High School population leveling after years of increases
By Doug Grindle Community Reporter

Marlborough - After years of rising numbers at Marlborough High School (MHS), driven in large part by rising immigration into the city, school officials said they expect the student population to stabilize.

Over the last 10 years the number of students at the high school has climbed from around 1,250 to 1,550. Much of that rise has been driven by immigration, officials said, but now the level of immigration, and of rising numbers at the high school, is likely to be approaching a plateau.

"I see it leveling off," MHS Assistant Principal Butch Kamataris said.

Kamataris added that in the same period the proportion of students who use English as a second language, a good indicator of a student having recently immigrated, has risen from single digits to about 23 percent of the school population. The number of immigrant students has almost tripled in that time, he said.

School officials said some of the children are from families with no immigration papers, but there is no way of telling how many.

"We don't know if the kids are illegal," MHS Principal Mary Carlson said. "We don't ask. It is illegal for us to ask."

School officials point to Marlborough as a magnet for recent immigrants due to its affordable housing, job opportunities and good schools. In recent years, education has become a steadily larger attraction for immigrant families with school-age children.

"Their parents came here to work. They came here to learn," Kamataris said. "You'll find a lot of these people were affluent in their countries. They were doctors, engineers. But it is education that caused them to come to this country."

According to Carlson, despite the rise in overall numbers, average class size has held steady over the past decade. Classes average about 24 students, she said, although this may vary from 15 to 30 students in individual classes.

"We've done a good job keeping class sizes down," Carlson said.

The influx has changed the way the school operates.

"Originally we were not prepared for it," Kamataris said. "There were not a lot of English language learner (ELL) teachers back then."

But, Kamataris added, the school has adjusted. Each new ELL student spends two years in classrooms with similar students, in a setting designed to bring their language skills to the level needed in regular classrooms.

The largest group of immigrants is from Latin America, with Brazilians the largest contingent. But students came from 125 different countries. ELL teachers deal with students from around the globe, which challenges their skills in teaching mainstream subjects in a polyglot environment. This can raise difficulties when so many languages are spoken by students.

The biggest challenge, officials said, is getting parents involved. Many parents, especially those who may be illegal immigrants, are intimidated by any brush with officials. But Kamataris said that specific steps have been taken to ease that problem.

According to Kamataris, Portuguese and Spanish speakers now work in the registrar's office, students who speak the language are more likely to be on hand to assist, and the school is holding two or three special parents nights for immigrants to become more acquainted with the school administration.

"[Some parents] felt a little uncomfortable [before], but I don't see that anymore," Kamataris said.

MHS also helps students who identify themselves as being undocumented with assistance in college planning, including helping to link them up with immigration specialists.

The expanded number of students has placed more pressure on the limited school budget, but Kamataris said it is one of a long line of problems that any administration has to deal with by using scarce funds.

"Every year the problem area changes," Kamataris said.

And the largest benefit to having a large immigrant population is it helps prepare students for life after school, Carlson said.

"Today our world is so multicultural and our kids have experienced that," she said.