Schools brace for up to 50,000 Illegal Children

USA Today reports:

Schools across the USA are bracing for as many as 50,000 immigrant children who could start school this fall, most of them unaccompanied by their families.


"We haven't started school yet, so we are all just holding our breath to see what's going to come on the first day of school," says Caroline Woodason, assistant director of school support for Dalton Public Schools in Georgia.

Under federal law, all children are entitled to a free public education, regardless of their immigration status.

It's nothing new for public schools to serve immigrant students. But Francisco Negron, general counsel for the National School Board Association, says, "One of the challenges here, though, is the large number of unaccompanied minors."