SF school officials to let more students enroll in Filipino language and culture classes

Bearing placards, protesters press for bigger class sizes in kindergarten and 1st grade of Longfellow Elementary Filipino language and culture program at a rally at San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) office. INQUIRER/Justin Katigbak

SAN FRANCISCO – After a vigorous campaign by families, teachers and community advocates, the Filipino language and culture program at Longfellow Elementary in San Francisco got the greenlight for a higher enrollment this year.

Longfellow’s full-day Filipino World Languages in the Elementary School (Filipino WLES) program is among a few in the county offering an elementary school-level ethnic studies curriculum focused on Filipino culture and the Tagalog.

“When we found out that the Filipino WLES Program at Longfellow was getting capped, we didn’t hesitate to act,” said Nikki Santiago, parent of an outgoing student who completed the WLES program and of an incoming kindergarten student who was at risk of not being placed into the program.

The community convinced the Educational Placement Center EPC to increase enrollment capacity to 22 students in kindergarten and 22 in 1st grade in the Filipino WLES program.

The EPC met with Longfellow Elementary School officials and eventually agreed to lift the 11-student enrollment capacity in the 1st Grade Filipino WLES class for the 2022-2023 school year.

 “We are proud to have contributed to this small victory, but we also know that there is more work to be done in order to secure the sustainability of the Filipino WLES Program at Longfellow,” Santiago added.

Supporters credited the combined efforts and hard work of families, school officials, teachers and students with the campaign’s success. Among their efforts were two well-attended mobilizations for public comment at the Board of Education meetings on June 14 and June 28.

Advocates of the Longfellow program argued that it has been consistently met capacity for a decade, until the pandemic hit, and can meet it again. Hundreds of people signed a petition in response to advocates’ call to families to enroll their children.

The Longfellow community led by Principal Dr. Jennifer Freeman and Assistant Principal Hector Lee wrote on June 2, 2022 to San Francisco Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Vincent Matthews, Incoming Superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne and San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board Members on behalf of the community.

“The Filipino WLES programs at Bessie Carmichael and Longfellow are the only two programs in the United States that focus on Filipino Language and Culture. Unfortunately, our program is being undermined by the budget crisis in SFUSD and the capacities that were set by EPC for our incoming kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms for 2022-2023,” the letter read.

At a San Francisco School Board of Education meeting, protesters make their presence felt to make sure that their concerns and demands are heard by the board members directly. INQUIRER/Justin Katigbak

In her strong support for Filipino WLES, Associate Director, Filipino Community Center (also a WLES parent to incoming 4th grader) Elaine Villasper pointed out that District 11 where Longfellow is located, now has the highest concentration of the 32,700 Filipinos in San Francisco.

Jamel Ponciano, parent to incoming 2nd grade WLES student and incoming PTA President said, “Preserving WLES at Longfellow is important to my family because it helps preserve the teachings of Filipino geography, culture, language, and Filipino history in America which isn’t taught often in public schools. We want our children and other children to have the opportunity to learn about their own heritage in school.”

While they are happy with the positive development in their campaign for culturally relevant and language competent education for students, proponents Filipino WLES vow to continue efforts to give more families access to the program.