Older refugee students seek seats at mainstream high schools

In this Feb. 15, 2017, photo, Patient Inganya, right, and Enrique Veliz, left, do classwork at Phoenix Academy in Lancaster, Pa. The Lancaster community runs an "international school" on its main high school campus to help the waves of new arrivals sponsored by local resettlement agencies learn English and adjust to American schools. But the practice of sending the ones who are over 16 and have no school records to Phoenix, an alternative school across town, has rattled critics who see it as a diploma mill. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam) (The Associated Press)

In this Feb. 15, 2017, photo, Shukuru Amanya works with paper letters in an English language class at Phoenix Academy in Lancaster, Pa. Amanya, 18, was born in a refugee camp in Tanzania to parents who had fled Congo. She said she attended school there, in French, through 11th grade. Amanya came to the U.S. last fall with her husband and 2-year-old daughter. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam) (The Associated Press)

In this Feb. 15, 2017, photo, Shukuru Amanya works with paper letters in an English language class at Phoenix Academy in Lancaster, Pa. Amanya, 18, was born in a refugee camp in Tanzania to parents who had fled Congo. She said she attended school there, in French, through 11th grade and came to the U.S. last fall with her husband and daughter. (AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam) (The Associated Press)