Students at a Philadelphia school are eating lunch at 9am because the district is so crowded with immigrants that canteen dining slots have been staggered throughout the day.
Youngsters at Lincoln High School also lug their backpacks around all day, because there are not enough lockers to go around in a school that this now 1,000 kids above capacity.
Officials have added makeshift divisions to increase the number of available classrooms, but teachers say the new walls are too thin to stop noise and have fallen down during lessons.
The strain at Philadelphia School District is just the latest example of how America’s public services are struggling to cope with the influx of immigrants since Joe Biden became president in January 2021.
Immigration was a key issue in the 2024 election that helped secure president-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, on a platform of tightening the southern border and deporting millions.
‘The crowding is insane,’ one teacher told The Philadelphia Inquirer, without giving their name for fear of reprisals.
‘I do not know how this situation is allowed to continue.’
Other staffers at Lincoln, a public school in northeast Philadelphia, detailed alarming conditions of the swelling population, but were likewise unwilling to provide their names in case they faced consequences for speaking out.
The school was designed for 1,500 students; it currently has some 1,000 more than that.
The influx of immigrant students means that there are not enough lockers for everyone, and lunch breaks have been staggered throughout the day, meaning some students dine at 9am — when others are still eating breakfast.
Some teachers sit in their cars during prep periods to find a quiet place to call parents because the school is so busy.
Dozens of classes are crowded beyond the district maximum of 33 students.
Classes routinely start late now because students cannot get to their desks in time, as the corridors are so crammed.
As the problem got worse last year, the school board spent $400,000 carving up the library into makeshift classrooms.
Elsewhere, larger classrooms were divided to make room for more classes – much to the chagrin of educators.
‘There’s no noise control, and the walls fall down,’ said the angry teacher.
‘They’re not real classrooms with real walls and real doors.’
Sarah Caswell, a science teacher, says the overcrowding have been terrible for her classes of 30 students, who now study in what used to be the closet of a large science lab.
‘I’m supposed to teach chemistry, and I don’t even have a sink,’ Caswell said.
‘I can’t even do kitchen chemistry, because I don’t have the capacity to flush a kid’s eye if they got dish soap in it.’
Discipline has suffered in the overworked school, added Caswell, with fights breaking about in the hallways.
Students arrive late, check in, but then leave again, teachers said. Some even smoke weed at the entrance without any consequences.
‘These kids are not getting what they deserve,’ Caswell said.
‘It’s untenable — there’s too many kids and no rules. They get detention, they don’t go, and nothing happens. It’s mayhem. It’s not OK.’
She slammed officials for ‘cramming 2,500 kids into a space that’s built for half that.’
Teachers say it’s only a matter of time before the overcrowding leads to deadly consequences.
‘When we have fire drills, students walk away to go home,’ a teacher said.
‘If there were an actual fire, it would be a catastrophe.’
Because so many of the immigrant newcomers cannot speak English, the school’s language teaching is particularly stressed, they said.
‘We’re getting new students all the time, and we don’t have enough supports for them,’ the teacher said.
Because the school is so full, students who speak very little English are sometimes placed
in classes inappropriate for their newcomer status.
Students have also noticed the overcrowding, saying classes are often cut short to make time for them to move around the building.
‘Sometimes, teachers have to let us out early just so we can get to class on time because it’s crowded,’ said a 10th grader.
Another teacher complained that Lincoln was being filled beyond capacity, while other nearby schools were half-empty.
‘Why are all these kids being sent here?’ the teacher asked.
‘It’s going to take something really terrible happening for them to listen.’
In a letter to parents, principal Jack Nelson reportedly told parents that ‘we are diligently working to address class sizes on an ongoing basis.’
He added: ‘Our commitment lies in providing students with a high-quality education in an optimal learning environment.’
Christina Clark, a spokesperson for America’s eighth-biggest public school system, said plans were underway to ‘address over-enrollment’ at Lincoln and other inundated schools.
‘This plan may include potential expansions, new construction, and boundary adjustments to
balance student populations effectively,’ she told the Inquirer.
The district did not answer DailyMail.com’s request for more information about the number of immigrant children at their schools.
Other schools in the district have also complained about overcrowding, with students learning in hallways and in repurposed closets.
‘We cannot service our students,’ Mickey Komins, principal of Anne Frank Elementary, said recently.
His school currently educates 1,630 students with 150 staff, but has a building capacity of 1,360.
The flow of immigrants across America’s southern border in recent years has seen millions of them settle in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and other northern cities, straining local services.
Though many are hardworking newcomers looking to build a new life, the Biden administration has come under fire for letting in too many people and for not properly explaining their policy to voters.