SF School Board Unanimously Denies Mandarin Immersion Charter

Updated 10 a.m. Wednesday

San Francisco’s school board unanimously rejected a petition on Tuesday to open a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade Mandarin Immersion school in the city next fall, citing concerns with the parent-led effort’s educational model and the new school’s financial impact on the cash-strapped district.

After two hours of debate, the board voted 7-0 to deny the charter, following the recommendation of San Francisco Unified School District staff, which said they didn’t believe the plan was “workable.”

In addition to concerns about the educational model and feasibility of the plan, staff also wrote in a report earlier this month that the school could siphon away funding the district can’t stand to lose.

“At full scale, Dragon Gate Academy would serve approximately 396 students and could lead to a loss of funding in excess of $5 million annually,” the report reads. “SFUSD … is not positioned to absorb the impact of the proposed charter school.”

The rejection isn’t the end of the road for the charter petitioners — they can still appeal to the state, and seem prepared to do so.  Here’s what’s happened in the saga so far and what could be coming next.

Catch up fast: In June, a group of parents, led by Brian Hollinger, submitted a petition to the San Francisco Board of Education, seeking a charter to open and operate Dragon Gate Academy starting next fall.

The proposal argued that SFUSD has long lacked enough seats in Mandarin immersion classrooms and that the current model, which separates elementary and middle school students, makes commuting a challenge for families. Currently, the district offers just 66 seats across two elementary schools to incoming kindergarteners each year, with two-thirds reserved for native speakers.

The new school would nearly double that number in the next five years, opening to an estimated 154 students in grades K-4 next fall and expanding to 396 students in K-8 by the 2030-2031 school year.

The new school would teach students in both English and Mandarin, introducing some Cantonese “as a cultural feature” in fourth grade.

What’s new: The school board held a public hearing to gauge support for the school in July, and issued a scathing staff report panning the application on Aug. 11.

That report urged the school board to deny the charter, citing concerns with its proposed methods to measure student achievement, ensure proper staffing, recruit a diverse student body and support special education students.

While Dragon Gate’s petition has about 200 signatures from parents of elementary-age children, the report also questions how broad their reach is.

“It appears at most 16 members of the public, including some of the named petitioners, voiced support for the charter school,” at the public hearing, the report says. “Staff do not consider 16 members of the public as representing significant community support.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, Hollinger said that some of the criticisms felt hypocritical because they stemmed from policies modeled by the district. He defended the school’s proposal and questioned whether some board members’ preconceived opinions of charter schools.

The context: In the months since Dragon Gate submitted its proposal, SFUSD also unexpectedly announced plans to launch its own K-8 Mandarin immersion school by 2027, aided by an anonymous benefactor and led by former principal Liana Szeto.

Superintendent Maria Su said the move was part of her effort to expand specialized programs to meet a growing need for language immersion education and attract families to the district, but Hollinger believes the announcement was a direct response to Dragon Gate.

“They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” he said last week, speaking with reporters outside the district’s headquarters.

Some experts agree the district’s plan could strengthen the argument to deny the petition, but Hollinger said the news only energized his group.

“We didn’t slow down, we just felt incredibly validated,” he said.

What’s next: Charter school petitioners have a robust appeals process in California, and Dragon Gate is expected to take advantage of it now that the board has denied its proposal.

Under most jurisdictions, Dragon Gate would be required to appeal to a county board of education that oversees the petitioned school district, but since the school board in San Francisco — as a city and county — oversees both SFUSD and the county office of education, there is no independent county board.

Dragon Gate can appeal directly to the state Board of Education, which typically reviews charters as a last resort and can only reverse a local decision if it was erroneous or unreasonable. In this case, however, the state board will review the petition independently and decide whether to approve the school.

That could work in Dragon Gate’s favor, since the state board has historically been more likely to grant charters than local boards.

If Dragon Gate is approved by the state board of education, it would technically be the school’s oversight. But that doesn’t mean SFUSD would be off the hook financially — the district’s estimate that Dragon Gate could increase costs and intensify competition for students and staff still stands.