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Maine's multilingual student population growing rapidly, even as overall enrollment dips

Saif Al Khafage, during his senior year at Westbrook High School in May, 2024. Al Khafage's family came to the U.S. from Iraq over a decade ago, part of a migration trend that has elevated Arabic as one of the most commonly-spoken languages among multilingual students in Maine.
Ari Snider
/
Maine Public
Saif Al Khafage, during his senior year at Westbrook High School in May, 2024. Al Khafage's family came to the U.S. from Iraq when he was in elementary school, part of a migration trend that has elevated Arabic as one of the most commonly-spoken languages among multilingual students in Maine.

Across Maine, 7,208 students were classified as multilingual learners by the state Department of Education during the 2023-2024 school year.

That's a nearly 28% increase over five years. Portland is home to around 2,000 multilingual learners, said language development director Carlos Gomez.

"We are, here in Portland, starting to look a lot more like the rest of the country in terms of that multilingual, cultural diversity," Gomez said.

But Gomez said there are challenges, such as attracting and hiring staff who speak in-demand languages such as Portuguese, Lingala, and French.

"There's constant need," he said. "We'd love to have more people that can speak multiple languages on our staff."

Gomez said the district is also offering language instruction for educators already on staff, to help them speak directly to their students.

Portuguese is the top language spoken by multilingual learners statewide. That corresponds with immigration trends: in recent years thousands of asylum seekers have arrived in Maine from Angola, where Portuguese is the official language.

Other top languages in Maine include Somali, Spanish, Arabic, and French.

Even as the multilingual student population has grown, state data show overall enrollment fell about 5% from 2020 to 2024.