Status questions ignored; counting cost comes 2nd

The Federation for American Immigration Reform says though massive budget deficits in U.S. schools can't be attributed to one source, the "enormous impact of large-scale illegal immigration cannot be ignored."

FAIR, based in Washington, D.C., attempted to quantify the costs of educating undocumented students in the nation's public schools.

For Utah, the group estimated $76.8 million in 2004. It used government estimates of the illegal immigrant population and the state's 1999-2000 per-pupil expenditure reported to the U.S. Department of Education, which was $4,378.

Dividing FAIR's numbers into each other makes 17,542 illegal immigrant schoolchildren in Utah.

The Utah State Office of Education could neither support nor refute the findings.

"I don't know how we could even guess at the those numbers," state school attorney Carol Lear said.

Utah school districts don't have solid data on which to rely, nor are they interested in compiling any.

"We don't know anything about undocumented families," Granite School District spokesman Randy Ripplinger said. "We know zero. . . . We just teach them."

Hudnall couldn't put a dollar amount on it in the Provo District, "but it's a lot of money and a lot of effort."

Though federal law prohibits schools from asking about citizenship, the district's social workers and teachers sometimes know who is undocumented. The goal is to keep them in school and to help them become successful, he said.

Marcella Martinez works as Ogden School District's community liaison. She often meets families who are in the United States illegally. They come to her attention by word of mouth.

Her job is to enroll children in school. She gets them immunized and takes care of paperwork. Children who live with someone other than a parent must have a legal guardian before getting into school. Martinez guides them through the court process.

Establishing trust is usually her first step. People, Martinez says, are cooperative "once they know I'm not working for Immigration."

Ogden School District is 42 percent Hispanic, but administrators do not know how many students are undocumented.

Reed Spencer, Ogden School District executive director for curriculum, estimates teaching illegal immigrants "costs the schools much more in terms of resources," maybe 5 percent to 6 percent of its budget.

Migrant students come with a host of risk factors that makes it difficult for them to learn and for teachers to educate them. Poverty, health concerns and the language barrier hinder learning. Being in the United States illegally adds to the stress, he says.

Parents don't become involved in their children's education partly because they aren't fluent in English and likely do not trust government-run schools.