RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT)—Richmond Public Schools is seeing a significant drop in enrollment for multilingual students new to the division.

During the enrollment process, RPS identifies students learning English as a new language.

“Our newcomer students are multilingual learners, and additionally, they are students that are usually newly immigrated to the United States and are within 12 instructional months of receiving education here in the United States,” Director of Multilingual Learner Success Jennifer Blackwell said. ”So, they might be coming directly from another country that speaks another language, or they are transferring from another school division, but they still fall within those 12 instructional months.”

As of Aug. 21, 495 multilingual students were enrolled in RPS. Last year,

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