Saugus Public Schools residency rules are illegally barring migrant children, lawyers allege

Saugus High School.Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff

As the influx of migrants into Massachusetts increased in summer 2023, Saugus Public Schools adopted a new admissions policy that requires families to prove residency with identification documents that many immigrants lack and threatened “criminal and civil penalties” against those who did not comply.

Now, on the eve of a new school year, attorneys for two advocacy groups on Thursday warned the Saugus School Committee that its policy is illegally blocking newly arrived children from enrolling in violation of state and federal law.

And, within hours of that warning from the advocacy groups, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education also intervened, reaching out to Saugus Public Schools to “clarify” its enrollment criteria.

“All school districts in Massachusetts are required to ensure students have equal access to a free public education regardless of their or their parents’ immigration status,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.

Saugus School Committee Chair Vincent Serino, who acts as the board’s spokesperson, did not return requests for comment. Vice Chair Tom Whittredge, when reached by phone, said he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

Although federal and state law is clear about the obligation of public school districts to educate all students, immigration advocates say the state’s new rule capping the time families can stay at temporary overflow shelters to five days has sowed uncertainty for migrants attempting to enroll their children in school.

Advocates also fear districts are using the new rule as an excuse to keep migrant students out of their schools in the wake of community hostility and budget constraints.

“It’s [caused] a bit of confusion,” said Geralde Gabeau, executive director of the Immigrant Family Services Institute, a Mattapan-based nonprofit that largely supports recently arrived Haitians, about the new shelter policy. “So many of the cities and towns don’t want to go through the process of enrolling and not seeing the kids in September.”

Saugus’ enrollment policy, approved by the School Committee last August, requires families to produce specific identification documents, such as a US passport or Massachusetts driver’s license, along with proof of local residency and occupancy. It also threatens anyone caught violating these rules with “all applicable criminal and civil penalties,” and restitution “based upon the costs of educational services provided during the period of non-residency.”

The two organizations, Lawyers for Civil Rights and the Massachusetts Advocates for Children, demanded the Saugus School Committee immediately revise the policy, which further states Saugus students must all be “legal residents,” and bars families who have not completed the town census from registering their children.

“We are seeing both overt and subtle exclusionary practices in school districts from Saugus to Norfolk where migrant children are being improperly denied access to education,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights. “This is a relatively new phenomenon that coincides with the migrant crisis.”

He said Lawyers for Civil Rights became aware of Saugus’ admissions policy after being contacted by confounded immigrant families struggling to enroll their children in the district. The organization is still working with the affected families to enroll their children in school, he said.

An estimated 400 to 500 migrants had settled at hotels and motels along Route 1 in Saugus last fall, but those numbers have declined as the state relocated the families to Plymouth. As of June, 72 migrant families are living in shelters, hotels, and motels in Saugus, according to state data.

During the 2023-24 school year, nearly 3,000 students living in the emergency shelter system enrolled in 76 school districts in Massachusetts, including Saugus, according to state officials.

The US Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that all children, regardless of their immigration status, have a constitutional right to a free public education. In addition, the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Act requires public schools to immediately enroll any homeless student “actually living” in the district, unless it’s in their best interest to remain in their “school of origin.”

This means families of students living temporarily in emergency shelters have the right to enroll their children in the school district where the shelter is located. They also retain the right to keep their children enrolled in those schools when they move out of the district. The law forbids districts from denying enrollment solely because students are staying at temporary shelters.

Yet some school districts have resisted enrolling migrant students, particularly in light of the state’s new limits on shelter stays. In July, the Norfolk town administrator said its schools would no longer be educating students living temporarily at a shelter in the former Bay State Correctional Center following Governor Maura Healey’s announcement on the limitations. The town of Norfolk reversed its stance two days later, citing additional clarification from the state.

Saugus’ new policy says its residency requirements don’t apply to students covered by the McKinney-Vento Act. But, Espinoza-Madrigal said the district’s onerous registration process has produced “a profound chilling effect on families who don’t feel welcome at local schools.”

The Saugus School Committee unanimously approved the new student admission policy last August, just two days after Healey declared a state of emergency due to the rapid influx of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts seeking shelter. At the time of the committee’s vote, its chair, Serino, said the policy “tightened up” the school registration process.

Under the McKinney-Vento Act, districts must cover the cost of transporting students who elect to remain in their “school of origin” in another city or town. The state has provided districts enrolling migrant students with emergency financial assistance at a rate of $104 per student per day, along with transportation reimbursements. Saugus Public Schools received more than $222,000 in emergency state aid last school year, according to state data.

Still, some suburban school districts have struggled to accommodate the recent uptick in migrant students, unlike districts in urban areas, which have longer histories of serving diverse and high-needs populations of students. As a result, districts are scrambling to hire trained and experienced staff specializing in teaching English language learners, social workers, and interpreters.

“Some communities have better infrastructure already built in because they are more accustomed to having immigrant families settle within their community,” said Mary Bourque, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. “Other districts have certainly struggled because it’s a new infrastructure that they have to build.”

Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, said districts understand their legal obligations to educate migrant students, but school leaders are worried not only about resources and staffing, but falling short on accountability metrics if those students don’t perform well on the state-mandated assessments.

“No one quite knows exactly what to do because we haven’t dealt with it before,” he said.