But Queens saw the greatest uptick in the number of homeless students, with a rise of more than 12 percent, the data shows. In District 24, which includes the Corona and Elmhurst neighborhoods, an area that became an early epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic and that is receiving many of the new migrants, the number rose by nearly 22 percent.

The more than 6,000 new homeless students, of which at least 5,500 are recently arrived migrant children living in shelters, have brought fresh challenges to the system. With many learning English as a new language, some schools have struggled to find enough bilingual teachers and social workers to meet their needs. School officials have said that they are working to add more of those staff members, and create new programs for English-language learners.

Nicole Cisuentes is among the new arrivals. A third-grader whose family arrived in the country from Colombia last month, Nicole has enrolled at the Helen M. Marshall School in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, where more than 40 percent of students were English-language learners last year.

But her mother, Julieth Murillo, was eager for her to learn English, so Nicole initially joined a classroom where only English was spoken.

Ms. Murillo said the adjustment was rocky. “She came home with nothing in her notebooks,” she said, and was not always welcomed by other students. About two weeks ago, Ms. Murillo moved Nicole into a dual language class taught in both Spanish and English.

“Now she’s really happy,” Ms. Murillo said in Spanish. “Everything is going really well, thankfully.”