Newcomer students sit in classrooms across the country. According to the U.S. Department of Education, there are about 1 million immigrant students in U.S. schools. Each newcomer contributes valuable knowledge to our school communities as they grow, learn, and dream alongside their peers.

Many schools and districts that serve newcomers have taken great care to cultivate strong and welcoming communities and develop programming that both elevates newcomers’ strengths and aims to address their needs. Unfortunately, this approach isn’t standard. A newcomer student may enroll in one district and receive a very different educational experience than a newcomer student enrolled in another district. This is an equity issue, and one that can have a lasting impact on newcomer students’ academic achievement, linguistic progress, and social-emotional development.

The National Newcomer Network aims to provide a space for people who care about newcomers to come together to push our education system to adequately support the real needs of newcomers everywhere. Our collective work is rooted in the day-to-day experiences of students, educators, and community leaders on the ground. Alongside our students and communities, we envision a safe and welcoming public education system where all newcomer students can succeed and thrive academically, socially, and emotionally in every classroom where they learn.

In 2022, Next100 and Californians Together gathered educators, researchers, and advocates from across the country to advance systemic solutions for newcomer education. Together, we formed the National Newcomer Network (NNN). We formally launched our coalition at Next100 in May 2023, and now we are based at The Century Foundation.

We are a coalition of over 100 members representing thirty states (and growing!). Learn more about our members here.

Do you want to join our movement? Fill out our new member survey or contact NNN co-founders Alejandra Vázquez Baur ([email protected]) and Xilonin Cruz-Gonzalez ([email protected]).