The View from the Top: Superintendents’ Beliefs and Actions Regarding Their Role in the Education of Refugee Students

• In Event: Education, Immigration, and (Im)mobility in a Global Context: Policy, Leadership, and Institutional Responses

Abstract

Our chapter focuses on the challenges that confront superintendents whose districts enroll refugee students in a context, which, in the past 4 years, has grown increasingly hostile and divisive at the state and national level, with Texas having earned a reputation as one of the most anti-immigrant, anti-refugee states in the nation. We begin by presenting the findings of the interviews we conducted in 2019 and 2020, with 10 public school superintendents in southwest Texas whose districts have significant numbers of refugee students. The purpose of our interviews was to understand how these superintendents viewed their roles and responsibilities regarding the education of refugee students within an increasingly politicized, anti-immigrant context. In addition, we provide two case studies, the first of which describes how the superintendent of a large, urban district in southwest Texas leveraged change through an innovative partnership with a community housing agency. The second example illustrates how the principal of an elementary school identified existing school policies and practices which interfered with the academic and social success of the refugee children, and then enacted systemic changes to create more equitable learning environments for these children.

Authors

• Betty M. Merchant, University of Texas - San Antonio

• Yesenia Ochoa, Mi Familia Vota

• Christopher Flanagan-Gonzales, University of Texas - San Antonio