By Kevin Sieff, Published: July 2A few days after Mikal Siele’s long journey from Eritrea ended in Arlington County this spring, she found herself in a nondescript office building, staring at a series of drawings, trying to think of the right English words.
What’s happening in this picture?” asked Monica Sugaray, who tests newly arrived students for Arlington public schools.
Mikal, 16, looked at the image of a man moving through water. “Swimming,” she said.
Then the questions got more difficult. She read an essay about immigration. “What in this essay is an opinion?” Sugaray asked.
Mikal stared at the words, but nothing came to her.
Such questions are part of a rite of passage for more than 3,000 students from immigrant families who enroll each year in Arlington schools.
About half are foreign-born; half are born in the United States and speak a language other than English at home. They are the sons and daughters of ambassadors, refugees, businessmen and taxi drivers, and together they are fluent in 96 languages.
In one of the region’s highest-achieving school systems, officials have undertaken a monumental effort to integrate these students and their families, translating thousands of documents and report cards, sending dozens of interpreters to parent-teacher conferences.
That quest — intensely personal and sometimes plagued by cultural pitfalls — begins here, in an office decorated with flags, posters and artifacts from around the world. The Language Services and Registration Center is Arlington’s academic Ellis Island, a place where many immigrants will have their first extensive interaction with a government entity in the United States.
Each day there are new challenges: the Mongolians who refused to send their children to school for fear of being deported; the sons and daughters of human trafficking victims from Thailand; the Chinese teenager who arrived unaccompanied, his life savings in his back pocket. Officials at the center are quick to tell parents that they do not — and cannot legally — check the immigration status of students.
Mikal arrived at the center with her father, Efrem Siele, 12-year-old brother Rimon and sister Rodas, 9. Efrem Siele left Eritrea six years ago, after the country’s war with Ethiopia. He got a job at a gas station and saved up to bring the rest of his family to the United States.
That day in May, the father and his children sat across from Ahmed Osman, a bilingual family resource assistant. Eight years ago, Osman had brought his own children to the center after arriving from Sudan. Back then, he asked questions that he now answers daily.
“Are these the best schools in Arlington?” Siele asked, after hearing that his children would attend Abingdon Elementary School, Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Wakefield High School.
“These are very good schools,” Osman said.
“Will they get to stay in their grades?” Siele asked.
“We’ll have to see what the test scores look like,” Osman said, scanning a pile of Eritrean report cards and course work, trying to make sense of the academic patchwork that many immigrants bring to the center.