At New Mission High School in Hyde Park, 42 students earned the Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy this year. Most earned it in their native, non-English language — Spanish and Haitian Creole leading, with some in Somali, Portuguese, Vietnamese, French, and Russian, per Globe reporting.

A senior administrator told the Globe the surge in bilingual achievement is being driven directly by migration. "The increase in seals has come from an influx of people whose first language is not English migrating to Boston," said Cecilia Soriano, director of development at the Margarita Muñiz Academy — Boston's only dual-language high school.

The statewide numbers back her up. Massachusetts awarded the Seal of Biliteracy to 327 Spanish-speaking graduates this year, 37 in Chinese, 30 in Haitian Creole, and 29 in Portuguese. More than 18,000 students have earned a seal since 2019. As recently as 2024, English learners — students still learning English — accounted for 21 percent of state recipients.

Boston Latin School — the city's 390-year-old flagship exam school — supplied nearly a third of all Massachusetts seals this year on its own. Head of school Jason Gallagher described the BLS student body as "split between native English speakers with an interest in learning a language and multicultural and immigrant background students who have English as a second language."

For the students earning the seals, the credential is personal.

Johendy De La Cruz Arias, a senior at Muñiz Academy and the son of a Dominican immigrant, will be the first in his family to attend college this fall — Simmons University. When he started school, he didn't speak English. "But I kept learning it, practicing with my dad and my brothers at the house," he told the Globe.

"I felt proud, because that's what my dad wanted," he said. "He brought us here for a better future, and I feel proud of myself that I'm making his wish come true."

Manicka Fils-Aime, a senior at New Mission, was born in Haiti and earned her seal in Haitian Creole and English. "Achieving the seal means that I'm capable of making something good of myself," she said.

The growth follows Boston Public Schools' 2021 adoption of MassCore, which made world-language coursework a graduation requirement for the class of 2026 and beyond. World-language classes are now offered at every BPS high school.