Leissmar Bracho’s journey from Venezuela to Montana is a testament to the transformative power of education—and to the complex interplay of migration, language, and diplomacy in today’s interconnected world. When Bracho, a 19-year-old refugee, reflects on her first year in the United States, her words are tinged with hope. “You can do anything you want, or you can study anything you want,” she recalled from her experience at the Billings Multilingual Academy, a newly opened charter school designed to help English learners bridge the gap between their past and their future. “The English wasn’t a barrier for you to … fulfill those dreams or goals that you had in mind,” she told reporters, according to the Associated Press.
Bracho’s story is emblematic of a broader shift in American education and society. Billings Public Schools, responding to a dramatic increase in the number of English-learning students, launched the Multilingual Academy in the fall of 2024. In less than a decade, the district’s population of English learners ballooned from just 25 students in 2015-2016 to 348 by the fall of 2023. This surge is driven by global migration and political upheaval in countries like Venezuela, where Bracho’s family faced violence, economic collapse, and even a kidnapping attempt before fleeing to Peru and, ultimately, the United States.
The Billings Multilingual Academy stands at the intersection of these global currents and local realities. The school employs a mix of computer-based coursework and teachers trained to instruct nonnative speakers, offering a flexible program where students split their days between their regular “home schools” and the academy’s dedicated classrooms in the Lincoln Center. In its first year, it served 20 middle school and 20 high school students, with first languages ranging from Mandarin and Swahili to Tagalog—reflecting the diversity of the new Montana.
Yet the academy’s creation was not without controversy. News of its opening sparked a backlash from some community members, who accused the district of “harboring illegals” and questioned the use of public resources. Billings Public Schools Superintendent Erwin Garcia, who took the helm in 2023, has faced this criticism head-on. “But again, I am unapologetic,” he stated. “Because these are our students.” Garcia, himself an immigrant from Colombia, understands firsthand the struggles of adapting to a new language and culture. He described the “silent period” many students endure when they first arrive—shy, withdrawn, and struggling with self-esteem. “Now it starts making a significant impact on the student’s self-esteem, self-efficacy. And it’s pretty damaging,” Garcia explained, according to the Associated Press.
Federal law requires schools to identify and support English learners, and Garcia’s district has responded with both logistical innovation and personal commitment. Not all eligible students attend the academy; those with higher English proficiency remain in regular classes, while elementary students stay with their peers, as younger children tend to absorb new languages more quickly. The school’s funding is a patchwork: partly from the state’s per-pupil allotment, and partly from the district’s own budget, since the academy doesn’t yet meet the threshold for additional state support. It also shares staff and resources with two other new charter schools—one focused on credit recovery, the other on college coursework.
The challenges are many. Teachers must navigate not only linguistic hurdles but also varying educational backgrounds, cultural norms, and the complexities of transferring academic records. Nancy Van Maren, a board member for the academy and executive director of Nations to Neighbors Montana, praised the staff’s efforts: “I think it’s an incredibly complicated endeavor, because of language, because of where they’re at learning-wise, education-wise, different school systems, the transferability of records, and all the social things involved in teaching kids for whom English is not their native language, and who can talk to each other and you won’t necessarily understand it as the teacher,” she told local media.
Despite the hurdles, the school’s first year yielded promising results. The graduation rate stood at 50%, with two of four seniors receiving diplomas and the other two transitioning to adult education classes in pursuit of high school equivalency. Garcia cautioned that the small sample size can skew perceptions, but he remains focused on long-term outcomes—tracking graduation rates and improvements in English language test scores, the latter of which will be available after winter 2025-2026.
Bracho’s own path offers a glimpse of what’s possible. After arriving in Billings in the summer of 2024—following four years of vetting in Peru by the U.S. State Department—she graduated from the academy and began studying business and marketing at Montana State University Billings. Her family, including her parents (both civil engineers) and younger sister, have also settled into life in Montana. Her father, Albrick, is especially grateful for the support they’ve received, emphasizing the importance of understanding American history and culture: “We are here for the rest of the life, yes?” he said.
This story of adaptation and opportunity in Montana resonates far beyond the American West. Thousands of miles away, in Egypt, another experiment in language and cultural exchange is underway. The US Embassy in Cairo, in partnership with AMIDEAST, recently organized a training program called Empowering English Educators for faculty members at Egypt’s public universities. Dr. Marwa El-Shinawy, an academic and writer who participated in the program, described it as much more than a professional development initiative. “It is a vivid exercise in cultural soft diplomacy—a quiet but powerful political message that places education at the centre of dialogue between Egypt and the United States,” she wrote in Daily News Egypt.
The training emphasized interactive workshops, peer-to-peer learning, communicative methods, and critical thinking—tools designed to transform students from passive recipients into active participants. For El-Shinawy, the program was a reminder that professors are not just transmitters of knowledge but “bridges connecting my students to the wider world.” The initiative, she argued, serves a dual purpose: refining pedagogical skills and strengthening diplomatic ties between Egypt and the United States. Such programs, she noted, build informal networks and reservoirs of trust that endure beyond the classroom—a form of diplomacy that can outlast political crises.
Egypt’s embrace of these initiatives reflects a strategic commitment to modernizing its universities and investing in human capital. “Embracing these programmes signals Egypt’s seriousness in investing in human capital as a national priority, and its determination to equip graduates with the skills to compete globally,” El-Shinawy observed. The ultimate lesson, she concluded, is that education itself can be a vehicle for politics and diplomacy, turning classrooms into platforms for global dialogue and mutual understanding.
From Montana to Cairo, the stories of the Billings Multilingual Academy and the Empowering English Educators program reveal the profound impact of language, education, and cultural exchange. Whether helping refugees find their footing in a new land or fostering international partnerships in academia, these efforts demonstrate that the most enduring bridges are often built not by politicians, but by teachers and students—one lesson, one conversation at a time.
