Anglophone South gets $1.48M to help Syrian refugees

The Anglophone South School District is hiring a dozen more teachers and is looking to add more educational assistants as it prepares to welcome 180 Syrian refugees into its classrooms in September.

Teachers and administrators normally use the summer to finalize curriculums and seating arrangements but this year they are also planning for the ongoing influx of Syrian refugees into the classrooms.

The district was given an additional $1.48 million by the provincial government to help accommodate the Syrian refugees.

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Zoë Watson, the superintendent of the Anglophone South School District, said most of the new money will go toward salaries for new teachers and support staff to help accommodate the new students from Syria.

Watson said the money will allow for an additional 12 teaching positions and that the district has also requested an additional six educational assistants.

The district will also hire a full-time interpreter, after using two volunteer ones last year. This led to instances where no one was available to interpret.

Adding to the challenges facing the school administrators is the lack of certainty over how many new students will be joining classes in the district.

"Over the summer we received five more Syrian children and we're just not sure how many more we will receive between now and the end of December," said Watson.

The district is planning for 180 refugee students to be enrolled for the upcoming year. Many of theses students have been in the province since last year.

The vast majority, 150 students, will attend school in Saint John.

"The bulk of them, approximately 80, [will be] over at Hazen White-St. Francis." said Watson.

Another 20 Syrian children will be starting kindergarten this September. These students present a special challenge for the district.

"Those students haven't had the benefit of the transition in through the spring," Watson said.

"So we will be bringing a couple of teachers in and doing sort of a camp experience in morning, in late August, to get those children ready."