Superintendent Maria Su said she would “absolutely” commit to “protect and fortify” San Francisco’s programs for “newcomer” immigrant students during an impassioned rally Thursday evening. The pledge was made even though the district’s budget documents show steep proposed cuts of both staff and student slots at newcomer programs across the district.
Su was asked directly by a crowd of about 200 parents, students and teachers whether she would “protect and fortify” the newcomer programs, which Mission Local reported on Thursday morning have been besieged and are facing cuts.
Newcomer programs offer intensive English language development, academic aid, and specially trained teachers, among other resources.
Su stood up and said, “Yes, absolutely yes.” The room erupted with cheers.
“I apologize that we did not work enough with the community,” she told the crowd gathered at San Francisco International High School for a rally to “fight budget cuts to newcomer education.”
The crowd had asked Su and the school board president, Phil Kim, to sit in chairs facing the audience and say whether they would support their two demands: pausing all cuts to schools serving immigrant students for at least one year, and working with teachers on a plan to protect the newcomer programs.
“There is no intention of cutting programs for our newcomers — for any student,” Su promised.
Those words surprised the audience: Teachers and principals at newcomer-centric schools have made it very clear that their budgets are being cut as part of a $102 million haircut, a plan that Mission Local found would disproportionately affect small schools serving low- income families.
Visitacion Valley Middle School, for instance, is one of the city’s three middle schools with a newcomer program and served 124 immigrant students in the 2024 to 2025 school year. The proposed cuts would reduce that number by more than a half in the upcoming school year.
“What is happening,” Su continued, “is that a lot of our families are not choosing to go into the newcomer program.”
The crowd immediately became frustrated. “No! No! No!” some called out, while others booed.
Numerous educators contacted by Mission Local have questioned how diligently the district is informing recently arrived immigrant families about newcomer programs. The district cites a decline in newcomer students from 1,856 in 2022-23 to 1,326 in 2025-26.
But district employees said they are dubious of this count: The same Jan. 9 district email noting that decline also claimed there are now zero newcomers in kindergarten — which strains credulity.
There are many newcomer students who are not in newcomer programs, and they may not be accounted for in the district’s tally. Educators tell Mission Local that when they talk to families of limited English-speaking children and inform them of newcomer programs, the parents are nearly always receptive. It is unclear how well-informed these parents were when they first enrolled their children in school.
Neither Su nor Kim gave a direct “yes or no” answer to the question of whether cuts to the newcomer programs could be paused for a year, but in an interview following the rally, Su said “there is still time” for budget and staffing requests to be reviewed and discussed beyond their Jan. 31 due date. Observers described her statement that there was no “intention” to cut programs — which are already slated to be cut on budget documents — as a political one.
Kim, for his part, said “I hear you. I absolutely hear you” and spoke about his own immigrant background before his time was up.
The Thursday rally comes as the district is facing potential turmoil. The teacher’s union has said it is close to a strike because contract negotiations have stalled. Strike voting totals will be released on Friday and are expected to be close to the 99.3 percent tally teachers registered in a preliminary December vote. A teachers strike, which would be the first in San Francisco in 47 years, could start as soon as next week. School principals and administrators will meet Friday night and are expected to vote on whether to hold a sympathy strike in the event that teachers walk out. They all but certainly will vote to do so.
Yeniffer Bejarano Osorio, a parent of three kids at Mission Education Center, was near tears by the end of the rally, upset with the responses of district officials. She had delivered a speech detailing her experience as an immigrant parent, and said the Mission District TK-5 made her family feel “as if we were home.”
“I’m really frustrated,” she said after the rally, “I thought we would be able to achieve something through this.”
Daniel Gatica is a sixth through eighth grade teacher at Visitacion Valley Middle School, one of the city’s three middle schools with a newcomer program. Gatica teaches about 65 immigrant students from Vietnam, Guinea, Afghanistan, and various Latin American countries, all of whom receive education in their native languages.
“They really benefit from being able to build community amongst themselves and slowly integrating into the larger population, which is never easy.”