‘Unease’ rises in St. Louis Co. international school program

ST. ANN — High school in the United States was overwhelming at first for Yibeli Lopez.

Ritenour High was huge compared to the schools in Honduras, her home country. She couldn’t find her classes. Her classmates didn’t speak her language. On her first day, Lopez didn’t eat because she didn’t know where the cafeteria was.

“It was challenging and kind of scary for me,” Lopez said.

But Lopez, now 28, wasn’t alone. She was part of an immigrant population in the Ritenour School District that continued to grow. And after Lopez’s first semester at Ritenour, in 2015, the district created a place where students like her could transition to American schools without that fear and confusion.

For 10 years, Ritenour’s International Welcome Center, or IWC, has taught English language learners the customs of America and its schools, giving them a smoother introduction to the school system with the help of English language teachers, a therapist and a reading specialist. It started with 12 students and one classroom in 2015 and has since grown to more than 10 times its original size, with 136 students as of January.

It’s grown so much that in August, the Ritenour Board of Education agreed to purchase the former location of a parish and school to house an expanded IWC along with a gifted education center and new early childhood classrooms.

All of this was put in motion long before Donald Trump won a second term as president — and before the sweeping immigration policies his new administration deployed.

Amid Trump’s mass deportation push, the Department of Homeland Security removed restrictions that prevented federal immigration agencies from making arrests at sensitive locations, such as churches and schools. That aggressive stance is reflected in Missouri, where a state lawmaker introduced a bill to establish an online portal and bounty program to identify and detain undocumented immigrants.

Attendance at the IWC dropped 20% in the week after Trump’s second inauguration.

Ritenour High senior Yaretzy, who declined to provide her last name, said there’s a palpable sense of worry among Ritenour students.

Yaretzy and two of her friends, Katelyn and David, who are all U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent, have organized protests against the Trump administration’s policies.

“We know a lot of Hispanics and Latinos; their parents are scared to go out and get groceries or go to work,” Yaretzy said. “Since there was news that ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was going to start raiding schools as well, a lot of kids were scared to go.”

Ritenour’s boundaries cover some of the area’s most diverse communities, including St. Ann and Overland, and has one of the largest populations of English language learners in the state.

About 19% of the district’s 6,530 students don’t speak English fluently. A growing Hispanic population comprises nearly a third of the district’s student body.

It’s one of only four Missouri school districts, along with three in the Kansas City area, where Hispanic students outnumber those whose who are white. Hispanic students make up the second-largest group at Ritenour, after Black student enrollment surpassed that of white students in 2013.

In the past, some immigrant students at Ritenour were in the process of applying for refugee or asylum status, the Post-Dispatch has reported. School officials could not say whether that was the case today. But they acknowledged there is heightened concern about student safety because of immigration policies.

“With recent changes in federal policies, some students and families have expressed growing unease and uncertainty,” Superintendent Chris Kilbride wrote in a message to families on Monday, Jan. 24.

“Ritenour will continue to educate and support every child in our community,” Kilbride continued.

A landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1982, Plyler v. Doe, held that public schools cannot deny education to undocumented children. Students only have to live in a public school district to enroll.

Michelle Mueller, Ritenour’s communicators coordinator, acknowledged there’s been a slight drop in overall district attendance since Trump’s inauguration. Parents and students at the IWC declined to speak with a reporter out of fear, she said.

When asked if Ritenour would allow federal immigration authorities into its schools, Mueller said the district has “provided schools staff with information on how to respond if officers arrive at their school.”

None had attempted to enter Ritenour’s schools as of Thursday, Mueller said.

Ritenour created a place for immigrant students after administrators said they were dropping out at alarming rates.

“It’s hard to expect a student who might be brand new to the country to be on a path to graduation without additional support,” Kilbride said in an interview in early January.

The new and larger space for the students will be named after Julie Hahn, who spearheaded the creation of the welcome center in August 2015 with one teacher and a teacher’s assistant in Hoech Middle School.

“When we started seeing an influx of newcomer students, they were just sitting in classes and struggling,” said Hahn, Ritenour’s assistant superintendent of data, intervention and student support.

Much of what educators do at the IWC involves teaching students academic language. Students learn how to read, write and speak in English until they’re proficient enough to transfer to the district’s other schools.

Many students come to Ritenour with math knowledge at grade level, teacher Chelsea Booker said, but would struggle in an English-only classroom setting because they don’t have the vocabulary to follow along.

On a day in mid-January, Booker was quizzing her class on math vocabulary.

Students were tasked with reading out loud simple math problems projected on a screen in English.

Booker, who doesn’t speak Spanish, also took a turn. She tried to translate “4+4=8” into Spanish as students interjected to correct her mistakes.

“If they see me be vulnerable, they’ll start to be vulnerable with each other,” Booker said.

In another classroom, Angelica Mitchell was teaching her class how to introduce themselves in English.

“Hi, I’m _______,” a template written on the white board read. Mitchell pointed to the words as she read them out loud with the class. “What’s your name? Nice to meet you.”

The majority of students at the IWC speak Spanish, but the center has seen a large mix of cultures and had Vietnamese, Chinese, Arabic and Ethiopian students.

“We want to equip them so they are successful,” Mitchell said. “Not just at the IWC but wherever they find themselves.”

Lopez, one of the 12 original IWC students, has worked in Ritenour’s administrative office since Hahn offered her a job upon graduation.

She loves the diversity, Lopez said. It’s why she chose to stay. She gets to help families and students like her.

“I always share my experience with the families that I can,” Lopez said. “I will not say that it’s easy, but it’s worth it.”