SF Parents Rally Against SFUSD Cuts to Immigrant Student Programs

Outside Mission Education Center in Noe Valley, children as young as five held handmade posters reading "We want our social workers" and "Nobody asked us about our school." More than 50 students joined dozens of parents, teachers, alumni and neighbors there Tuesday to protest proposed SFUSD budget cuts that would gut the elementary school's newcomer program, slashing its classrooms from four to two, eliminating its on-site nurse, cutting full-time social worker access, and reducing its newcomer teaching staff from three to two.

The rally was one of several. On March 11, MEC students and dozens of children from across the city made public comments at a SFUSD Board of Education meeting opposing the proposed layoffs. Families say they first learned about the cuts only in late February, during a meeting with the school principal.

The stakes for immigrant families are immediate. One MEC parent told reporters she arrived to pick up her children and found them gone: the district had transferred them to another school without her consent, she said, telling her the move was to protect them from federal immigration enforcement. A speech therapist at MEC said attendance has already fallen. Colombian mother Yennifer B., who has three children enrolled at the school, put the loss in direct terms: "We're in a sanctuary city, and they're supposed to help all immigrants. So for us, this feels like getting rid of a source of support."

MEC, which serves newly arrived pre-K through 5th grade students and helps them build English skills before transitioning to general public schools, is currently enrolled at capacity with 98 children total. But Mission Local reported the school now has fewer than a dozen newcomer students, with staff saying the district effectively stopped sending newcomer kids to MEC as far back as December 2024. A parent identified as "Maria" said she tried to enroll her children at MEC and was told in December to bring paperwork; when she brought it in weeks later, she was told it was too late and the school wasn't accepting newcomers. "I find it unbelievable, considering that 90 percent of the classrooms are empty," she said. Another parent, Carlos, said a district employee called him around 7 p.m. in October while he was preparing for a restaurant shift to tell him his son would be moved out of MEC by the following day.

The protest extended beyond MEC. An event was also held at San Francisco International High School at 655 De Haro St., the district's only high school entirely dedicated to newcomer students. Attendees also came from Visitacion Valley Middle School, a general education school with dedicated newcomer classes. "We ask you to see the newcomer program not as an expense but as an investment," said Andrea Sofía, a Visitacion Valley student who spoke through a translator.

SFUSD says the cuts reflect a fiscal reality: the district must close a $102 million shortfall over the next three years and has already sent preliminary layoff notices, with a final budget not due until late June. The district also points to a 29% decline in newcomer enrollment districtwide, from 1,856 students in 2022-23 to 1,326 in 2025-26. Superintendent Su, who told the crowd "a lot of our families are scared," argued the district cannot compel families to enroll in newcomer programs. "We cannot tell parents to choose SFI. I cannot tell someone to identify themselves as a newcomer," she said. Su, an immigrant whose family fled Vietnam and arrived in the United States in the 1980s, also reaffirmed the district's sanctuary status.

The San Francisco Education Alliance said Su has not responded to their outreach and called that silence part of the problem. School board member Matt Alexander, whose day job is with the immigrant advocacy group that helped organize the protest, acknowledged the scale of community opposition: "I've never seen this big of a group of immigrant students, families, [and] educators who serve them coming together to speak up. It merits listening to them.