The buses prepared to depart, full of passengers who weren’t ready to say goodbye.
Honking horns blared through the mugginess of a May afternoon. Suddenly, students reached through the narrow crack of the barely open windows; their hands frantically waving back and forth.
On the other side of the glass, a crowd of teachers clustered outside a sprawling brick school building tucked among a trove of houses. They blinked back tears, tried to smile. Then, they waved back.
“Our babies,” said librarian Elvira Watson, eyes pooling, voice choking. “Our babies are flying away.”
Article continues below this ad
It was the last day of school at the International Newcomer Academy. But when the summer heat simmers down, beckoning in a new school year, students will no longer come flooding through these doors.
With the end of this school year, came the end of this school.
In April, the Fort Worth ISD board of managers unanimously voted to close the specialized campus for newly-arrived immigrants and refugees. Last October, the Texas Education Agency announced it was taking over the district, after one of its campuses earned a failing grade for five consecutive years. The state appointed a new superintendent and replaced the locally elected trustees with managers.
But before students waved goodbye to their teary-eyed teachers for the last time; before those teachers pleaded with state-appointed leaders during a packed school board meeting; before those leaders succeeded their elected predecessors in a controversial takeover, there was a school — and a question.
Article continues below this ad
It’s a question that’s been raised in school districts across the country. In Fort Worth ISD, it’s a decades-old question that stirs up emotions, clashes and uncertainty: Is a separate school the best way to serve newcomers?
Superintendent Peter Licata says having a standalone program for newcomers amounts to segregation and that the model produces lackluster results. Teachers, students and education experts say newcomer schools offer the targeted support needed to help these students acclimate — academically and socially — to a new country.
“I don’t know a whole lot about renovation on homes and things like that, but I do know that if the bones of the building are good and strong and lasting, you don’t tear it down. INA had good bones, you don’t tear it down. Even if you do, the people will not give up on the students,” said Suzanne Barton, one of the school’s first teacher-directors.
District officials declined to make Licata available for an interview. They did not respond to a list of questions about the closure.
Related: Staff, parents, students plead for hours, but here are the changes coming to Fort Worth ISD
Article continues below this ad
Students hug goodbye on the last day of school at International Newcomer Academy, a specialized campus for immigrant and refugee students in Fort Worth, on Thursday, May 21, 2026.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Newcomer school opened in 1993
INA served sixth through ninth grades, and students stayed for one or two years before attending their neighborhood school. INA was established in 1993 as a standalone transitional program, because school leaders worried about overcrowding at language centers housed in district schools.
Students have hailed from all over the world. Some experienced hardship or witnessed violence. A few already knew English, most didn’t know a lick of it. And there were those who struggled in their native tongue.
Newcomer schools vary, but the purpose is to provide intensive, short-term instruction for newly-arrived students, said Diep Nguyen, president and CEO of the Center for Applied Linguistics, who has worked with newcomer centers and researched multilingual learners. These programs fill in gaps in education and prepare students for a traditional school, she said.
Article continues below this ad
When students arrive at INA, Barton said, “they’re figuring out where one word ends and the next word begins.”
“It just sounds like noise,” she said. “Somebody has to be there to make sense of that noise.”
Barton remembers the first day at INA, back when the school was housed in a vacant elementary school the district rushed to renovate over the summer.
“It was one of these labors of love,” Barton said. “When the doors opened, they came, and they came, and they came.”
P.E. teacher John Sohel hugs a student following the last day of school at International Newcomer Academy in Fort Worth on May 21, 2026.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
The enrollment numbers fluctuate based on the country’s immigration patterns and policies. In the most recent school year, 232 students attended INA, and almost all were considered economically disadvantaged, according to state data. Other years, there were close to 600.
Article continues below this ad
Newcomer schools have popped up in Dallas, New York, Houston and San Francisco, where one campus served as the inspiration for Fort Worth’s. Even in San Francisco, which is considered the pioneer in this model, newcomer programs have faced cuts and closures, according to Mission Local, a San Francisco news outlet.
Do newcomer schools promote segregation or social belonging?
This debate — whether the newcomer model promotes segregation or social belonging — is one Fort Worth ISD has wrestled with before.
In 1996, the district and federal government clashed over INA’s future, after the U.S. Office for Civil Rights flagged concerns during a routine review of Fort Worth schools. Investigators raised issue with “the isolation of the limited-English proficient students,” according to a clipping from The Dallas Morning News.
Back then, Ramon Magallanes, the district’s director of bilingual education and English as a Second Language programs, said: “Our contention is we’re separating students based on language need. We have an educational reason for bringing these students together for a limited period of time.”
Article continues below this ad
Students “feel that they belong, and they actively participate,” added Assistant Principal Rosie Salinas.
To assuage the government, INA adjusted. The school filed annual reports to the office, outlining efforts to increase student social belonging, Barton said. That included establishing clubs, going on field trips and hosting park clean-ups.
Arguments on both sides resonate, three decades later.
Licata, who was appointed superintendent after the state took over Fort Worth ISD, wants to turn around a “bloated” district — one he says is built for 85,000 to 90,000 students, but serves 67,500.
The district, which has faced declining enrollment and moved to close schools, needs to evaluate which models are working, he said during the April 28 school board meeting. Licata believes the newcomer one isn’t.
“I cannot support any model that is outdated, produces limited success and, most importantly, segregates students based on their language,” Licata said then. “We are preventing many students from comprehensive campus electives and creating an inequality and almost a civil rights issue.”
Fort Worth ISD Superintendent Dr. Peter Licata shows the impact of a marathon meeting nearing its fifth hour as one of nearly 200 residents signed up to speak voices his concerns pertaining to proposed changes within the district on April 28 2026.
Steve Hamm/The Dallas Morning News
At a newcomer school, supporters say, students belong to a smaller community and interact with peers who share similar struggles.
In the absence of this model, newcomer students might be around English-speaking students, but socializing isn’t guaranteed, Nguyen said. Instead, such an environment could intensify feelings of intimidation.
She pushed back on the criticisms of segregation. Giving every student “the same textbook education” isn’t an “equitable education,” she said.
Licata questions whether students are receiving a quality education. In the 2024-25 school year, the school was ranked a D, and for two years before, it received an F.
“By doing the same thing that has been done for years that has led us to subpar results … it would not be fair to our students,” Licata said in April. “We owe them more.”
In the 1990s, research was inconclusive on whether this model worked, The Dallas Morning News reported then. Fast forward to the present day, newcomer schools remain understudied.
Regardless, experts say the model should not be evaluated based on criteria for general schools. While alternative standards were used to rate the school, TEA’s campus rating still factors in performance on the STAAR exam.
To measure success, newcomer schools can consider other methods of assessments, such as portfolios and teacher observations, said Magdalena Pando, associate professor of bilingual education at Southern Methodist University.
“When looked at in depth, [it] can really tell you a lot about the student’s progress, more than a multiple-choice item test could do,” she said.
Dallas ISD said it’s seen success — with a different approach.
In 2022, the district started a newcomer academy at Thomas Jefferson High School, which has historically served a high population of newly-arrived students. Rather than a standalone campus, Dallas ISD established a “school within a school,” meaning newcomers receive specialized instructional support, while being among other students.
Thomas Jefferson High School was rated a ‘B’ in state accountability rankings, which reflects the program’s success, said a Dallas ISD spokesperson. Last school year, of 1,495 students, 115 enrolled in the program.
“It’s another example of DISD doing things that work, that benefit specific kids, which in turn, benefits all kids, and a few years later, benefits our workforce,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins, who helped announce the academy’s launch.
In Fort Worth ISD, community members proposed merging INA with an existing school. District officials did not respond to questions about whether the board considered it.
INA turned a diverse student body into ‘a family’
Teachers and students, past and present, will tell you: INA was a place where familiarity took root in an unfamiliar country. A place promising refugees and immigrants that they, too, could reach upwards and feel the American Dream within their grasp.
“These kids are nurses, engineers, lawyers, doctors,” said Faiha Al-Atrash, the school’s community and parents coordinator. “They come with huge dreams, and all we do is pave the road a little bit for them.”
About 17 years ago, Al-Atrash was asked to assist the influx of Arabic-speaking students who arrived at the school. The former diplomat walked into the classroom and saw the crowd of faces peering up at her.
Upon seeing a face that looked like theirs, the students became gripped by excitement. They shouted questions at her: ‘Where are you from? What is your name?’
“[It was] like a bird was in a cage,” Al-Atrash said. “You open the cage for them, and they were able to speak to someone.”
It’s a story, she said, that still brings her to tears.
Dorcas Bisisi, a former INA student, fled war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya.
“When you cross an ocean, you have no sense or understanding where you’re going, what life is going to be over there,” Bisisi said.
And when she did cross that ocean, landing in Fort Worth in 2015, she found a place where “no one judged how we sound; no one made us feel less of a person.”
“It was just a bunch of young students who came from different countries, trying to adapt and navigate the U.S,” said Bisisi, who graduated from the University of North Texas in 2024. She’s still in touch with her peers.
Fort Worth’s newcomer students face uncertainty ahead
Questions are circulating about how current and future newcomer students will be served.
In neighborhood schools, INA students will attend general classes, such as math, science and social studies, according to the Fort Worth ISD website. They will receive ESL services “delivered directly,” learning content and English at the same time. Classes with the sole purpose of helping newcomers learn English were eliminated for the upcoming school year, according to a copy of a district memo obtained by The News.
Teachers will follow lessons developed by ESL experts, have materials in multiple languages and receive coaching, according to the website. Campuses with higher numbers of newcomers will be provided more staff and support.
“By reallocating resources from a model serving fewer students than intended, we can extend targeted support to more newcomer students, in more schools, closer to home,” Licata said in an April 29 news release.
Several INA teachers said they were hired at campuses elsewhere in the district. At the same time, the district is making sweeping cuts to the bilingual department, which it says will improve efficiency.
Typically, in districts without a newcomer campus, those students are placed in general classes and provided ESL assistance, academic counseling, and if available, small group instruction time, according to Nguyen. The quality of this education depends on the district’s commitment and available resources.
If a teacher has to oversee an entire class, Nguyen said, they are unlikely to personalize the instruction for a newcomer student. A newcomer student may lack the foundational skills to be in a class — for example, the basic arithmetic to be in an algebra class.
“What [Fort Worth ISD] describes is a general language assistance program for any English learners,” Nguyen said. “The program … is not necessarily centering the needs of the newcomer students.”
One last time
The future feels uncertain, but on the last day, the school leaned on the traditions that did feel certain.
There was a ceremony recognizing outstanding students. After each prize was announced, cheers echoed through the auditorium, past the windows, across the street. Most valuable player. Perfect attendance. Outstanding achievement in math.
“It’s true that they say it’s not just a school, it’s a family,” said ninth grader Ashly Carrillo Tovar. She wore a sparkly red dress to commemorate the final day.
Faiha Al-Atrash, a community and parent coordinator, waves to students on the last day of school at International Newcomer Academy on May 21, 2026.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
At 3:45 p.m., Al-Atrash stood at the entrance of the school, walkie-talkie in hand.
“Time to go,” she said, ushering a few lingering kids onto the bus.
Through watery eyes, she watched the scene of dismissal: the hugs between teachers and students, the shuffling of students onto buses, and the rumble of buses leaving the streets.
She watched it — one last time.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.