San Francisco’s only elementary school program to support recently arrived Spanish-speaking immigrant students and their families will be defunct by the fall, according to school staff, parents and a school board member, ending its 46-year history.
The about 1,000 newly arrived immigrant elementary students currently enrolled in San Francisco’s public school system will no longer be able to enroll in a program that was designed to support them in their acclimation.
The Mission Education Center, in Noe Valley, has specialized in supporting immigrant families and has a dedicated staff of about 10 people who help students with language skills and emotional trauma. Staff also meet with parents to determine what other support they need, like help accessing housing, food or healthcare.
San Francisco’s school system, which once had a reputation as a pioneer in services for newly arrived families, is losing this badge of honor.
“It is disappointing to be in a sanctuary city and have the same district and institution close down these resources to people entering a new country with a whole new language,” said Carla Velasquez, a transitional kindergarten teacher at the school.
Velasquez comes from a mixed-status family and knows the struggles and fear newcomers experience — it’s one of the reasons she took the job.
Mission Education Center staff members were not officially notified of the cancellation of the program until a week ago. But they started to piece it together bit by bit after first noticing that the district had not enrolled new students at the school since December 2024 — and that the program’s proposed budget for next year was zero.
While staff and parents were shocked, they were not surprised. In October 2025, the district unilaterally moved children out of the dwindling school, citing concerns with potential federal immigration raids. It was a move parents told Mission Local came off as heavy handed and unnecessary.
A Mission Education Center staffer in February told Mission Local she twice accompanied parents attempting to enroll their children at the school. Both times, the staffer said, district employees attempted to denigrate the Noe Valley site and push other schools.
The staffer recalls being told there was no space at the Noe Valley school. “I work there,” the staffer recalled saying at the time. “I know there’s space.”
Multiple district administrators told Mission Local in February that, during in-person meetings, district higher-ups had curtailed enrollment at several small schools, including Mission Education Center.
“They are just so opaque about the decision making process. What is the reason for the low enrollment?” asked Erin Antcliffe, whose child is not a newcomer student but attends the Noe Valley school. Antcliffe said she emailed district staff, the superintendent and school board members, but heard nothing.
School board member Matt Alexander said he has also asked questions about newcomer programs, but has not received responses from district staff.
The San Francisco Unified School District did not immediately respond to Mission Local’s request for comment. A spokesperson said district administrators were in a meeting and could not provide a response by the end of the day.
Alexander said he asked why enrollment in these programs has gone down when the overall number of newcomers in the district has risen since 2020-21, despite a decline in the past year. There are now around 2,800 newly arrived immigrant students enrolled in the district across all grades.
For elementary school students, only 2.3 percent of eligible newcomers are enrolled in a newcomer program. The newcomer program has had an enrollment cap of around 11 students in most classes, far below the normal 22 or so students per classroom, according to a district staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity to Mission Local.
Now that capacity is even lower: zero.
Alexander also said that in the past couple of months he has heard from multiple newly arrived immigrant families who said that when they tried to enroll their children in a newcomer program, they were told it was full. The newcomer program at the Mission Education Center has not enrolled any new students since December 2024, which had not gone unnoticed by staff, parents and frustrated prospective parents.
The Edwin and Anita Lee Newcomer School for Chinese elementary students has not been cut, but enrollment and capacity in that program are also very low, with some grades having zero capacity.