San Francisco Unified Plans New Mandarin Immersion School Amid Charter Push

San Francisco’s school district is planning to open a new kindergarten through eighth-grade Mandarin immersion school in the fall of 2027, Superintendent Maria Su announced Wednesday, citing a need for more seats in multilingual classrooms.

Since taking over as superintendent in October, Su said she’s “consistently heard from families the need for more Mandarin immersion programs.

“San Francisco is an international city, and we need to do all that we can to produce global citizens,” she told KQED.

The announcement — which was sparse on details — comes as the district faces enrollment decline and an ongoing budget deficit threatening to force school consolidations. It also comes as the school board prepares to vote on a parent-led effort to open a new K–8 Mandarin Immersion charter school, which could siphon more funding away from the district if approved.

“It’s probably not a coincidence,” Bruce Fuller, a professor emeritus in UC Berkeley’s education department, said of the timing for both school proposals. “I’ve seen a similar dynamic where there’s budget concerns by the school board, there’s sort of recalcitrance around, ‘This is going to be challenging to do. What do we find the teachers?’”

He continued: “And then there’s charter pressure and, suddenly, the school board and the [superintendent] feel they have more flexibility than they did before.”

Su said the city’s public schools have not met demand for Chinese bilingual education. While private options have expanded in recent years, SFUSD has not launched a new Mandarin immersion program since the 2007–08 school year. In that time, multiple new independent schools have begun offering Cantonese dual immersion tracks, and existing private Mandarin immersion schools have increased capacity.

Presidio Knolls School graduated its first class of eighth graders in 2021, and Chinese American International School moved to a new campus last fall to accommodate more students.

Currently, SFUSD has just 66 seats per grade across two elementary schools for students interested in Mandarin immersion — at Starr King Elementary School in Potrero Hill and Jose Ortega Elementary in Ingleside — operating since 2006 and 2007, respectively.

More than 80 families are on the waitlist for a kindergarten spot at Jose Ortega this August, with both campuses maintaining waitlists through fifth grade.

Details about where the new school will be located, how many students it will serve, and what the enrollment process will look like are all undetermined, spokesperson Laura Dudnick said.

Su said that the expansion will begin with expanding pathways to train and hire qualified teachers. Some of the district’s existing Mandarin immersion classrooms are already struggling to maintain full-time teachers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in May.

To address that, the district is partnering with San Francisco State University and the associations of Asian American Administrators and Chinese Teachers to create new training programs and expand certification opportunities for bilingual educators.

“This work will begin with a focus on building out the teacher pipeline first before specifics of the school are established,” Dudnick said in an email.

The district has tapped Liana Szeto, who founded the nation’s first Chinese Immersion public school — Alice Fong Yu K–8 — in San Francisco. She will lead the school’s development as a special advisor to Su beginning in January. Szeto retired after 30 years as Alice Fong Yu K–8’s principal this spring.

“I cannot think of someone better to lead this work,” Su told KQED.

Board of Education President Phil Kim said he supports the venture, which aligns with the district’s goal of expanding multilingual education.

“Families have been asking for expanded offerings for immersion programs, and so this very well could be an opportunity for families to choose SFUSD, knowing the great history that we have with our multilingual pathways,” he said.

But it’s unclear how the district’s announcement could affect a separate, parent-led effort already in motion.

The announcement comes just a few weeks before the board votes on another new immersion school — the parent-led proposal for a K–8 Mandarin immersion charter school.

The so-called Dragon Gate Academy, which hopes to gain a charter to open in the 2026–27 school year, is asking SFUSD to approve its application for a school that it said aimed to fill a lack of access to tuition-free Mandarin Immersion programs.

“Parents have shared their struggles: crushing rejections from oversubscribed programs, long commutes tearing families apart, or private school costs that feel like a betrayal of hope,” the proposed school’s website reads. “Dragon Gate Academy is our answer — a school where kids learn Mandarin and English side by side, celebrating our city’s vibrant heritage and preparing them for a boundless future.”

Fuller said SFUSD’s announcement could give the board reason to reject the charter.

“I think the board members might argue, ‘Well, we’re going to serve that excess demand for dual language immersion … maybe we’ll look at the charter applications later,’” he said.

Districts are often wary of approving new charter schools, especially when they face enrollment declines and funding shortfalls, he said.

Public school funding is tied to student enrollment, so if students leave SFUSD for a charter, the district stands to lose a significant amount of money.

“Certainly, this initiation of two new schools gets the board a rationale to deny the charter application,” Fuller said.

In California, school boards can deny a charter application if they believe the school would be fiscally detrimental to the district, find the school’s educational program unsound or think the petitioners are unlikely to successfully implement the program.

But Kim said the board is focused on “building a sustainable and thriving school system within SFUSD, and we’re willing to partner with whomever to make sure that it happens.”

The board is expected to consider Dragon Gate’s application on July 29.