16-07-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Anonymous benefactor helps SFUSD open new Mandarin immersion school
An anonymous benefactor will help spur San Francisco public schools to expand Chinese language programs in the district, including the opening of a new Mandarin immersion school for students in the fall of 2027, district officials announced Wednesday.
The school will serve kindergarten through eighth grade students, with the location to be determined down the road, Superintendent Maria Su said.
'The desire to strengthen SFUSD's language program offerings is something I've consistently heard from families,' Su told the Chronicle. 'It's clear that multilingual education is a top priority for our community.'
Before the school can open, the first priority is creating a Chinese bilingual teacher pipeline to support Mandarin and Cantonese language programs to ensure there are certified educators ready to step into all the district's immersion classrooms, Su told the Chronicle.
Currently, there are only a few hundred bilingual Chinese language teachers qualified to teach in California, she added, and the district will be working with San Francisco State University and with existing district staff to help boost those numbers and ensure there are qualified educators well into the future.
'I am thrilled to take SFUSD's multilingual education to the next level, starting with our Chinese language immersion programs,' Su said in a statement. 'This plan will build on a strong foundation to cultivate the next generation of bilingual teachers and expand our language programs so that every SFUSD student has the skills to unlock opportunities no matter where they are in the world.'
Su said she will be expanding and strengthening the language programs 'in partnership with families, not for families.'
'This has to reflect the voices, values and strength of the families we're serving,' she said.
Former San Francisco principal Liana Szeto, who opened the first Chinese immersion public school in the country, will head up the effort as Su's special advisor to create the new school, officials said.
The benefactor's funding will pay for Szeto's contract, which is the only cost so far associated with the effort. District officials did not disclose how much the donor was contributing to the plan overall.
Szeto opened Alice Fong Yu Alternative School in 2000 and served as its principal until this year, when she retired. She will start in the district role in January.
A wide body of research has shown that non-English language immersion enables students to achieve a high level of proficiency in another language while performing on par with or better than peers in English and math. Alice Fong Yu students have consistently outperformed the district and state in English and math, according to state data.
Currently, only three SFUSD schools offer Mandarin immersion programs, with just 66 seats in the incoming Mandarin immersion kindergarten classes at Starr King and Jose Ortega elementary schools, about two-thirds of which are reserved for proficient speakers. Every grade at those two schools has a long waiting list for the upcoming school year.
SFUSD parents have said that's far from enough in a city where 22% of residents are Chinese and where Chinese languages are by far the most widely spoken after English.
Another four elementary schools offer Cantonese immersion programs, with additional dual language programs in Spanish and Korean.
The announcement of the pending new district school comes less than two weeks before a scheduled school board vote on a petition to open a Chinese immersion charter school in San Francisco, a grassroots effort by parents frustrated at the lack of Mandarin immersion seats in district schools.
The proposed charter, Dragon Gate Academy, would also be a K-8 Mandarin immersion public school, with almost 200 parents and teachers already expressing interest, organizers said.
District officials said they were prepared to follow the legal process related to the charter application.
'We're deeply grateful to the benefactor whose generosity is providing the resources to help us turn this shared vision into reality,' Su said. 'At the same time, we remain fully committed to providing all charter school petitioners with a fair, thorough, and impartial review process, as outlined in California Education Code.'
