A back-to-school barrier for Mass. migrants

Also: What we know so far about the newly approved COVID vaccines [Donate ❤️]( [View in Browser](  September 12, 2023 Hi CommonHealth reader, When I met 5-year-old Javier a few weeks ago, he was eager to start kindergarten. “He can't even sleep. He's been like, ‘Mom, when am I gonna go to school? I cannot wait to go to school,'” his mother, Cherlie Ocean, told me through a Haitian Creole translator. But his question isn’t as simple as it may seem. For kids like Javier — newly arrived immigrants in the Massachusetts family shelter system — there are [a number of barriers]( to overcome before starting school. One is vaccinations. There is a federal law that says children experiencing homelessness can enroll in school immediately, even without routine immunizations or vaccination records. But advocates tell me the reality on the ground is different. They say some school districts have been insisting that kids receive their shots before they head into classrooms. “Unfortunately, a number of our children will probably have a delay in terms of getting to school because of [vaccination issues],” Geralde Gabeau, the head of the Immigrant Family Services Institute, told me. “We believe that for most there will be a delay.” The backdrop here is that the Massachusetts family shelter system has seen substantial growth this year in the number of immigrant families arriving, many fleeing violence in Haiti. The number of overall households in shelters is at an all-time high, and the state has placed more than 2,700 families in overflow hotels and motels scattered across the commonwealth. The expanding shelter locations have led to [tensions]( with some city and town officials who wonder how they'll foot the bill for services they're providing. And a [neo-Nazi group]( has targeted several shelters with demonstrations. But another, less publicized consequence is there are now more than 80 communities with shelters, and thus, more than 80 school districts working to welcome new pupils. Some local boards of health have stepped in to provide vaccinations. But not all are equipped to do that. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has set up a program to bring shots to shelters. However, their teams were only getting the first shots into arms last week as the school year was already getting underway. “They needed time to order those vaccines. We needed time to make sure they could properly store and handle them,” explained Dawn Fukuda, assistant commissioner and director of the Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. “So there was a fair amount of quality assurance that needed to go into our preparation to make sure these interventions could be delivered responsibly.” She said the vaccination effort is slated to continue daily throughout this month. For the sake of kids like Javier, many families and advocates hope the start of school goes smoothly. Some of these newly arrived kids haven’t had any formal schooling, have had interrupted educations or don't know English yet. So, each day helps the kids catch up. And for kids experiencing homelessness, there's added urgency, according to Danielle Ferrier, who runs Heading Home, a Boston-based nonprofit that contracts with the state to provide over 350 households with shelter. “When people don't have stable homes, schools become the children's stable home,” she said. Gabrielle Emanuel Health reporter [Follow]( Support the news  This Week's Must Reads [New COVID vaccines get FDA approval]( Vaccines for a fall immunization drive against COVID-19 just got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration. The agency says the vaccines can protect people, as hospitalizations tick up. [Read more.]( [New COVID vaccines get FDA approval]( Vaccines for a fall immunization drive against COVID-19 just got the green light from the Food and Drug Administration. The agency says the vaccines can protect people, as hospitalizations tick up. [Read more.]( [Medical debt nearly pushed this family into homelessness. 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