Like many school districts, St. Paul Public Schools in Minnesota has struggled with enrollment decline. But the addition of language immersion programs, which now include Spanish, Mandarin, French, German and Hmong, For the first time since 2018, St. Paul Public Schools’ enrollment decline was barely noticeable. The district schools that have added the most students since 2022 were two Hmong programs, a new East African Elementary Magnet School and a Spanish immersion school.

St. Paul school district halts enrollment slide. The secret: listening to immigrant communities.

Schools offering Hmong, Spanish and East African language or cultural programs saw the district’s biggest gains.

by Becky Z. Dernbach, Sahan Journal

The second-graders in Mee Kong’s classroom had not finished their breakfast yet, but they were ready to get to work. 

Their assignment: to create a book about their mom’s side of the family. One child sketched her siblings on virtual pages on her tablet. Another pulled up an old photo of her family celebrating Christmas.

“How many of your brothers and sisters go to school here?” the principal, May Lee Xiong, asked her.

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