OELA
Moderator:Francisco Lopez
November19, 2015
1:00 pm CT
Coordinator:Welcome and thank you all for standing by.
At this time, all participants’ lines are open.Please mute yourself when not speaking.If you do not have a mute facility, please press star 6 to mute your phone.Press 6 again to unmute.
This call is being recorded.If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this point.
Now I will turn the meeting over to the Department of Education.
You may begin speakers.
Man:Thank you very much, Operator.
Would you please mute, everyone, who is not a speaker?Thank you.
Please confirm that everyone is muted, Operator, except for the speakers.
Coordinator:Let’s mute, everyone.
Kim-Oanh Nguyen Lam:Okay.Good afternoon and welcome to the sixth Webinar in our series on the Educational and Linguistic Integration of Immigrants and - as part of the US Department of Education work on the White House Task Force on New Americans.
My name is Kim-Oanh Nguyen Lam and I am the program director with The Office of English Language Acquisition here at the Department of Education.
The focus for today’s Webinar is on the undocumented youth in our schools.They are our future leaders when we invest in them.Undocumented students encounter numerous challenges in entering, persevering and graduating from our school systems.Despite the unique barriers they face, many have become leaders in their community and mentors to other youth in that school.Caring adults, such as teachers, chancellors, campus advisors and other school leaders, have a unique role in helping out undocumented youth becoming future leaders.
At this point, I would like to briefly introduce our panelists for today’s Webinar.
Our first speaker is Kelly Fitzpatrick.She is the policy advisor with the Office of Planning Evaluation and Policy Development and will give us an overview of the department’s Resource Guide.Prior to joining Ed, Kelly tops secondary schools in Los Angeles, served as an education policy fellow with the LA Unified School District Board of Education.Kelly holds a BA in political science and history from the University of California Berkeley and a master’s degree in education fromLoyolaMarymount University.
We are pleased to have (Juliet Ariera) joining us today.(Juliet) is a 24-year-old pre-nursing major at MiamiDade College and TheDream.US scholarship recipient.For her, beingundocumented hasgreatly influenced her passion for civic engagement and raisingawareness in the immigrant community.(Juliet) willshare with us her experience and perspectiveon the kind of support and resourcesthat now most undocumented students like herself.
Our third panelist is (Jane Slater).She is a 20-year veteran teacher from Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California.She teaches English Language Development and AVID and also serves as a bilingual resource teacher and advisor for The Dream Club.(Jane) will talk about the work that she did with the students to create an open and welcoming environment through the Sequoia Club, as well as her strategy to engage the families and communities to ensure the student success.
Our fourth panel member is Nancy Jodaitis.Nancy is an AB 540 advisor at the San Francisco State University.Her focus is on identifying pathways and creating safe spaces on campus for our undocumented college students.Nancy also provides training about financial aid and scholarships, access to higher education and statewide implementation of the California Dream Act.Nancy works closely with the Educators for Fair Consideration and is conducting research regarding institutional best practices and statewide challenges that college and university pay when supporting undocumented students.
Our last speaker is Michael Matsuda, the superintendent of Anaheim Union High School District in California.Michael will share how his district shifted its culture to create what they call “Systemness” around support for marginalized students, including homeless, foster youth, long-term English learners and the undocumented youth.Michael has chaired the Orange County Closing the Latino Opportunity Gap and was past president of the Californians Together, the state’s largest advocacy organization for English learners.Michael also served on the North Orange County Community College District Board of Trustees for nine years.
We will reserve the last 15 minutes for participants to ask questions.This Q&A portion will be facilitated by Lul Tesfai, the senior policy advisor with the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education, and by Maria Pastrana Lujan, the senior advisor with the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics.
So participants, throughout the Webinar, please feel free to type in your questions in the chat box.Thank you.
Kelly Fitzpatrick:Hi.This is Kelly Fitzpatrick from the Department of Education.And I just wanted to start first with a quote from our president who I think is a person who deeply cares about undocumented students on their feet.And as you can see, at the top of the quote describes how we all know that education is key to the future prosperity of our country and our economy.
But I think at the last line of the quote really gets to the heart of the department’s mission.Our work is about giving every child the chance to fulfill his or her potential no matter their cultural, religious, racial or ethnic backgrounds, national origin, native language, or immigration status.
Like the president’s quotes allude to, this department is focused on ensuring that all children have an opportunity to achieve success in school and in life.Because of the deep connection between education and civil rights, Ed is particularly focused on addressing the opportunity and achievement gaps faced by our most vulnerable students and those who have been historically underserved.
That mindset of equity and opportunity for us has really driven all of our work whether it’s expanding access to early learning, turning around low-achieving schools and dropout factories, or broadening access to college for underrepresented students.That mindset of equity and opportunity is embedded throughout.
This is a visual which shows our key departmental priorities through the next - through the last four years of the president’s administration.And I think it really encompasses our twin missions of equity and opportunity.As you can see, we have a broad sector of education reform and improvement efforts that we’re undertaking.And when we think of undocumentedstudentsin particular, all of these efforts are relevant and applicable.
But it’s important to note that the department has recognized that the immigration debateand the fight forcomprehensive immigration reform isn’t just someoutside issue that Congress needs to act on.We recognize that the lack of actiondeeply impacts the children andfamilies in our nation’s schools.And thus, we’vedecided that it’s something that we should take to explicitly address.
Another key motivation for the department’s effort to support undocumented youth comes from the data.Though there are only limited estimates so far, researchers believe that undocumented students face a significant gap in high school graduation rates compared to their documented and native foreign peers.As you can see, it’s 54% high school diploma attainment rate for undocumented youth as compares to 82% for the overall population.
And that same body of evidence also indicates that of those who are able to successfully graduate only a very small number actually continue on to postsecondary graduation.
And like month flow income and first-generation college students, generally, of those who enroll in postsecondary education a much smaller number actually are able to complete their degree.
And we recognize that beyond the negative effect on the students and the families.This systemic failure to ensure undocumented students graduate high school and reaching complete collegehurts us all.And our country would be much stronger if we supported this youth better so that they, too, can reach their full potential.
All of this is whatmotivated us to develop the Resource Guide for supporting the success of undocumented students which we released on October 20th of this year.
What you’re seeing now is the photo of Deputy Secretary John King with some of the undocumented students and allies of San Francisco State University where he announced the release of the Resource Guide and had a roundtable discussion with students.
Their stories reiterated the theme we often hear that despite the barriers they face, many undocumented students have been very successful academically and they’ve made it to and through college.Yet, no matter what their talents or ambition, they cannot get there with this support network - without a support network behind them.They can’t do it alone.
Which is why the department’s Resource Guide focused specifically on educators and we envisioned this as a tool to empower teachers, chancellors, school social workers, campus advisors and others so that they can be that one caring adult in the life of an undocumented student, so that they can be the one to make sure that undocumented students make it to college.
I was a teacher and I think that through that most teachers care very deeply about what their - about their students and want to do whatever they can to make sure that they’re successful but too often caring educators don’t have the resources, support or information to help them.
So this guide aims to provide some key information and tips about important topics related to undocumented students to help educators and youth and family themselves.
Some of the key topics, which the guide touches on, are DACA, the civil rights protections for undocumented students, promising practices and access to federal, state and private financial aids.
So this last slide shows an overview of the table of contents of the guide in case you’re interested in finding out what specifically it contains.I also want to point out that we think that this is a resource that will help bolster all of the great work that’s already going on across the country which you’re about to hear about.
And if you’re looking for more ideas or resources, the department actually has its own immigration Web page where we have a dedicated space for immigration related resources and it’s a great place to go if you’re interested in learning more.
To wrap up, this department is really interested in empowering the voice of the students and we think that they are the best ones to tell us how we can improve efforts to ensure a high-quality education for all.
So I’m very excited to turn it over to our next speaker, (Juliet).
(Juliet Ariera):Awesome.Thank you so much, Kelly.
Good afternoon, everyone.I’m very honored to be here.And like they said previously, my role here during this Webinar is to give you guys a little bit of perspective of my life as an undocumented student.
As you guys might be able to see there, I made just a small timeline here which indicates, you know, I graduated high school in 2009 at 17 years old, actually a year early, but I wouldn’t get to actually start college until 2014, which is about a five- to six-year gap.I ultimately ended up slipping through the craft of the education system.
One of the things that - one of the stories, I should say, that I like to share some time is that I actually came out to my guidance counselor during my senior year.I let him know that I was undocumented which was a very scary thing for me to do at that time.And I actually met with just a lack of information, I would want to say, to really didn’t have any information to give me and then the few details that he was able to provide to me were really more so for California residents or Mexican American students which I didn’t qualify for either of those categories.
So ultimately, I ended up graduating high school with honors and volunteer hours and the whole nine yards.But I never enrolled in college until about five or six years later.And that definitely brought about feelings of shame, guilt, just overall sadness because at the end of the day, this is our dream.As undocumented students, this is what we came to this country for.
Ultimately, my saving grace during this time period where I was more or less in limbo was social media.This is where I ended up getting all of the information and any of the topics that I was interested in because my administration in my school really didn’t have too much information.So social media was the key for me during this time.
Ultimately through social media, I was able to learn about TheDream.US which was a scholarship opportunity that I ended up applying for and getting, thankfully, and I can tell you guys that the dynamic completely changes.
Once you know that you’re going to be able to start school, you go from being completely, you know, just hopeless and sad to more positive definitely and just hopeful about the future.
One of the things that I love about the TheDream.US scholarship is that our academic advisors in college are completely aware of what DACA and TPS and those things are and the laws and the changes.They’re aware of that.So we’re not speaking to somebody that, you know, that has no indication of what immigration is and they’re really aware and they’re motivated to help us.
Another great thing that I think is highlighted in the Resource Guide as well is that we have an online forum where we build a community.It’s not like we’re, you know, on our own anymore like high school was for me.We’re building an online community where we support one another, we give each other information and we lift each other up.
And also (Gabby Pacheco), our scholarship director, she’s actively engaging with us and making sure we’re okay and letting us know of any changes that we need to be aware of as well.So that was awesome.
And part of the reason why I feel that this Resource Guide would have helped me so much in high school and I think it’s so awesome and so important that we have it is that it helps us change the dynamic.Once you have information available to you whether it’s, you know, at your school administration level or at collegiate level, you change the narrative.You’re going from being complete helpless to being - able to being advocate for yourself and for your family.
Some of the things that I love that they highlight in the Resource Guide are, you know, they let you know about instate tuition laws.They let you know about brands and scholarships.And also they definitely let you know that creating a safe haven is important, right?You want to create a safe haven in your school environment so that a student doesn’t really end up like me where I was scared, I felt, you know, shunned.It’s more supportive.And once a student feels supported, therefore, the parent can feel supported as well.And we can create a more of a - an environment of information and knowledge.
And additionally, I feel as though right now we’re living in a political climate, in my humble opinion, that’s really polarized.If you turn on the news, they constantly want to deport us.They want to deport my mom and dad.They want to deport me.They want to build, you know, a bigger wall.And right now, a high school student might be more scared than ever to come out to administration and let them know that they need help.
So some of my recommendations would include, like I said, creating a safe haven within the school system itself, definitely identifying allies within administration that know the changes in DACA and TPS and migrant students and all of the above that they know this information.They’re not, you know, ignorant towards the immigration realm.
And last but the most important thing that I just want to stress is that the Resource Guide also definitely helps out with is this creating the dynamic and the culture undocumented students.We’re not really traditional students in (unintelligible) in the sense.We’re really nontraditional.Our parents are working, you know, really, really hard.We might even be working full time in high school.Many of us lack transportation option.So we really can’t get around that well.And I feel as though if educators and allies change their viewpoint and realize that we are a little bit nontraditional and help us in that sense, create different avenues and ways to help us, we will definitely get ahead.
And ultimately, if we’re given the adequate resources, if we’re given the information and the knowledge, we will work hard as in any other group to achieve our goals and I’m definitely a product of that.Although it took me, you know, almost five or six years to get to college, I’m going to graduate with my AA this spring.I’m applying to internships.I’m applying to other scholarships.I’m actually waiting to hear back from four-year universities.So it is possible with the help of things such as this Resource Guide and our allies and safe haven.