The Refugee School Impact Program fosters partnerships between community and schools to better serve refugee students.

Washington state is one of 41 states receiving RSI funds from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Funds are issued to Washington’s Office of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance (ORIA), which contracts with School’s Out Washington to administer the Refugee School Impact Program.

School’s Out Washington seeks to support local school systems impacted by significant numbers of refugee children and youth, ages five to 18, who have been in the country less than five years.  

Program outcomes

The Washington state Refugee School Impact Program focuses on the following goals:

• Ensuring refugee students’ academic support and successful school integration
• Strengthening the skills, knowledge, and competence of parents, schools and community-based organizations to support refugee students

Program activities

School’s Out Washington’s Refugee School Impact responsibilities include:

• Supporting district-community partnerships in the implementation of their RSI projects
• Providing technical assistance and training on program-related issues
• Offering district-community partnerships opportunities for training, professional development, and additional materials and/or resources to enhance RSI service delivery

General refugee resettlement trends and data for both the United States and Washington state are available online. National monthly refugee arrival data can be found on the Refugee Processing Center website. For information on Washington State’s ORIA, please contact Whitney Eich. More information is available in our resource library.

For convenience, the term “refugee” is used to encompass all such eligible persons. All State Letters issued by the ORR are found in the Policy Guidance section of their website.

Questions?

Contact our Refugee School Impact Program Project Director, Pang Chang, at pchang@schoolsoutwashington.org