The proportion of immigrants’ children enrolled in nursery school and kindergarten has increased after two years of decline, according to census data released Monday. It’s a familiar story for Washington-area school districts such as Fairfax and Montgomery, which have watched their enrollments diversify as they balloon in the earliest grades.
| School enrollment | White (non-Hispanic) | Asian | Black | Hispanic |
| National | 58% | 4% | 15% | 21% |
| D.C. | 7% | – | 79% | 12% |
| Montgomery | 37% | 16% | 23% | 23% |
| Prince George’s | 5% | 3% | 72% | 20% |
| Fairfax | 45% | 19% | 10% | 18% |
| Arlington | 48% | 11% | 13% | 26% |
| Alexandria | 25% | 6% | 37% | 27% |
| Note: All local systems refer to public school systems (not including public charter schools). The national data is composed of the Pre-K through high school data from the latest Current Population Survey, taken in 2009, while local data reflects the most recent school year data was reported. Numbers may not add up to 100 because some systems include American Indian and/or multirace. | ||||
| Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Mdreportcard.org, schools’ Web sites | ||||
The U.S. Census’ Current Population Survey showed that, as of October 2009, 22.9 percent of students across all grades are the children of foreign-born parents — a relatively large jump from 2008’s 22.5 percent, considering that chunk was 22.2 percent in 2004.
Still, the population of children of immigrants has grown by nearly 6 million to more than 67.5 million in 2009, the most recent year data was available. But the percentage of that population has become more concentrated in preschool and kindergarten: 23.3 percent of these young students are the children of foreign-born parents, compared with 17.5 percent in 2004.
And 3 percent of all immigrants’ children are enrolled in preschool, a number that had been declining since 2006, then slightly rose again from 2.9 percent in 2008.
The percentage of elementary and high school students whose parents were not born in the U.S. rose over last year as well.
In Montgomery County Public Schools, students from more than 164 countries speak 184 languages. About 13 percent of the 144,000 students use ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) services.
“All parents — regardless of their race, ethnicity or nationality — want their children to have access to a world-class education, and we work hard to make sure that happens,” spokesman Dana Tofig said, noting that the schools’ newsletter is published in six languages.
In Fairfax County, 21,347 students — about 12 percent — receive ESOL services. As the school year opened with an boom that pushed enrollment above 175,000 students, school system demographer Larry Bizette told The Washington Examiner that much of the district’s growth can be attributed to an influx of young Hispanic families who have children at twice the birthrate of non-Hispanic families.
Alexandria City Schools students speak 75 languages, and 22 percent qualify for English-learner programs.
But at Early Steps Bilingual Preschool in Arlington, director Ana Cespedes said early language learning goes both ways.
“Most of my students’ parents are Americans who want their children to grow up knowing Spanish, too,” she said.
