City school system, Filipino teachers facing immigration challenges

On Sunday, we ran a story that explored some of the challenges the city school system says it is having in retaining hundreds of Filipino teachers--whose three-or-six year work visas are expiring--as so many American teachers are looking for jobs in the district.

Federal immigration laws require the district to show a need for the teachers before it can apply to renew work visas, or help them obtain permanent residency.

"We're in a tough position now because we're currently operating with more applicants than we have positions," said Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for the school system.

As we've reported before, the city has a sizable surplus teacher pool (about 700 city educators attended a job fair last month. Meanwhile, the district has vowed to "exhaust all legal strategies" to keep international teachers in the U.S.--even calling around to other districts to find vacancies they could potentially fill.

In total, about 300 Filipino teachers are facing some deadline this year.