International Admissions director says counseling team stretched thin as student crisis needs rise

At a meeting of the Education and Culture Committee, Margarita Borges, director of International Admissions and Enrollment (IAE), reported that 75% of newly arriving students are enrolled within two days and 95% within a week, improvements she credited to a centralized, trauma-informed welcome-center model and technical upgrades.

Borges told council members that IAE now functions as a comprehensive welcome center providing intake, English-proficiency screening, credit evaluations, mental-health intakes and immediate supports such as food, clothing and referrals to community partners. "We don't just process enrollment, we provide mental-health intakes, credit evaluations, and essential resources like food and clothing to support families," she said.

Why it matters: faster enrollments reduce time out of school and help stabilize students, but staff and council members warned that the work has shifted sharply toward crisis response. Borges and newcomer coordinator Oscar Alvarenga said that while newcomer counts have declined overall, crisis-driven categories have grown: McKinney Vento identifications rose 68% over three years and nonresident crisis enrollments require more staff time. Borges said 86% of newcomers qualify for ELD services, and that wide-ranging language and cultural needs mean the district depends on bilingual, culturally proficient clinicians.

Staffing and service impact: presenters said the specialized EML therapeutic counselors (ETCs) who do enrollment mental-health screening and on-site crisis intervention peaked at about 37 in 2023 but the team is currently about 20 counselors. "Technically we have 24 positions at the moment, but a few of the ETCs have left," Borges said, noting counselors are typically assigned to two-to-three schools and also handle countywide referrals. Committee members were told that, because of reduced capacity, the office is considering moving roughly five schools from a dedicated once-a-week ETC assignment back to a countywide referral model—that means schools will submit requests rather than receive regular weekly on-site support.

Council questions focused on caseloads, triage and language capacity. Borges described a two-step referral prescreen that triages requests and sends an ETC for higher-complexity crises; she said the team is stretched supporting the system's English multilingual learners (EMLs) and that halting regular ETC coverage at some schools would delay responses. Borges also described transcript notarization and expedited record processes for families leaving the country and said intake staff include a few certified staff who can notarize on the spot.

Quotes from the meeting: "75% of our students are enrolled within just 2 days of arriving at our office," Borges said. On staffing she added, "we really have 20 counselors currently working with schools," emphasizing the countywide scope: "we are supporting all 211 schools."

Follow-ups and next steps: Chair Giwondo asked IAE to provide the committee a list of schools that will lose dedicated weekly ETC coverage and to keep the council updated during the budget process when staffing decisions are considered. IAE said it will share disaggregated country/language data on request and that its staff will appear at upcoming budget forums. The committee then moved to the anti-racist audit update.

Ending: The committee thanked IAE for the update and requested written follow-ups on reassignments and resource needs so council members can weigh those needs during budget deliberations.