Giving Compass' Take:

• Fugees Academy enrolls refugee students exclusively and teaches subjects on reading, writing, and English comprehension.

• Donors have helped fund programs and specific curricula for the Fugees Academy. Are there opportunities in your community to support refugee education?

• Learn about another framework for refugee education.

The English language, George told her students, is hard. The rules of pronunciation and grammar are complicated and full of exceptions. It can be difficult for students who’ve grown up in the United States — let alone those who’ve only just arrived after having their learning disrupted by war and conflict.

The students in George’s class are all refugees. Mariam came to the United States from Sudan. Her classmates are from Somalia, Syria, Burundi and Nepal. They have chosen this school, Fugees Academy, for its explicit focus on serving young refugee students and helping them through high school and into college.

Fugees Academy is perhaps the only school in the nation to enroll refugee students exclusively. It was founded on the belief that these learners need more focused attention than they often receive in traditional public schools, and that they need to go back to basics to learn English. Fugees (its name is a play on “refugees”) tries to squeeze in many of the elements of a K-8 curriculum into three years of middle school, helping students learn two to three years of the English language in one. The school also places an emphasis on helping students overcome trauma they may have faced on their journey to the United States.

The academy is tiny but growing. Its original Atlanta campus has 89 students and there are 42 at a new school in Columbus, Ohio, which opened last year. Two additional schools are in the works. Early results are encouraging: The Atlanta high school’s graduation rate is 92 percent and 74 percent of graduates have gone on to college, according to Luma Mufleh, its founder. And yet, the school is expanding at a moment when the political climate in the United States has grown increasingly hostile to refugees, adding to the social and emotional challenges of its students and elevating the need for the non-academic work the school specializes in.

Read the full article about education for refugee students by Aaricka Washington at The Hechinger Report.