Family Resources
Establishing and sustaining a partnership with families is essential to their child’s success. Strong family engagement consists of thoughtful, culturally responsive, and equity-centered strategies. Here you will find resources for authentically engaging, educating, and supporting multilingual and immigrant families as active participants in their child’s educational journey.
Immigrant Family Empowerment
The Immigrant Family Empowerment- Your Advocacy Guide is a resource guide for immigrant and multilingual families in NYC Public Schools to learn about what it means to place yourself as an active member and leader of your child's academic journey. In this guide, you will have access to knowledge about your rights as immigrant families, different ways to get involved in your child's school, and how to lead for the purpose of change in your school community. This guide aims to affirm all members of a school community as active participants in their own learning and capable of developing the skills to analyze and transform their social realities.
Arabic | Bengali | Chinese | English | French | Haitian Creole | Korean | Russian | Spanish | Urdu | Wolof | Uzbek Cyrillic | Punjabi
Multilingual and Immigrant Family Resource Guide
The Multilingual and Immigrant Family Resource Guide is designed to inform families of their educational rights regardless of immigration status and provide key resources to promote language justice and post-secondary opportunities. Through this guide, families can find out about
their child's rights as an immigrant student
how and where they can enroll their children
who they will interact with in the school
how they can be child's advocate at school
Program for English Language Learners
benefits of bilingualism
students' postsecondary options
various source of resources in the city or nationwide that support immigrant and undocumented students
Schools are encouraged to share this resource with their family-facing staff and families.
Arabic | Bengali | Chinese | English | French | Haitian Creole | Korean | Russian | Spanish | Urdu
English Language Learner Identification
An English Language Learner, or ELL, is a student whose home language is not English and needs support learning English. All parents and guardians of newly enrolled students must complete a Home Language Identification Survey to let school staff know which language your child speaks at home.
If your responses show that your child speaks a language other than English at home, the school may give your child the New York State Identification Test for English Language Learners. This test measures your child’s knowledge of English and shows whether your child needs support programs and services. If the test shows that your child needs support learning English, your child will be identified as an English language learner.
You can learn more about supports for English language learners on our NYC Public Schools website.
Program Options for English Language Learners
Program Options for ELLs: Find out about the programs offered for English Language Learners:
All ELLs receive English as a New Language (ENL). Your child will be taught to read, write, and speak in English with support in your child's home language. There are two types of bilingual education programs. In both programs, your child will learn reading, writing, and other classes in both English and in your child’s home language. Both programs include English as a New Language (ENL) instruction. View a list of current Bilingual Programs offered at NYC Public Schools.
In Dual Language Bilingual Education programs, students are taught in two languages: English and their home language, such as Spanish, Chinese, or French, among others. The goal of this program is for students to be able to read, write, and speak in both English and their home language. In Dual Language classes, the home language and English are used equally.
Transitional Bilingual Education programs provide reading, writing, and other classes in English and in your child’s home language. As students’ English improves, time spent learning in English increases, and time spent learning in the home language decreases. Once your child is no longer identified as an English Language Learner, they will exit the program.
English as a New Language programs, which used to be called English as a Second Language or ESL, provide instruction in English with support in the students’ home language so that they can learn to read, write, and speak English. Students in this program can come from many different language backgrounds, and English may be the only common language among them.
What is Career and Technical Education?
Support families in understanding that Career and Technical Education (CTE) program is an available high school pathway for multilingual and immigrant students. CTE programs provide high school students with courses, skills, work experience, and professional certifications focused on in-demand careers to pursue after high school or after college. With nearly 300 CTE programs across 135 high schools, New York City offers a wide range of options for multilingual learners to explore. The vision for NYC CTE is to equitably prepare all CTE students with the education, skills, and experiences that are necessary to successfully earn postsecondary credentials and pursue careers with family-sustaining wages.
Protected Areas: Spaces Safe from Immigration Enforcement
The Department of Homeland Security issued a policy outlining what they're calling "Protected Areas," which are places where the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are generally prohibited from conducting immigration enforcement actions, except in certain circumstances. If you noticed ICE or CBP activity in any of these locations, report them to crcl@dhs.gov or your local rapid response network. Anyone can download copies of these images in English and Spanish from this folder.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at schools.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at hospitals.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at places of worship.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at playgrounds.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at social services.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at shelters.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at ceremonies.
ICE & CBP arrests are prohibited at rallies.
ICE and CBP arrests are also prohibited in courthouses.
Carefully review each location to further understand "Protected Areas". These images and resources are made available by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC).
