Beloved San José Charter School Faces Potential Closure

Escuela Popular, a beloved charter school that has served immigrant families in San José for more than 40 years, may be forced to close its doors for good.

The East Side Union High School District’s Board of Trustees meets Thursday evening to provide a final decision on whether to revoke Escuela Popular’s charter. The superintendent and district staff recommended that the Board revoke both of the charters after finding that teachers at the school did not meet credential requirements.

Patricia Reguerin, executive director of Escuela Popular and daughter of the school’s founder, said she hopes that the upcoming vote will instead redirect the staff and the school to work together for the sake of the students.

“Our students … cannot be served by traditional school systems. They need a customized, supportive environment to be successful. And that doesn’t exist in San José. We are the only ones that do that,” Reguerin said.

Escuela Popular was founded in 1986 by Lidia Reguerin as a grassroots school to address the growing needs of the South Bay’s immigrant community. The school operated as a nonprofit until 2001, when it received its charter from the district. Of Escuela Popular’s roughly 750 students today, more than 80% are English learners.

Two of Escuela Popular’s charters — a K-12 school serving primarily first and second-generation immigrant students as well as unaccompanied minors, and the Center for Training and Careers, a high school serving students over the age of 19 — now face the prospect of being revoked.

In 2019, California passed a law that tightened charter school oversight. While Escuela Popular said it has spent the past five years working to get its teaching staff the appropriate credentials, experts acknowledge the process is long and complex in California.

“ Typically, a teacher needs to go through a pretty traditional pathway where they have to get a bachelor’s degree, and then they have to get a certification in teaching that requires a master’s,” said Carrie Hahnel, senior associate partner at Bellwether, an education consulting firm. “It can be a time-consuming and expensive pathway for a lot of people.”

The bar is even higher for teachers at Escuela Popular — where teachers are being asked to receive an additional bilingual teaching certification, in addition to a regular teaching certification. According to the district staff report issued ahead of Thursday’s meeting, Escuela Popular has “failed to take sufficient corrective actions to address the violations.”

“Any of the items that they feel that we are out of compliance, are circumstances that all districts and charter schools in the nation are struggling with,” Reguerin said. “There’s a national shortage of credentialing and credentialed teachers.”

The East Side Unified School District and board of trustees did not respond to requests for comment.

To the school’s leadership, the severity of the decision seems out of step with past decisions.

“The fact that East Side has moved very quickly in this direction has been very surprising to us,” Reguerin said.

Reguerin said that the school “demonstrated compliance and, at the very least, demonstrated measurable progress towards that.”

Vanessa Gutierrez, an Escuela Popular parent, said her kids have been worried, asking her if their school is going to close. While she said she keeps assuring them that they’re “trying to fix this as adults,” the closure would be devastating.

“I know there’s no other school like Escuela Popular,” Gutierrez said.

When Gutierrez decided to return to school to earn a high school diploma, Escuela Popular provided child care. As her children grew up, she knew she wanted to send them to Escuela Popular because the school felt like a family.

“I was born in the U.S., so I know what it feels like to be at a regular school, and it honestly has no comparison.”

KQED’s Tyche Hendricks contributed to this report.