SAN FRANCISCO—On Tuesday, April 13, the Mayor of San Francisco and community leaders announced the completion of a new preschool located in the Mission District.
The new preschool is located in the Mission District at 969 Treat Avenue and is expected to “serve 100 families,” states a news release from the Mayor’s office.
The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, SF’s Office of Early Care and Education, and SF’s Office of Economic and Work Development funded the preschool, which was more than $6 million. Organizations like Mission Greenway, Dolores Street Community Services, and First 5 of San Francisco contributed as well as others.
According to the press release, 15 percent of families in the Mission District identify as Asian American/Pacific Islander, 15 percent as African-American/Black and 40 percent as Hispanic/Lation. The Office of Early Care and Education discovered in 2019 that 40 percent of Latino and Black students were not prepared for Kindergarten.
The Mayor of San Francisco stated that “high quality, safe early care and education helps young people and their families succeed and thrive” and said they are investing across SF so “every family has a convenient and welcoming place to access child care and other important family services.”
The announcement comes one day after San Francisco schools began reopening. In an April 12 tweet, Mayor Breed said:
“It was so exciting to be able to finally be able to welcome back students to the classroom at Bret Harte Elementary today! There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to get all of our students back to full-time, in-person instruction, but this is a good step forward.”
San Francisco’s schools reopening comes more than a month after California Governor Gavin Newsom and lawmakers reached an $6.6 billion agreement to have CA schools open by the end of March.
In a March 1 press conference, Governor Newsom said out of the $6.6 billion, $2 billion would go toward “grants to help in-person instruction” for school districts while the other $4.6 billion would be for “reimagining the school year, giving districts flexibility, looking at school days, looking at intervention — deeper intervention to address kids’ wellness, to address their needs as it relates to community learning hubs” and to “address learning loss as the districts see fit.”
The governor said if schools are not reopened by April 1, 1 percent of funds will be taken away for every closed day, noted The New York Times, and will become zero by May 15.
Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Dr. Vincent Matthews said “11 early education preschool sites, 22 elementary schools and three County schools” will reopen to “some students for in-person learning,” in an April 9 news release.
San Francisco’s schools re-opening came the same day Governor Newsom announced that CA has the lowest COVID-19 positivity rate in the country at 1.5 percent and “administered over 23 million vaccines,” he tweeted April 12.
