New Arrivals Fact Sheet
Hartford Public Schools, July 2006

 

New Arrivals are defined as students from outside of the U.S. (i.e. not Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, etc.)) who have been enrolled in school three years or less.

As of last year, Hartford had 2,500 newly arrived immigrant students, (more than 10% of the total population) coming from 93 countries!

Of those, students from the Caribbean countries make up the largest group with 1,100 coming from the Caribbean area.

Largest contingent:  Jamaica with 777 students.

Other Caribbean countries represented include:  Dominican Republic 173, St. Lucia 52, Haiti 37, and Cuba 13. 

In all, about a dozen Caribbean countries are represented in our schools.

More than 50 languages are spoken in our schools.

More than half of our children do not speak English at home.

History

Hartford has a long history of welcoming people from other lands to our city, beginning with the English and Dutch settlers in the 1600s.

Early immigrant groups came from Ireland, Italy, China, and later from Latin America.  More recently, we have welcomed immigrants from Southeast Asia, Bosnia, Albania, Liberia and Somalia.