Some migrant students are disappearing from the city’s public school system, according to a new City Council report.

A report released Monday and obtained by Spectrum News NY1 shows that nearly 700 migrant kids have left the school system completely due to the expiration of their 60-day notice at shelters.

Another nearly 300 students have changed schools due to the shelter limit policy.

“It’s like watching your friend disappear,” said City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, chair of the Committee on Oversight and Investigations. “The teachers sometimes say to me they don’t know where the families go. Nobody gives them any information.”

What You Need To Know

  • The City Council released a new report Monday on the impact that 60-day shelter limit notices have had on migrant families
  • The report showed the shelter limit has led to nearly 700 migrant kids completely leaving the city's school system
  • It also showed that another nearly 300 migrant kids transferred schools
  • The report comes just three months after the city first started evicting families under the 60-day shelter notice policy

The city does not track migrants once they leave the city’s care. It is unclear where the students who left the school system went and whether they were placed in another school.

The 60-day notices were first given in October but did not take effect until January.

The policy was put in place by Mayor Eric Adams and his administration in a bid to relieve the city’s homeless shelter system.

Critics say the policy is pushing migrants to leave the city.

“I hope the families that are here stay. All you have to do is know how good they are for the schools and help them get on their feet,” Brewer said. 

Homeless advocates and local lawmakers have pushed back against the policy for months, calling it arbitrary and harmful.

“For recent arrivals, they’ve gone through so much to get here. They’ve got so much trauma and instability and school is one of the few places kids can have some stability, so risking that stability is really problematic,” said Kathryn Kliff, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society.

As of March, more than 8,000 families have received notices.

Critics of the policy note that pulling kids from school interrupts not only their education, but their support system in the city.

“When kids are in school and come from such a different background, the school has probably put in place supports for them, whether it's a bilingual teacher, whether it's access to some kind of after school programming or any resources in the community. And you lose all of that if you have to change schools,” Kliff said.

But the report, which was first covered by Gothamist, did show positive work the city is doing to not disrupt the education of migrants.

Of the 5,700 students impacted by an expired shelter notice, 82% have remained in the same school.

“We are simply out of space and resources to continue to shelter tens of thousands of migrants indefinitely as hundreds more continue to enter our care every single day,” a City Hall spokesperson said in a statement Monday.

The report comes as the city continues to grapple with an influx of migrants. There are more than 64,000 in the city’s care, and more than 1,500 new migrants have arrived in the city in the last week.

Meanwhile, the city has opened more than 220 emergency shelters to house the new arrivals.