There are many compelling stories documenting the plight of refugees, most recently Syrians. The singular approach taken here in this case study focuses on both the perceptions of frontline educators, including social workers and settlement workers, across all levels of two Canadian School Boards. The case study is set in Central and Southwest Ontario, outside of Toronto, which has attracted significant numbers of Syrian newcomers since January, 2016. Although both School Boards had successfully integrated previous waves of newcomers, the sheer number of Syrians necessitated unique, innovative measures both in and surrounding the schools themselves. How these two School Boards responded reveals how new policies, structures, partnerships, curricula and pedagogies were designed on-the- fly and how principals, teachers, social and settlement workers successfully adjusted, through new learning and experiences, to welcome and educate the newcomers – and, as such, how they came to define this as the Syrian “gift.” In retelling the educators’ stories, the case study travels through the days, weeks, and months of newcomer trauma expressed physically through violence and psychologically as somatic complaints such as “my soul feels dark” and “my heart feels squeezed” to statements like –“I feel human again,” “I have rights,” “I can contribute to the community,” and “I can say `no’ without fear of retribution (prison or disappearance).’ All this, however, brought enormous stress on both the individual educators and on the systems as a whole as everyone involved had to learn and cope with integrating the newcomers. We are left with many unanswered questions, such as “it is still too soon tell” in terms of what successful integration means to these two School Boards and their surrounding communities and whether the new learning and innovative decision-making processes which emerges systemically can be sustained going forward. The educators in this case study offer their best judgments on these and other significant issues.

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