All the Shelter a New York City School Can Provide

Mary Lauri and Roberto Rodríguez, asylum seekers from Venezuela, heard about Public School 46, in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, from a mother at Hall Street, the emergency shelter where their family had been placed. It was five blocks away and had a Spanish dual-language program.

When Ms. Rodríguez went to register her two younger children the second week in January, the school’s parent coordinator, Amanda Ocasio, a 30-year-old Puerto Rican woman with platinum hair, big brown eyes and funky red glasses, was standing inside the entrance with the security guards to welcome them. There was breakfast, and there were piles of warm clothes, school supplies and toiletries in the teachers’ lounge for parents and children to choose from.

Allison Blechman, the English as a new language teacher, took the family on a tour of the school: a beautiful library with books in English and Spanish and comfortable chairs, a science lab with 3-D printers, an auditorium with a stage and curtains like a real theater, whiteboards in every classroom.

Andrés, Ms. Rodríguez’s 7-year-old son, gaped at the bounty, revealing teeth growing in every which way. Kenny, her 12-year-old, sporting a bowl cut and serious expression, solemnly told Ms. Ocasio, “This is the best school I’ve ever seen in my life.” He was too old to attend. “There’s a middle school upstairs for you,” she said.

A classroom in Public School 46.

The next day, Ms. Rodríguez watched as Ms. Ocasio escorted Andrés and his 9-year-old sister, Keymar, down the hall through a set of doors toward their classrooms. Once she’d gotten outside, Ms. Rodríguez burst into tears. “We had crossed 10 countries and to go through so much and receive a warm welcome,” she told me through a Spanish interpreter.