After crossing seven countries, Yeniffer Bejarano and her three toddlers arrived in San Francisco from Colombia in July. Her first priority was finding a school for her Spanish-speaking kids.
“When I arrived, the children were very afraid to go to school,” Bejarano said in Spanish. “I went to the school district, and they recommended a transition school for newcomers.”
She was referred to Mission Education Center, a Noe Valley elementary school serving Spanish-speaking immigrants. The school provides a soft landing for newcomers from Spanish-speaking regions, offering special-needs support with social workers and nurses to help students recover from difficult immigration experiences.
With President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and early actions triggering widespread fear of immigration raids, and the San Francisco Unified School District struggling with budget cuts, immigrant community members are rallying around the need to defend and expand the educational services they rely on.
This week, more than 70 kids, parents, and staffers held a protest outside the MEC campus against planned cuts to the school. Specifically, the budget calls for reducing staffing from four to just two teachers for grades 1 through 5, which could mean three grades combined in one classroom. The cuts also would reduce a full-time social worker position to part-time and eliminate all nurses and paraeducators.
“We want to let everyone know how important our school is, how important this service is in a sanctuary district for our immigrant families,” a school staff member, who wished to remain anonymous due to concerns about retaliation, said at the rally.
Kimberly Ruano, 32, arrived in the U.S. more than a year ago from Guatemala and has two children enrolled at MEC. She said many immigrants face challenges such as family separation and food, job, and housing insecurity. The children have often undergone trauma and need specialized support before transitioning to general education.
At MEC, specialized staff aim to “make the school environment feel like home,” Ruano said in Spanish through a translator. “With two teachers in one or two classrooms, how are they going to support each child with different needs?”
Only 18 students are enrolled for next year, but numbers are expected to grow as immigrants arrive throughout the year.
Fears of closure
In early 2024, Edwin and Anita Lee Newcomer School in Chinatown, which serves Chinese immigrant newcomers, merged with a nearby school due to low enrollment, becoming the first in the district to lose its campus in recent years.
While the district has halted a school closure plan, and Superintendent Maria Su has stated that no schools will close in the coming year, families are worried.
Some parents believe SFUSD intends to redirect more students to other schools and phase out MEC’s K-5 programs.
“I think the district has a coordinated and hidden effort to eventually close the newcomer program at this school,” said parent Katie Geiger-Schuller. She said the removal of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten is an example of efforts to disincentivize immigrant families with multiple kids from attending MEC.
SFUSD has added two more transitional kindergarten classes to MEC while offering no kindergarten this year. Geiger-Schuller speculated that this marked the beginning of an effort to slowly turn MEC into an early care center.
An SFUSD spokesperson said the district remains committed to serving newcomer students, and Spanish-speaking newcomer families have the option of enrolling at MEC or a school with general education and biliteracy programs.
There are 13 elementary schools with more newcomer students enrolled than MEC, according to the district. While other schools might offer more options, MEC will remain open, at least for the next school year, district officials stress.
“There are no plans to close or co-locate Mission Education Center at another location next year,” an SFUSD statement said.
But for Bejarano, the news isn’t reassuring. Her three children are anxious, affected by both the political climate and the prospect of transferring to general education schools that lack the specialized support MEC provides.
“They’re nervous about being in a school where everyone speaks English and no one understands them,” she said.