By Grace Rubenstein, California Watch
English and Spanish alternate seamlessly in the classrooms at the Mission Education Center in San Francisco. Decorative signs identify objects that in other schools would seem too basic to name: “clock” and “door.”
This public elementary school has for 40 years served children who have just arrived from Latin America and speak only Spanish, who beyond its walls are out of their element in almost every way.
Those students are dramatically fewer now. As the flow of immigrants from Mexico has dwindled in recent years, the school’s enrollment has plummeted from a high of 264 students in the mid-2000s to 72 this past spring.
Read the complete story at California Watch. California Watch, the state’s largest investigative reporting team, is part of the independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. For more, visit www.californiawatch.org.
