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April 1, 2022

Dear John,

School districts across the United States are sharing in an historic $125 billion under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding included in the American Rescue Plan signed into law in March 2021. The funding will permit schools to reimagine public education, support the most vulnerable students, and address the disparate impacts of the pandemic. School systems are required to engage community stakeholders to ensure that these new dollars are used to build a more inclusive and equitable system.

Yet a new commentary from the Migration Policy Institute's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy finds some school districts have struggled to effectively engage multilingual community members while developing their ESSER spending plans. Interviews conducted by the Center find "efforts to engage groups representing English Learners and immigrant families appeared to be poorly planned, executed, and advertised." The commentary offers examples of well-coordinated and linguistically and culturally responsive community engagement.

"Given the magnitude of this federal funding to address longstanding inequalities, it is critical that school districts increase their outreach efforts and address communication and language barriers," the Center's Jazmin Flores Peña writes.

You can read the commentary here: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/esser-funds-engagement-diverse-stakeholders.

And for more MPI work on English Learners, click here: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/nciip-english-learners-and-every-student-succeeds-act-essa.

Best regards,


Michelle Mittelstadt
Director of Communications and Public Affairs,
Migration Policy Institute

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The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development, and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national, and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.
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