By Sophie Sullivan and Alina Ta, CalMatters, Dec. 14, 2025
There is a new cost to hiring an international worker to fill a vital but otherwise vacant position in a California classroom: $100,000.
In September, the Trump administration began requiring American employers to pay a $100,000 sponsorship fee for new H-1B visas, on top of already required visa application fees that amount to $9,500 to $18,800, depending on various factors. These visas allow skilled and credentialed workers in multiple job sectors to stay in the U.S.
Most foreign workers on H-1Bs in California work in the tech sector. But California also relies on H-1B visas to address another issue: a nationwide teacher shortage and a high demand for staff in dual-language education and special education in K-12 districts.
I’m seeing lots of Mandarin programs being cut due to budget deficits, not just in Canada. What’s confounding is that Chinese immersion programs are often oversubscribed, so it would seem you might want to keep them. I don’t know that they’re more expensive that other types of programs, teachers aren’t paid more in most districts for working in bilingual programs. Any thoughts?
Burnaby mom fights to save Mandarin program as school district deals with deficit
As the Burnaby School District faces a $4.2 million budget shortfall for the next school year, a mom is fighting to save programs at her daughter’s elementary school, including Mandarin language education.
The district is considering a broad range of cutsto deal with its deficit, affecting things like elementary band, libraries, advanced learning, and counselling.
Parent Denysa Leung is worried about the Mandarin Language Arts program at Forest Grove Elementary, where her daughter is in Kindergarten.
(click on the link below and you can hear the story)
Emily Feng March 25, 2025
STEVE INSKEEP: When you travel in China – as our team has been doing – you meet a fair number of people who know English. Millions of Chinese citizens have been educated in the United States. They include the top executives of companies, economists, government officials. The president’s daughter attended Harvard University. The flow in the other direction is much smaller, but there is some, even in this time of rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies. So what is it like for Americans who learn the language of a trading partner and rival? NPR’s Emily Feng visited an American elementary school that teaches it.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Anybody want breakfast?
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: It’s Monday morning at the Yu Ying Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: I hear Mandarin Chinese floating through the hallways of this 700-person school.
Do you want to speak in English or Chinese?
Lukas Wouhib is a 10-year-old student here, and he really wants to speak in Chinese.
(Speaking Mandarin)?
“Why do you like learning Chinese?” I ask him.
LUKAS WOUHIB: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: “I like learning Chinese very much because it’s hard,” Wouhib says.
PHOENIX — The Mandarin immersion program at Gavilan Peak School in Anthem is being phased out due to low enrollment, a recurring issue in recent years.
Deer Valley Unified School District Deputy Superintendent Gayle Galligan said a standard kindergarten class is 24-26 kids, and the minimum for an immersion class is 20. But right now, fewer than 10 prospective students are interested in the Mandarin program for the upcoming school year.
“In immersion programs, we go from kindergarten through eighth grade before kids go up into high school,” Galligan said. “If you don’t have a robust kindergarten group of kids over nine years, there is just natural attrition with families moving or making other choices, and so that number in kindergarten tends to dwindle all the way through 8th grade.”
Denver students embrace new languages in immersive education experience
Denver Language School boosts bilingualism by immersing students in Spanish or Mandarin.
9News: Byron Reed April 21, 2025
DENVER — Denver Language School, a K-8 charter school within Denver Public Schools, is providing students with full immersion education in Spanish or Mandarin Chinese, helping create bilingual global citizens from a young age.
The school, which has grown from about 700 students to over 900, teaches approximately 90% of the school day in the target language, allowing students to develop proficiency without relying on translation.
“We do math, also, we do science. We do social studies. We are talking about geography,” said Valeria Minoli, kindergarten immersion Spanish teacher. “Many subjects are only in Spanish.”
Students begin in kindergarten learning either Spanish or Mandarin and continue that language track through eighth grade. The school is adding French to its middle school program next year through a partnership with the French American school.
The U.S. government has implemented a $100,000 feet for H-1B visas, which are meant for highly skilled workers coming to the United States. The previous fee was around $7,500.
Will this impact Mandarin immersion programs? Possibly, but it’s not clear how many teachers come in on these visas.
In the past, many districts made use of teachers from China as part of the Hanban teachers program. However most of these programs have now been ended due to concerns over possible influence by the Chinese government on this program and its teachers.
In addition, teachers sent from Hanban (which has been renamed the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, or CLEC) were in the U.S. on J-1 visas, not H-1B visas. J-1 visas are for participants in “cultural exchange programs.”
It appears that most of the teachers in the U.S. using H-1B visas are more often teaching math and science, though there are very likely quite a few immersion teachers as well – but how many is difficult to know.
The National Education Association estimates that “over 500 public K-12 school districts in the United States collectively employ over 2,300 H-1B visa holders.”
If your district relies on H1-B visa holders to staff Mandarin immersion programs, feel free to reach out to me and I can write about how it’s impacting programs.
Some stories about the program and how it’s impacting schools:
A lawsuit filed by schools includes this immersion program:
“For instance, plaintiff Global Village Academy Collaborative — a public nonprofit that oversees a language immersion charter school network in Colorado — said it cannot afford the up to $500,000 the new policy would cost to hire world language teachers for the 2026-27 school year.”
“In 2014, Telluride kindergarteners began their school careers learning in both English and Spanish through a two-way dual language immersion program.
The goal? To make all students bilingual, biliterate and bicultural, and “close achievement gaps, help our native Spanish speakers, and really help build a multicultural worldview for our native English speakers,” said Superintendent John Pandolfo.
The program depends on H-1B teachers from Spain, Mexico, Colombia and other countries. This year, Telluride has 12 H-1B teachers. That first cohort of kindergarteners is now in 11th grade.”
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 