A family emigrating with their school-age children to a foreign country faces a task as important as finding a job and a place to stay: that of enrolling their children in school. This article analyzes the experiences that families which have emigrated from Lithuania with their children have had in finding schools and learning in them. It is the author’s contention that for Lithuanian immigrant families establishing themselves in a new land the school performs the function of a mediator between the broader society, the neighborhood (or the Lithuanian ethnic community), and the family. The school becomes a mirror of the new country’s cultural and social norms and values, and at the same time it serves as a bridge to a successful and ever more complete integration into that country’s society.

Observing the process of re-emigration now intensifying in Lithuania as those who’ve emigrated less or more than ten years ago are increasingly returning to Lithuania with their families and children born either in Lithuania or abroad, the authors of this article tried to look at the experiences and needs of children taken back to Lithuania. What difficulties are faced by these children, their parents, and their teachers? How do adults-- the parents and the teachers--evaluate the needs of the children during this period of their adaptation to the country of their parents? What are the stories the children themselves tell of their experiences in school? The research was conducted in the Šėltinis school in the city of Šiauliai. In this school there is an intensive process of integrating children into the new country and new culture; here the new values are transmitted not only in the teaching process, but also through the fostering of communication between student and teacher, and between the children and the school and family.