27-02-2025
'Incredibly misleading': Pa. immigration advocates blast Pennridge enrollment requirements
A Bucks County school district is requiring parents to submit student enrollment records that the officials have no legal right to demand, including paperwork that undocumented immigrants would not possess, advocates say.
Parents who want to enroll their children in Pennridge School District must supply a copy of a student's "original, state-sealed" birth certificate or a passport to demonstrate his or her age, according to the district's webpage. They must also upload their own Pennsylvania-issued photo identification or a United States passport to the registration portal, the district says.
However, an undocumented immigrant would not have access to a driver's license, state-issued photo ID or passport, advocates say. And kids born outside the United States might not have the proofs of age listed by the district.
Kristina Moon, a senior attorney with the Education Law Center, said the information posted online by the district is 'incredibly misleading and harmful to families.'
While the district's student registration page says the process merely complies with legal mandates, Moon said the documentation requirements don't match — and even conflict with — Pennsylvania law.
'I have no idea where this is coming from,' she said of Pennridge's demand for parental photo identification.
Attorneys with the ACLU of Pennsylvania also took issue with the district's registration process.
"Requiring a parent to provide a Pennsylvania photo ID or a U.S. passport in order to enroll their child in school is contrary to Pennsylvania law and would exclude eligible children — for example, U.S.-citizen children of some noncitizen parents, or children without lawful immigration status — from registration," said Keith Armstrong, an immigrant rights attorney with the ACLU.
Pennridge Superintendent Angelo Berrios said the district enrolls students regardless of their immigration status or that of their parents.
'No student has ever been turned away from Pennridge due to their immigration status and all students receive the same first-class services from the district regardless of their immigration status,' Berrios wrote by email.
More: Immigration arrests in schools? How schools could react to new Trump ICE directive
He wrote that Pennridge does accept documents other than a passport or birth certificate to verify a student's age, including baptismal certificates, notarized statements from relatives and prior school records that show a birth date.
However, Pennridge's online student registration portal does not outline those options. It asks parents to upload a birth certificate or passport and indicates that those documents are required to continue the enrollment process.
The mandate for driver's license or passport is 'in furtherance of our responsibility imposed on the District by the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding enrollment verification,' Berrios wrote in an email.
A photo identification is not one of the items, though, that the state lists as mandatory for student registration.
School districts must ask families to submit documents showing a child's age and place of residence and that they're immunized against certain diseases. Parents must also provide a sworn statement on the student's disciplinary record, and the child must complete a home language survey.
Baptismal records and other documents Berrios described in his email are fairly common documents for schools to ask for to establish a student's date of birth, according to a review of policy manuals hosted on the BoardDocs websites belonging to hundreds of school districts across Pennsylvania.
Some school districts, like Quaker Valley in Allegheny County, include a valid passport among the acceptable documents to prove a child's age, but typically as one of several options along with other certificates.
The Upper Moreland School District, in Montgomery County, can accept a Pennsylvania driver's license, but will also accept any PennDOT-issued identification, lease agreement or utility bill for parents to establish residency.
Upper Moreland's policy on student enrollment expressly states the district can't ask for certain documents including the visa of a parent or gaurdian or a student's immigration status.
Pennsylvania officials expressly prohibit schools from exceeding this list of requirements — or from asking about a family's immigration status during the admissions process.
Districts can ask for other records but can't demand them as a condition of enrollment, according to state education department. They must also show flexibility in the types of identification they require and shouldn't require paperwork that would give away a student's immigration status, advocates say.
Even if Pennridge is accommodating in the documents it accepts, the district's online instructions only mention two options for proving a child's age and could be misleading parents, Moon said.
"When they say something is required for a child to attend school, parents assume staff at schools know the law," she said. "So it's really damaging both for the individual student who's denied their entitlement to attend school and also for the respect and reputation of the individual school and all of our schools when staff are not appropriately providing accurate information to parents."
The ACLU of Pennsylvania and Education Law Center recently sent school districts a letter reiterating state guidance on student records, saying compliance is especially critical as President Donald Trump vows to carry out mass deportations. Trump recently rescinded a longtime policy that prevented federal immigration arrests at sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals.
With many families worried about sending their kids to classes in this climate, it's as important as ever for districts to fulfill their legal obligations to undocumented students and protect their constitutional right to public education, the groups contend.
Bethany Rodgers is a USA TODAY Network Pennsylvania investigative journalist.
Chris Ullery is a data reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times and can be reached at cullery@
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Pa. school district demands student records that some migrants lack
