Lancaster, Pennsylvania 

After surviving more than a decade in a Tanzanian refugee camp where learning was limited, Riziki Elisha, 11, wanted nothing more than to attend the elementary school just a few hundred yards from her front door. 

Though she could see the playground from her porch, she wasn’t permitted to partake: Paperwork delays left her sitting at home for weeks, spending long afternoons watching CoComelon, a cartoon created for babies and toddlers.

“I was very frustrated,” she said with the help of a translator on a recent afternoon. “I felt bad.”

It’s been nearly nine years since the School District of Lancaster was for denying or delaying enrollment for young refugees — or for sending them to an off-site, for-profit alternative school focused on behavior management. The case was settled in  

But families, staff and advocates say the district, which serves kids in an , is once again erecting barriers that have left dozens of newcomer children idle in the past few years — some for months. A major contributing factor, they say, is Lancaster’s insistence on tuberculosis testing. 

Other Pennsylvania districts with sizable multilingual learner populations have chosen not to require a test for the infectious lung disease, including Philadelphia, Reading, Norristown, Harrisburg City, Pittsburgh, Lebanon and Chambersburg. Upper Darby does require TB testing. State officials told The 74 schools “should not delay a student’s enrollment while TB test results are pending” and that parents or guardians concerned about this issue should .

Another holdup, newcomer families note, is the district’s need for birth certificates. They can be hard to obtain quickly, and, according to federal guidelines, their absence Proof of address, they say, has also been an obstacle as some families initially struggle to secure permanent housing. 

Immigrant advocates, including staffers inside the district, say these students should be seated immediately while their families are given time to produce the requisite paperwork. The new arrivals, many of them behind their American-born peers, would be able to make fast gains, they argue, if granted speedy enrollment.  

The 74 presented its findings to the district, which said it wants students to be enrolled “as quickly as possible when all requirements are met,” — and those include TB testing for some kids.

It said the district’s clinic provider contacts families directly to schedule the tests and that it recently added a full-time bilingual enrollment navigator to identify and work with families “who are slow to complete the process.”

State officials said schools have been able to opt-out of student TB testing since 1997 — and many do. But not Lancaster.

It asked the state to keep its TB testing requirement for a specific group: newly enrolling students who have been outside the U.S. within the past six months. The district cited recommending testing for those who are at higher risk of exposure, including people “who are born in or frequently travel to countries where TB is common, including some countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.”

The state is clear that enrollment should not be held up pending results.

Riziki’s father, Elisha Sumaili, who hails from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, told The 74 through a translator that he was confused by the delay, which stemmed from his inability to immediately produce a lease. The family tried to enroll October 25, 2024, but his daughters were not admitted until November 22. 

Sumaili wants his children to hold tight to their education so they might one day become doctors. Instead, Riziki and her high school-age sister were kept out of the classroom.

“When the kids were home, it was really bad,” their father said in Swahili. “It was bringing the family a lot of distress.” 

Carolin Cruz, 29 and from the Dominican Republic, has always prioritized education, both for herself and her daughter. Cruz completed more than two years of college — she dropped out because of the cost — and wants 10-year-old Ferolin to go even further, which is what prompted the pair to move to the United States last fall, she said. 

“I want to see her become a great professional so she can have what I cannot,” Cruz said. 

Public education in her home country is and expensive, she said: She’d have to pay for her daughter to learn English. Plus, her local school was overcrowded. 

“If there are 30 or 40 students, there is no way a teacher can pay attention to any one student,” she said. 

She hoped for much better in the United States, but her daughter’s start date was delayed by two months, primarily because of the TB testing requirement. When she tried to schedule the shots, Cruz said she was told the only available appointments were weeks out. 

On two occasions, she said, the appointments were cancelled. 

Ferolin, a fourth grader who loves mathematics, said she felt sad sitting at home. 

“I was not doing anything,” she said through a translator. “I wanted to go to school so I can learn more. I would get up, help my mother around the house, and then I would be on my mother’s cell phone watching TikTok and YouTube.”

Fifteen-year-old Kevin, whose family asked that their last name not be used because of immigration-related concerns, suffered the same fate — except his went on for several months. 

His family fled Cuba because the country lacked a “functioning economy,” Kevin’s mother Neydis told The 74. They arrived in the U.S. in March 2024. 

Neydis’s husband, a medical doctor in his home country, wanted his son to enroll in eighth grade right away. Kevin tried to register for school on April 16, 2024, but wasn’t seated until the next school year on August 26 — mostly because of immunizations and the TB test. His mother said they sent the TB results to enrollment staffers several times and assumed they would call back with a start date, but the call never came. The family was forced to restart enrollment because the process had dragged on for so long.

Kevin spent those months at home surfing the internet and watching nature programs. 

“It was boring, I would just sit on that sofa,” he said through a translator, pointing to a cream-colored couch in the living room. 

By the time the district admitted him, he had missed the rest of his eighth-grade year and had to go right into high school.

Born in a forest

Such delays are not unique: Rwamucyo Karekezi, who served as The 74’s translator with the Sumaili family, is a refugee and immigrant community organizer with Church World Service. He estimates that he’s helped more than 100 children register in Lancaster public schools between 2021 and 2024. 

Karekezi, who noted that he was not speaking on behalf of Church World Service, said month-long delays are common — most of the children he worked with experienced them — and stressful on the families. 

Vaccinations play a key role in the delays, he said, as does proof of address. Many families initially live in temporary housing — Airbnbs and hotels — and can’t quickly prove they reside in the district, he said. 

“Sometimes it takes months to find a house,” he noted. “This becomes a challenge for registration to go smoothly.”

As for birth certificates, some children around the world aren’t issued such formal documents upon their birth — or their families might lose them in their chaotic journey to safety. Karekezi, 30 and who is also from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, understands their plight.  

“I never had a birth certificate,” he said. “I was born in a forest, not a hospital. In Congo, they don’t register kids like that. And even when you bring a birth certificate, they don’t recognize it: It’s a scrap of paper in another language.”

Karekezi said he sent the district follow-up emails on students’ behalf, but they did little to expedite the process. 

While Lancaster has its own history of refusing or slow walking newcomer students’ registration, related issues are now playing out on the national stage: President Donald Trump pledges to deport undocumented families — — and opened schools to immigration enforcement actions. 

His conservative allies in multiple states seek to in a direct challenge to the Supreme Court’s landmark 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision.

Likewise, federal budget cuts have crippled the agencies that help immigrant families most, including , a faith-based group founded just after World War II that resettled more than 100,000 people in the United States in its first decade. Trump recently and even though that move was blocked in the court, he said it will . 

Lancaster’s local Church World Service office has recently shrunk in size and capacity. Once located inside a massive building on a well-traveled block, it’s now squeezed into an alleyway hidden by parking garages. It had to drastically cut services when it was forced to furlough 40 of its 67 staff members for three months at the end of January. Valentina Ross, its director, said she hopes to call some of those staffers back into the office soon.

After lost learning, big gains

Riziki Elisha has made great strides since starting elementary school just days before last year’s Thanksgiving break, her English language development teacher Laura Kanagy said. 

“In three months, Riziki went from knowing three- or four-letter sounds to reading and writing short sentences,” the educator noted. “She can identify the hydrosphere, biosphere and geosphere. She can add and subtract triple digits and fractions. Imagine what she’d be doing if we had been able to work with her for those extra months?”

Kanagy, who has taught at the district for 14 years, said she and her fellow educators “want the most time possible” with these new students. 

“Each day that they sat at home in front of their TVs was a lost day of learning: 10 new vocabulary words, a few letter sounds closer to reading, a math skill important to navigating the grocery store, a social phrase to connect with peers,” the teacher said. 

Enrollment also means these students — and their families — have access to myriad services, including English and GED classes for their parents, help obtaining eye glasses, clothing, food, dental care and other necessities.  

“The sooner they have access to English and literacy/math skills, the sooner they — and, therefore, their families — can make more of their own choices about how to live and participate here,” she said.

Once admitted, Neydis’ mother said her son, Kevin’s experience at the school was excellent.

“The teachers are nice and just go out of their way using different teaching strategies — a game or whatever they could come up with — to help him learn,” she said. “He would come home very excited, very, very content. And this was a huge relief for me.”

When Ferolin Nunez Cruz finally enrolled — she started the process on December 2, 2024, and wasn’t seated until January 27 — she thrived in the classroom. Since then, she’s begun using simple phrases in English around the house, her mother said, including “yes,” “hi” and “good morning” and shares what she’s gleaned with her mom and other relatives, helping them crack the language divide. 

“She is more focused in regards to her learning,” Cruz said of her daughter. “She is very motivated. And I want to say that I have received a lot of support from the teachers. They are paying attention to my daughter. I appreciate that very much because I really needed that.”

Asked what she loves about the experience of an American education, Ferolin’s answer was simple: Everything. 

If she could speak directly to Lancaster school administrators, Ferolin said she would ask them to make the enrollment process easier for students like her.  

“Help us,” she said. “They have to help us to make it possible to go to school. They should help me get into school so I can learn many things so I can help my family prosper, to help them when it’s my turn.”

Ceiling tiles have fallen directly onto desks, she said, and garbage pails have lined hallways to catch rainwater seeping through leaky roofs. Some curriculum hasn’t been updated in years and neither have materials: High school physics textbooks are 12 years old and history books reference countries that no longer exist. Student achievement sinks as children move through the district without the academic support they need.

“As our students get older and go into higher grade levels, the gap widens further and further,” Rau said. “I know we are not providing them the quality of education the state expects us to.”

Lancaster is one of six districts suing the state and its leadership for implementing a school funding plan they say relies too heavily on local property taxes, leaving poor communities at an enormous disadvantage. The districts and the other plaintiffs — including four parents and the NAACP-Pennsylvania State Conference — want the current funding mechanism to be declared unconstitutional and replaced with one that sends more money to low-income schools. The defense has argued that the legislature, not the courts, maintains authority over school funding. 

The suit, William Penn School District et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, et al., was initially filed in 2014 but did not make it to court until November. It’s expected to stretch into January as dozens of witnesses testify about what schools can and cannot afford under the current system. The trial is available via .

Test scores show children in Lancaster perform worse as they grow older because the district is unable to hire the type of interventionists that would help them master the material, preparing them for the next level, Rau said. Four reading specialists serve 13 elementary schools housing some 6,000 children. Those campuses do not have math interventionists though test scores show students need the help, the superintendent told Commonwealth Court Judge Hon. Renée Cohn Jubelirer.  

The lack of resources harms other groups, too. Rau said Lancaster provides only the bare minimum of support for special education students, adding the approach “doesn’t enable us to catch those kids up. It doesn’t make enough of a difference.”  

These and other educational disparities haunt Lancaster students well into adulthood, she said: Just 18 percent of those who graduated in 2013 earned a college degree within six years compared to 42 percent at the state level.  

The entire school community is well aware of the school district’s struggles and shortcomings. Parents are informed by letter that their children are performing at a sub-par rate, which Rau called “pretty demoralizing for families and for kids.”

But defense attorneys pushed back, citing the district’s ability to offer the world-renowned college preparatory program, International Baccalaureate, as well as its robust athletics, solid workforce training and hundreds of millions spent on renovation in recent years.

Attorney Anthony R. Holtzman, representing Pennsylvania Senate President pro tempore Jake Corman, made note of the district’s pre-K program — many schools across the country are not even required to provide kindergarten — and that Lancaster’s student population recently shrunk by 1,000 students, suggesting the strain may not be as great as in years prior.   

And while it claims to have few means, the district has managed to grow some services, he said, while renovating 15 of its 20 campuses. The lawyer said Lancaster recently purchased 23,000 books and had begun buying devices for students long before the pandemic as part of an effort to boost online learning.   

But Rau held firm. She said a shortage of counselors, social workers and psychologists means many children in her district do not have the mental health support they need: She’s already sent emergency workers to students’ homes when she believed they were a threat to themselves or others. 

“What we see when there are not enough mental health workers in a school is … an increase in violence,” she testified. 

Busing is also severely limited. High schoolers must live more than two miles away from campus to qualify. Students of all ages regularly miss class during inclement weather. A quarter are chronically absent. The district has just three attendance officers, who conduct home visits, to address the issue.  

Students from 4th to 12^th grade are typically not allowed to take books home for fear they might be lost or destroyed, limiting the opportunity for homework. This is particularly harmful for reading and math, Rau said, adding that both require practice.  

Rau is forced to close schools when temperatures creep into the 90s — teachers send her pictures of their classroom thermometers on particularly sweltering days — causing a further disruption to learning.

The district’s many challenges, including its generally lower salaries, can make it an unappealing workplace: It opened this school year with 100 vacancies, including 25 for teachers. 

Lancaster serves some 10,500 children: 20 percent are English language learners and 20 percent have a disability. The district is home to some 500 refugees, many of whom have suffered tremendously in their home countries or during their journeys to America, leaving them badly traumatized. Some 500 students are currently experiencing homelessness, Rau said. 

Rau admitted the district has an active sports program. She said she’s kept it in place to engage students who might not attend school without it. But its facilities are lacking: Holes in the track and a failure to comply with ADA standards keep it from hosting many events, she said.  

Rau, who hails from a poor family, said she understands the needs of her students. She’s taught such children in the lower-income sections of Greenwich and New Haven, Connecticut, improving achievement in both cases, Rau said, because she was given the resources to make change. But that was never the case in Lancaster, where she’s served as superintendent for six and a half years. 

“I was not able to move those achievement scores … because I hadn’t had the resources to make that happen,” she said, adding that she had expected struggling districts like hers would receive more state funding. “I didn’t realize that was not the norm here in the state of Pennsylvania.”