The 11th-grader, a recent immigrant from Central America living in a city shelter, arrived some two hours late for the start of classes at John Adams HS in Ozone Park, Queens. He had his head down on his desk and could barely be roused when called on by his teacher.

The concerned teacher — one of about 25 in the high school’s World Cultures and Languages Academy — sent him to the offices of the academy, where its teachers, director and two bilingual school counselors labor daily to support the often delicate and specialized needs of the small learning community’s predominantly immigrant and English language learner students.

With 450 students, the World Cultures and Languages Academy is the largest of the eight small learning communities at Adams HS.

Divine Leonardo, the academy’s director and an English teacher, said the needs in her small learning community are so much greater than those of the other academies at Adams HS. “It’s in the types of students, the types of families, the situations, the trauma. We have over-age and under-credited students. We have students who have missed out on years of schooling between the COVID-19 pandemic and travel to the U.S.”

Leonardo, along with bilingual school counselors Cynthia Rojas and Carolina Munoz, know the stories of all 450 students. They ensure students don’t get lost in the cracks.

“This is their second house, at school,” Rojas said. “Anything the students need, we provide for them.”

To meet those needs, Rojas and the academy’s team find themselves wearing many hats: counselor, teacher, life coach, transit guide, health care coordinator, logistics expert and college booster.

After immigration enforcement increased beginning in January, immigrant families at Adams HS expressed fear about sending their children to school. Leonardo said they have been quick to address such concerns.

“We don’t sit on that,” she said. “We’re going to reach out and schedule a parent meeting. We say to them, ‘Your fears are very valid, but school really is the safest space for your child to be in right now.’”

Lack of permanent housing is one of the greatest challenges facing many of the students. The 11th-grader who was showing signs of exhaustion shared his plight in his native Spanish with Leonardo, school counselor Rojas and Magdalena Perez, an Adams HS dean. The teen was extremely tired because he had spent the night before helping his mother pack up all their belongings to move to a new shelter.

It was the family’s third placement in about four months, but despite the challenges, the teen has continued to show up for school. The student entered Adams HS in the fall when he and his family were living in temporary housing in Queens, but they were soon moved to housing in Manhattan, 90 minutes away from the school by subway. The most recent move would house him in another Manhattan location three train stops farther away from the school.

Leonardo and Rojas discussed the logistics of a possible transfer to a Manhattan high school closer to the teen’s current housing. The issue was complicated because his mother works all day selling wares to passersby in Times Square and has little time to travel to a Department of Education Family Welcome Center to submit her son’s transfer paperwork.

The next day, school counselor Munoz played the role of health care coordinator when the student shared his fears that he had dislocated his shoulder while hauling his family’s belongings back and forth on the subway during the move. Munoz shepherded him downstairs to the school clinic for evaluation.

“Our students present very distinct situations, so as a counselor, my goal and our goal is to provide every support available,” Munoz said. “That’s where our passion, energy and love for this population really comes into play.”

Many students at the World Cultures and Languages Academy have had to face and overcome adversity. One 12th-grader breezed into the academy’s offices to get a transcript. The teenager, who fled with her family to the United States in 2023 to escape political violence in her homeland, has her sights set on college. She spoke with Leonardo about credits and coursework and beamed when Leonardo told her she was on track to graduate high school.

The student, her eyes welling with emotion, said she appreciates the time and effort Leonardo has taken with her. “She understands me a lot, and she is always so worried about me, my classes, how I am doing. She really is the best.”

Leonardo said it is all in what she and her team are called to do.

“Every single day, parents have entrusted their child to our care,” she said. “When they are here, they are our children, and we always work from that lens.”