Graduate School
Harvard Graduate School of Education

Undergraduate School
Yale University

Mentor
Linda Dorcena Forry, Vice President for the Northeast Region on Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Relations, Suffolk Construction, Former Rappaport Urban Scholar and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member

Agency
City of Boston, Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement

Supervisor
Celina Barrios-Millner, Immigrant Integration Fellow

Description of Fellowship
As a fellow with the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement, Mariel Novas partnered with stakeholders and community members inside and outside the Boston Public Schools to create and elevate a series of interventions in support of immigrant students. As deportations and ICE enforcement have nearly tripled in the region, more students are directly impacted than ever. To address this reality, convened a working group of BPS administrators and proposed a support plan that included resource guides for educators and families, trainings for various constituencies, and publicly available webinars. These guides detailed both the legal, educational, and social services available to families in different neighborhoods as well as a checklist for schools to reference in the event that a student or a family member is detained or deported.