San Francisco Immigrant Forum - Regular Meeting

Hi everyone, welcome into this month's SF Immigrant Forum regular meeting webinar. Today is Wednesday, December 3rd. We're going to allow some folks to trickle in and join us and we'll get started in a moment, but thank you for being here. And as folks trickle in, just a reminder that the chat function is not open to participants, but if you have any questions, please do use the Q&A function. This meeting is being recorded and the recording will be shared out afterwards as well as posted on our YouTube along with our presenters slides. So welcome in. All right, we're going to go ahead and get started. Again, this is the bi-monthly SF Immigrant Forum regular meeting. My name is Jamie Richardson. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the Senior Communications Specialist for the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs with the City and County of San Francisco. Before we get started, this meeting does have interpretation available, so I'll give a moment for folks to get connected to either Spanish or Cantonese interpretation channels and give a moment for folks to read the instructions on the screen. All right. Hopefully everyone is connected to their interpretation channel and we'll get started. Today's SF Immigrant Forum meeting will start with some steering committee updates from our city departments that we'll get into in a moment. And our special topic today is on resources for immigrants and their families in an academic context. And we're hearing from three great speakers from some amazing organizations in the Bay Area, Immigrants Rising, Refugee and Immigrant Solidarity in Education with the San Francisco Unified School District, also known as RISE SF. And then we'll conclude with Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco. As a reminder, this meeting is being recorded. It will be published on OCIA's YouTube and shared out to everyone on the listserv or everyone that registered for today. So if you're, you know, You don't need to take notes. We'll be sending out the recording as well as the presentations. After each speaker, we'll have an opportunity for Q&A. So if you have any questions as our presenters are sharing the information, please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We'll collect the questions and try to get to as many of those as we can for each presenter. And then we'll close out. So a little bit about the SF Immigrant Forum. If you're new here, this is your first webinar. This space is part of a three-prong approach to support immigrants, asylees, and refugees in San Francisco. And it includes three aspects. One is our resource website, sf.gov slash immigrants, where we post resources, upcoming events and opportunities, and ways for immigrant communities and service providers that help them to connect with low barrier resources. The forum is also an email listserv that you can join, and we'll share some information on how you can do that. But that is our two-way dialogue as part of the immigrant forum for people to share upcoming opportunities with other service providers supporting immigrant communities, share events, and ask for help or advice. And then today, our regular webinar community forum where we're convening service providers to share information and resources that support the immigrant community. And these happen every other month. And this is just a preview of our website, sf.gov slash immigrants that I just mentioned. You can access a bunch of resources. This is how you can connect with our listserv. It is a Google group, so you just need to join, add your email, and then if you have something to share, you would send it to the sfimmigrantforum at googlegroups.com to share that with everyone. And if you need help accessing the listserv or assistance on how to join, you can email OCIA at civic.engagement at sfgov.org. And then lastly, our next forum that we invite y'all to join, just like the one today, will be taking place in the new year on January 28th, last Wednesday of the month. And the topic that we are going to present on for that next one is emergency preparedness planning for immigrant communities. And we'll be sharing a lot of resources there. You can find the link to sign up. I'll add it to the chat later this meeting, but it will also be on our website, sf.gov slash immigrants. And if you would like to present as a service provider at a future meeting, regardless of a planned topic, and it's something you would like to share with this broader community, here is a QR code to sign up to provide that presentation. We just want to make sure that the presentation is relevant to service providers in the San Francisco Bay Area and is focused on an opportunity or service or program, and your presentation is no longer than 15 to 20 minutes in length. So if you're interested, please sign up and we'll reach out and coordinate from there. All right. So next on our agenda, we're going to give some brief updates from our steering committee. or the Immigrant Forum. And I can start on behalf of the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs, OCEA. And let me stop sharing my screen for a moment. So some updates in the last few months, OCEA has been convening several working groups with other city departments and community partners around the sanctuary ordinance policy, as well as messaging and communications. And we continue to host monthly community response planning meetings. Our partner commission, the immigrant rights commission has also held 2 important meetings in the last couple of months on October 27th. They convened a special hearing on immigration enforcement and San Francisco's local response efforts. And I'll put the, um. recording in the chat if folks are interested in viewing that hearing, as well as last month on November 10th, the Immigrant Rights Commission held a hearing on transgender immigrants. And lastly, I wanted to share that yesterday OCEA, in partnership with community partners and the Latino Task Force, hosted a work permit clinic. helping asylum applicants with their work authorization applications, which was successful. And for our next clinic that's coming up, we have a small computer-based citizenship workshop at the public library, lawyers in the library on January 27th in the new year. It's a Tuesday and it's appointment-based and all of these opportunities are available on sf.gov slash immigrants.

i'll pause there and pass it over to my colleague christy at the department of public health over to you christy thanks um so i just wanted to share like many city departments and cbo's that department of public health is facing significant financial pressures from the federal cuts to medicaid to state budget cuts and even local budget challenges yet the department of public health wants to ensure that all residents still have access to health care Via Medi-Cal, it's still open for enrollment and through Healthy San Francisco, which is available to those who are not eligible for Medi-Cal in 2026. So I will pass to Andy related to Medi-Cal. Thanks.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Andy Beatley Hegler, and I'm with the San Francisco Human Services Agency. Happy to speak with you today, even during these difficult times. And yes, I think the main update to pass along to you all is about the changes to Medi-Cal and some of the other public benefits. As many of you know, starting January 1st, 2026, Medi-Cal enrollment will be restricted in some ways for Californians without immigration documentation. And so specifically undocumented Californians age 19 and above who don't currently receive Medi-Cal benefits will no longer be eligible for full healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal at that time. And so, you know, if you already have coverage, You remain eligible as long as you stay enrolled regardless of immigration status that's one thing to be clear on, but I think most important for people who don't have medical now and who don't have full immigration documentation just want to make sure to apply for medical before the end of the year. What I will do is I will post a link to the HSA website, and this link will talk about community partner resources, which includes educational and outreach materials, such as a webinar that HSA put out that overviews public benefits programs and upcoming changes, including the one I spoke about. So I'll do that now, and then that should be shared with you all in a minute. So that was the main thing I wanted to mention. And aside from that, I'll just give a very quick plug to a program that I'm personally very invested in, and I admit it won't affect too many people out there. But if you or anyone you know obtained the immigration status of refugee or asylee, or if you're an entrant from Cuba or Haiti, if you're in any of those categories and you obtained your immigration status on or after October 1st, 2024, then you may be eligible for a Refugee Housing Support Program, RHSP. So that's a program where we can help pay your rent and even your utilities for a certain period of time. So I'll put some information about that up here as well. And you can reach out to me directly with questions. I'll put my email as well. And I think that's really about all that I have to review for right now. And so I think I'll pass the mic here. Let's see. I'm not exactly sure who's next here, I have to admit. But should I just pass it back to you, Jamie, or who should I pass it to?

Yeah, we can pass it to Vicky with MOHCD.

All right. Thanks.

everyone good afternoon Vicki Castro with MOHCD she her pronouns um most recent update is that uh our department is working with um guarantees for the supplemental immigration budget that the Board of Supervisors passed. So that's really great news to make sure that we are able to provide extended services to those in need. and more information on that unfortunately I can't give that because we're right in the middle of the process but as soon as we're able to uh more information will be about what what are those exact services um that will be added on um I think that's it from from mohcd I'll pass it back to Jamie

Thanks Vicki and thanks everyone for the updates from the city side of things. Next I'm going to invite my colleague Elena Jimenez to come on camera and I'm going to pass it to her to introduce our speakers for today. So take it away.

Hello, we would like to first introduce Madeline Villanueva, the Interim Director of Higher Education at SF Immigrants Rising. Her organization ensures that resources and support exist for undocumented community members in pursuing education, building careers, and fueling broader changes. We're so grateful. Thank you so much for joining us today and very grateful to pass the mic over to you now.

Madeline Villanueva- You all i'm going to pull up some slides right now, just to get us started. Madeline Villanueva- And great so i'm kicking us off to just share how to support undocumented students in their pursuit of higher education, right now, as mentioned, my name is Madeline Villanueva and I use she her pronouns. And I know we had a quick blurb already, but our work at Immigrants Rising is across the state of California to empower undocumented folks to achieve their educational and career goals. I'm sharing a lot about our higher education resources today, but we also have support in mental health, career, and entrepreneurship that you can check out in our website. And so I want to start with uplifting this message and ask you all to also uplift this message that higher education is possible and continues to be accessible for undocumented students here in California. And we have this great resource here on the right side of this screen that talks about the different policies and support that's accessible even with this current political climate. We know there's a lot of misinformation happening. And part of the work is to make sure that students and families still understand that things like in-state tuition through AB 540 and state financial aid through the California Dream Act is still accessible and available. And that there's also scholarships open for all students, regardless of immigration status, and that there's a strong network of support across our colleges and universities in this state. A new update that I do want to share is about two weeks ago, the Department of Justice sued California for some of our in-state tuition and financial aid policies. And this follows similar lawsuits on other in-state tuition policies in other states. It was based on the reasoning that policies like this discriminate against US citizen students. which we know is false since AB 540 is open to any eligible students, including those who identify as US citizens and legal permanent residents. And so we're still waiting on updates on this lawsuit, but nothing has changed currently and we at Immigrants Rising are kind of ready to defend this policy alongside our partners and have also kind of heard indication from Governor Newsom that he's also ready to fight this lawsuit. But for practitioners and service provider, the messaging to share with students who are considering college is that AB 540, the California Dream Act or CADA and the California Dream Loan Program is still available. If students are eligible, they can continue to turn in applications and practitioners who are guiding students and processing applications can continue to do so as they had done before. So, in that same vein, I do want to share that the California Dream Act or CADA is open currently, and it has this year a priority deadline of March 2nd or September 2nd for California Community College students. And as a reminder, this is our state application that is available for both AB 540 eligible undocumented students. And I'm gonna talk about that in a few slides from now, as well as mixed status students. So those are students who come from families with different immigration status. So for example, a US citizen student with undocumented parents. And this option was kept for this year because of those data privacy concerns with submitting information to the federal government through FAFSA. We have not seen any immigration enforcement that have happened or data sharing that have happened because of FAFSA data, but we're not sure if that's going to change in the future, right? And so this is kind of the solution for families concerned about that. And should be a conversation that practitioners have with mixed status families. The thing to note about CADA is that it does only provide access to state and institutional financial aid. So mixed status students who only apply to CADA will be foregoing federal financial aid. So again, part of the conversations to have with mixed status families. And for undocumented students, it does give access to paid professional development opportunities. There's a statewide fellowship that's open to AB 540 students, as well as the Dreamer Service Incentive Grant, or DSIG for short, that gives funding to students who complete a certain number of volunteer or community service hours. And the whole thing to note with KEDA as well is that the information shared in the application is protected by different state laws and CSAC, who is the organization that administers the application, also shared their commitment in making sure financial aid continues to be accessible to all eligible students in California. And here is just some resources to support applicants, including our DREAM Act checklist that gives like a step-by-step guide on how to complete the application. These are available in both English and Spanish, as well as a parent, a great parents guide from our partners at GO Public School and a guide for applicants who identify as foster youth and unaccompanied minors from partners at JB. And just stepping back a little bit, I did mention that AB 540 is kind of the opener for the California Dream Act. And it's really the key to higher education for undocumented students. This is a state policy that gives access to in-state tuition for eligible students, including undocumented folks. And that's important because it lowers down the cost of college since non-resident fees are so expensive. And it also provides access to state financial aid as mentioned through the Dream Act. AB 540 has really expanded over the years that it's been implemented and students don't necessarily need to have even attended high school here in California to qualify. They can now pull in California Community College and adult school attendance and degrees in order to meet eligibility. And we have a quick guide that breaks down what those eligibility requirements are. And we also have our California in-state tuition tool where students can actually input their educational history to understand whether they qualify and what their next steps are, whether they're eligible or not eligible. This is a great tool to kind of sit down and take with students so you can talk them through their different options. For AB 540, students actually also need to submit an affidavit to the school they're attending in order to be coded properly as AB 540. And we have a resource that walks students as well through that process. It can be submitted through the California Dream Act application or directly as a paper affidavit to the school themselves. And this is a super important process to get financial aid because um a student needs to be coded as ab540 at their institution to receive their financial aid on time and we know that not all students are able to qualify for ab540 right away especially newcomer students who may be complete only one or two years of high school here in california before graduating and so there are ways to build eligibility and we also have a resource that talks about different helpful policies in local community colleges that can help students kind of build that attendance and degree requirements and then lastly um we are hearing a lot of kind of questions and conversations folks are having around whether or not this is the right time to pursue um college or even if it's worthwhile to pursue college for undocumented students and so i always remind practitioners that our role really is not to kind of tell students what to do right but really how to help them make informed decision when it comes to their higher education options and that includes sharing some of these information i'm sharing today as well as some of these talking points on this slide including like uplifting the benefits of going to college regardless of immigration status Definitely all of the skills, connections that folks can make in college, but also the community that they can find, but also that a degree can open up opportunities for employment sponsorship in the future or even opportunities abroad. There are also protections and policies in place to keep campuses safe, including different California laws with new ones taking place and being implemented in January, as well as processes and protocols and institutions themselves to kind of safeguard their campuses. This obviously does not guarantee enforcement from not happening on our campuses, but it kind of helps prepare a response at least should they happen. And then as well, colleges also are able to provide legal services, basic needs resource, emergency grants to students, and there is that dedicated support right at our colleges and universities. And here's some additional resources to give some best practices, talking points, tips on how to navigate these conversations with undocumented students. And then lastly, I just wanna share some postgraduate options, because I think another common question I get is whether or not it's even worthwhile to go to college too, because students may not be able to use their degrees after, right? Because they can't work. And so again, entrepreneurship and independent contracting is available to anyone regardless of immigration status. And we have a great resource called Immigrant Biz Hub that provides the basic around entrepreneurship. as well as career activity groups which places students in virtual cohorts to explore pathways in specific fields like health and medicine so that they can understand what options are available for them, irregardless of their immigration status. Graduate and professional programs are also accessible to undocumented students and want to point out this great hub from the President's Alliance that has a lot of information and resources on how to access, fund, and navigate graduate programs. I also like to remind students that immigration status is not static and that things can change in the future. And regardless of what happens, the degree that you get and the benefits you get from that degree can really serve you and cannot be taken away from you. So kind of thinking about how to incorporate that as well in our conversations with students around higher ed. So I think that's it for me, but I want to leave my contact information as well as some additional resources here on this page. Thank you.

Thanks so much, Madeline. These are really helpful resources. We do have a couple questions. The first one, and I believe you mentioned this in the first slide, but could you reiterate, are you working only in SF or across the state for client referrals?

We are working across the state of California.

Great, thank you. And the second question is, some undocumented students are trans identifying, but have not come out to their families and sometimes their identity becomes a danger to the family immigration status, especially if they are undocumented or have mixed status. What services exist for safety protection and resources for trans students? who may become undocumented but cannot tell their families as the federal administration is almost complete in their efforts to remove trans rights protections. Long question, but feel free to ask.

Yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for that question. We don't have legal services or anything like that right now at Immigrants Rising, but can do kind of like referrals to trusted legal services around that because I think there's also like a lot of like documentation questions that come up right around that. And so I think I can reshare my email in the chat for folks to like reach out directly around that because I think it might be a referral kind of thing that we do.

Excellent. And I think, yeah, our last question is if you could share your email one more time. So we'll have you do that in the chat if that sounds good. Thank you. Alright, I think these are all of our questions. Any final thoughts before we conclude your presentation?

No, I'll just share my contact information. There's a lot more to know about and maybe more questions that are coming up, so feel free to reach out to me beyond this presentation.

Thank you so much, Madeline. Alright, I'm gonna next pass it to back to my colleague to introduce our next speaker, Elena.

We're so thankful for you, Madeline, and we're thankful now to Angelina Romano for joining us today representing the Refugee and Immigrant Solidarity and Education, or RISE-SF. Angelina is the District Coordinator at RiseSF, where their organization focuses upon increasing educational access for immigrant and refugee students, including newcomer support and sanctuary education in SFUSD school sites. So thank you so much for being here and we're really looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you so much for the intro. I'm going to share my screen. Go. So, hi, everybody. Thanks for being here. My name is Angelina. She, her, they, them pronouns. I'm a school social worker for San Francisco Unified and the district coordinator for RISE SF or Refugee and Immigrant Solidarity and Education Program. And RISE SF consists of myself and Cristian Pineda-Diaz, who is our newcomer Services Coordinator. I've been in the district for 17 years and in this position for the last 12 years. RiseSF is a part of SFUSD's Student and Family Services Division, which holds all of our social workers, nurses, family liaisons, community school coordinators, after school, athletics, and other support services. And as was mentioned, we are here to ensure the refugee and immigrant students have their access to education by increasing inclusive and culturally and linguistically responsive services for all of our refugee and immigrant students. So I'm going to talk a little bit in the next few minutes about what we do at RISE SF and then you'll have our contact information and ways to refer students and families that are enrolled at SFUSD or who need to enroll. So we have two overlapping areas of focus as was mentioned before as well. Sanctuary education is sort of the broader area of focus and then newcomer programming is couched within that. So for sanctuary education, of course, we focus on helping our school sites better increase knowledge about rights and services available to all of our young people and families that might be vulnerable to state repression, hate, bullying, or discrimination because of their country of origin, immigration status, languages spoken, et cetera. We really try to increase the idea of sanctuary to include all of our vulnerable families, not just our refugee and immigrants, because, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. So we really want to also center and focus on our Black students, our disabled students, LGBTQ, unhoused students and families, et cetera. And most of the work that we do around sanctuary is focusing at schools. We kind of think about the relationship that we are trying to increase or improve is a relationship between our families and their school sites. And we are lucky as of now at SFUSD that we do have social workers, family liaisons, nurses, and other staff at almost every single one of our schools. So we do work a lot with those teams to ensure that our young people are served. And then newcomer programming focuses on young people, usually three years or fewer, but since our newcomer enrollment numbers have really decreased since January. We sort of have increased that to be three to five years and newcomers or newcomer programming is where we offer more of our direct services. Whereas under Sanctuary, we do a lot more staff consultation, competency and capacity building. Sorry, I'll slow down. I forgot for interpreters. And so here I have listed just a few of the things that we kind of work on with our school sites and here essentially at the district level. I want to highlight our Newcomer Student and Family Welcoming, which are some structures that we've worked a lot on the last few years to make sure that our schools know how to receive their newly arrived families, that they offer orientation, assessment, linkages, like things from helping them set up their voicemail on their phone, making sure they know how to use the buses to get to and from school, etc. This was especially important in the last few years of the asylum search. Other things that we work on are student groups and leadership groups. We supported the the beginning of our Fuerte support groups in partnership with UCSF to have clinical groups for newcomer students at their school sites in partnership with community clinicians, as well as school site staff. And currently, of course, we do a lot of the work with our district leadership around the rapid response coordination and information dissemination when there's immigration enforcement, rumors, etc. And our aspirations at Rise SF for our values are to ensure equity, really promote the idea that culture is a strength and that our young people and families need to maintain a connection to their culture and family of origin in order to be successful in their education and also around Sort of shifting our focus on safety and safe spaces to how we can create more active brave spaces where we can find our courage together as a community. Especially nowadays, but always really and our approach is sort of based on the public health model of prevention. We have a tiered approach. uh to our interventions and preventions uh oftentimes what happens to a lot of our brown and black students at school is that folks tend to focus on their personal things that are happening and believe that the change needs to happen with that young person like they need therapists etc but oftentimes we try and have the school take a step back and think about the bigger picture and how institutional practices are creating harm, how we can create institutional transformative change, interpersonal change between each other, including staff. And then, of course, how we can make personal change, not just with the student, but also with ourselves. Right. And make sure that we're able to take a inventory check on ourselves and where our biases are maybe playing a part in disrupting access to education for our young people. And I wanted to highlight a few of the services we do. We are based out of 555 Franklin, which is a central office at SFUSD. We have a newcomer station at enrollment where we do a needs assessment, offering intake orientation and referrals to our newly arrived families, giving them really uh helpful resources bus tokens backpacks maybe making them a school id for the bus making sure that they have all their immunizations and tuberculosis clearance so they can start school we also have a beautiful partnership with good samaritan family resource center that is on site three days a week to help with medical and public benefits enrollment and also refers referrals to a primary care provider and of course we do a warm handoff to school so that they know that this family is coming through We are at 555 at the Enrollment Center Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And then also want to celebrate our collaboration with the Justice and Diversity Center, which is our legal immigration partners. We have consultations on Tuesday on-site at 555 Franklin with an attorney. This is The office that I'm in now, where asylum seeking newcomer families can meet with an attorney to get assessment, triage, some limited scope services like support with their asylum application, and learn about the Attorney of the Day program if they have an upcoming court, do a change of address, etc. And then, just to let, you know, a little bit about how is meeting this moment in our procedures that we. At rise, try and educate staff at schools what our procedures are in case there are rumors or community sightings or anything like that to let all of, you know, as well that our policy, of course, is to. encourage any, honestly, law enforcement official to go to 555 Franklin and talk to our legal department. We ask that staff not allow them onto campus. So honestly, sometimes safety assessments might lead to a different decision. um and then if no one is available we do reach out to rapid response but we do wait for the superintendent and the legal department to give us further guidance and of course like any other situation we have emergency procedures in place if there is an intruder or something's happening in the neighborhood like all school sites have secure protocols that folks can follow We also are really encouraging schools to build relational trust with their families so that they will come to them if they have some upcoming immigration appointment, if they've been detained, if someone's been deported, that they can refer to us or call rapid response. And definitely if they have an appointment coming up, that we can help facilitate accompaniment for that family or that young person, whether it's immigration court or an ICE appointment. and also to encourage the creation of family emergency plans. We kind of do this on a harm reduction basis. So if what we can do is get an emergency contact and that's all the family is able to do at that time, then that is what we really try to do. And so here's how you can get in touch with us. We have a no wrong door policy. So you can email us, you can call us, you can text us, or you or a family member or like a young person or a caregiver can fill out that QR code to a Google form to let us know that you need assistance. So not just legal. This is primarily for newcomers. So it's not just for legal stuff. If you need help enrolling in public benefits or need other supports for enrolling at school, you are welcome to reach out to us. And I can put this slide deck in the chat as well for folks. And that is all.

Thank you so much, Angie. Um, I, I really like the no wrong door policy. I think that's a beautiful note to end on, especially when folks are getting a lot of doors closed on them. So, thank you for sharing the contact information and I hope folks found something useful, especially if you work with families who have students in the San Francisco Unified School District. So, again, thank you. I actually don't have any questions for you from our group. So, If folks do have questions that come up after today's webinar, please do reach out to Angelina and the team at RISE SF. And just, again, want to share my appreciations for your presentation today, but also longstanding partnership with our department at OCEA and the work over the years, especially in recent years supporting our newcomer families. So thank you again. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Next, I will hand it back over to my colleague Elena to introduce our final speaker and presentation.

Go ahead and take it away. Echoing that gratitude and also excited to introduce Dr. Vanessa Marrero, who is the President of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco. For over two decades, this organization has been a cornerstone of access across the city, from offering crucial education advocacy to facilitating community engagement and delivering workshops that are tailored to the cultural and linguistic needs of our community. all while equipping parents with the tools necessary to support children's education and engage with school systems and community leaders. Very excited and grateful to pass the floor over to you now as well.

Thank you so much, Elena. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Dr. Marrero, as Elena mentioned. I'm the president of Parents in Public Schools of California. And the first thing I want to do is I want to thank all of you for the work that you are doing with not only undocumented communities, but other monolingual communities who need our support now more than ever. I'm going to share my slide deck here with you all. Um, and you'll be able to get this later if you want. Um, and we can also translate it fully, but basically parents of public schools, the 26 year old organization with a focus on success for public education, right? So that is our focus area is pre-K to 12th grade. However, a lot of our parents are enrolled in the community college district here in San Francisco. We have a mission, everybody. Our mission is to promote the fundamental value of public education. by pursuing the success of every public school. That means if you're on the West, if you're on the Southeast, if you're on the North, or if you're on the South. And we do that by sharing information, by bridging communities, and by informing policy. And so this is an image where we met with national leaders when Trump just came in office to talk about how are we going to mitigate all the threats that we're seeing to our communities. And I'll mention a little bit more about that in a minute. So what does that mean, Vanessa? What is demystified policy? Demystified policy is basically really creating transparent and accountable community-engaged governance. When we're at the board level, and if you look at boards, the Board of Education across the state of California, they make decisions about our kids. And so it's really important for all the information that is happening there to be disseminated in a way that parents, caregivers, and community are going to understand. And that's one of our focal areas. The next one is we bridge families. And there's a system of interconnected strategies here from strategic equity enrollment. We offer a number of enrollment workshops. where we meet with parents and talk with them about what options are there. In fact, I was just at an FCC last week and we led a Vietnamese session But we also are talking about how is the student assignment system working or maybe not working that well for our students and what do we need to do to tweak that? I always tell folks that Parents Public Schools is the critical friend of SFUSD. We love SFUSD and we want to make sure that we're able to share any improvement strategies that we learn from families. And the next one is amplifying voices. And so what this looks like is, you know, for example, last year when there was, or 23, when there was a focus on closing schools, we met with, you know, supervisors, we met with district leaders, we met with, I met with the state superintendent because, We felt that it was not going to help us to close any schools. So that's a way or an example that we amplified voices. Okay. We focus or like our why is opportunity gaps. And our social worker sister just spoke and I'm a social worker as well. No, full well. that there are a number of opportunity gaps that our families are facing. And before they get into an instructional classroom, they have to be able to be there and we have the resources they need. And as you know, my school district through SFRISE is doing amazing work and getting families resources and what we know is that on a national and even on a state level we have threats to students to families who are undocumented and we want to make sure that as we go through the election in 26 that we are able to safeguard different policies and entitlements that students get. And so we work a lot with folks across the state to talk to them about the value. And we bring San Francisco as a model so that other folks can kind of learn what we're doing here. As we demystify policy, and I mentioned this, we have a number of advocacy organizations that we work with, the National Public Education Organization, we work with the Advancement Project, we work with Parents of Public Schools National Office. Prior to this administration, I worked with the White House with a focus on the Latino Prosperity Initiative. And all that is to say that we have entitlements that are being stripped away. And so what we're doing in Parents of Public Schools is we're saying it really matters that we get these entitlements because as it trickles down to the states, it's going to allow our communities to be able to get the resources that they need. Some of our direct service work is a focus on writing different briefs. For example, we wrote the LCAP survey report, which was a number of strategies and recommendations that we gave to San Francisco Unified School District, and that was published with the state. We offer town halls and forums, and we offer roundtables. Besides that, we have programs, like I mentioned earlier, that has a focus on governance. We offer hashtag board watch, which means that we send real-time information through social media, and parents who are working, parents who are at home you know, working with their kids are able to kind of continue to engage and see what is happening across different agenda items. And we think that that is super important. One of the things I'll share with you in terms of bridging parents is that when we talk about enrollment, what we know is, and there was a brother in the chat that mentioned his preschool, is that SFUSD and the schools that are in it are not the only educators. We know that. And so how do we create a system of care that is going to be informative across different educational programs. One of the things that we do is we share definitions with parents. What is A through G? What is AB 540? How do I get into an immersion program? What is the difference between immersion and biliteracy? You'd be surprised how many of our own families don't really know the differences in the benefits and we do that because we want to make sure that they know that their goals for their student matters and that these programs can help manifest those goals to come true okay so Lots of different enrollment strategies there that I mentioned earlier. The other piece that I think is important is our flagship program, which is the Parent Ambassadors Program. Our Parent Ambassadors Program has been long lived. In fact, PPSSF started its work with Parent Ambassadors. And the way we do this now is through digital equity. What we know is that a lot of access can happen through digital, you know, mediums. And we also know that some of our families don't have access to digital mediums. So in this way, we give out computers, tablets. We help orient parents on different platforms. We help parents seek benefits across other platforms that are maybe more complicated and harder to navigate. And we do that in one-to-one and group sessions. We also talk about our schools and how great they are and the different things that parents should know about them. But what we know is that our young people, our families are not going to get to school if they don't have what they need to not only survive, right, but to thrive. And the last piece about the amplifying voice, you know, hashtag boardwatch. That's the thing that I mentioned to you where we tweet out, we post out real time information from the boardroom. And that initiative, what we also do is we provide public comment. And a lot of the public comment is, like I said, with a critical lens because we want to make sure that the school district and the board are focused on improvement methods and that those improvement methods, what we know is it'll help our young people. So last year I started this magazine called Board Elevate because the school board has a whole lot of documents that a whole lot of people do not understand. And they're always in English. So what we're doing is we're simplifying that. We're putting it into one digital means and that is being able to be translated across any language. We see that as valuable because we know that these decisions are going to affect our kids, right? And the last piece that I'll end with here is our different services related to development, school readiness. We have a class cohort that has a focus on developmental milestones, transitioning into preschool, transitional kindergarten, and kindergarten, understanding what the difference is within all of those areas. We also support TAY parents. These are parents that are from 18 to 25, and I actually facilitate that program because back in the day, I used to work at SFUSD for many years as a social worker, and that is still really close to my heart. Our TAE parents are focused on participatory action research, which is a way of researching problems and sharing solutions with folks who may be in power. We have lots of official statements that we share, lots of press releases. If you go to our website, www.PPSSF.org, you're gonna see a whole lot of different tabs with the different work that we do. It's a lot of work and I encourage you to engage with that website and kind of check it out. But one of the things I love about PPSSF is that our parents write blogs. And it's a parent that may have, you know, a different level of writing proficiency and a parent that may have another level meaning that we don't you know we don't reject any writing we want parents to tell their stories their stories are on our website within that newsroom tab you guys can check it out and read it and see what are our parents struggling with um and what we're really proud about is that We feel like we are a credible model. You know, life's not perfect. We are in a day and age where, you know, folks are getting sick, folks don't have nothing to eat, and they may not have too much to share with their students. But what they do have is community. And we are all part of one community, and I want to make sure that we're all thinking around that piece as we enter into the next six months. So this is our team here. Rosario Gonzalez focuses on school readiness. Brittany does a lot of the community and digital media. Jennifer, hashtag J, she actually was my student when I was at Civic Center back in the day. and she supports with TAY Youth, and the others are on our board, our colleagues of mine, and they support with a number of different areas. What does this tell you? This tells you that we have a diverse board, that we are represented, and that we believe that through that representation, that it's going to create the cultural competency for the organization. to manifest its goals, okay? Again, my name is Vanessa. You can email me at Vanessa at PPSSF.org, or you can give me a call. My number is 925-257-3717. We're living in difficult times, y'all, and I'm going to encourage you to lead with grace. Thank you for being here and doing what you're doing.

Thank you so much, Dr. Marrero, for joining us and for offering so much information. Really resonate with the intersectional approach in your work. And now I'm just going to pass the floor back to Jamie. So thank you.

Thank you so much, Elena, and thank you so much, Dr. Marrero. We do have one question that just came in, so let me read that for you. Many of our younger trans youth look up to trans elders. As a support system, because of their parents and families do not support them how can students navigate that if their own parents don't support. them, and you know the government doesn't as well. yeah how maybe how can they engage with your organization.

Definitely. Thank you for that question. I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm a trans mom. My son is 25 years old. He's on the spectrum and he, it's been up her battle, right? For educators to really receive him with all the important gifts he has to bring. So I'll say this. Parents of Public Schools focuses on policy, practice, and people. And we do that in a way, well we hope to do that in a way that is sensitive, but that is also going to be able to empower the system to change. So in San Francisco Unified School District, for example, there was a resolution with a focus on the LGBTQ community. It was supposed to be a parent advisory committee, and it was not happening, okay? And this was the same with our Latino resolution. So one of the things that we did in that example is we met with the then superintendent, Matt Wayne, to say, hey, We need to get this going. We need to hear from parents. I believe that once we hear from parents, we can see what's going on with their kids. There is nobody in an institution that knows our students better than our parents. And so that has to start there. So I would say that's an example of some work that we're doing. And then secondly, we're actually launching something called a hashtag healing hearts initiative, which is this like little filter behind me. And basically what that is giving some material resources, but also having dialogue circles to talk with parents about emerging issues. Sometimes parents just need a thought partner. And it's not institutional. It's not mental health. It's just like I'm a parent and I'm having bonding issues with my kiddo. What are you doing? So that's something that we are going to be offering and that will be offered in the women's building where we're at. I hope that answers the question.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that insight. And our other question was if you could drop your email in the chat for everyone to access, that would be great.

Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much, Dr. Marrero. And again, I just want to thank all of our speakers today. Really appreciate dialoguing around the context of academia and education and supporting our families with students of all statuses in San Francisco. across California, since these services are available. So thank you again to Immigrants Rising, RiseSF, and Parents of Public Schools in San Francisco. To wrap up today's meeting, I just really want to thank everyone for attending, whether it was your first time or fifth time. We are coming up on a one year of this SF Immigrant Forum webinar format. We hope you find this forum valuable and a place to dialogue and learn about other services available that can help you as a service provider or as a community member better serve those that you work with or people in the community or you can pass this information along to someone that might you know find it useful and it can be life-changing um as i mentioned i would put The next immigrant forum meeting that's happening in the new year in the chat. So let me put that link there right now. Again, that one will be focusing on emergency preparedness for immigrant families. So a lot of helpful information there. I know that's an important topic right now for folks to be prepared. And that will be on Wednesday. January 28th in the new year, 2026. And lastly, I will, if anyone is interested in presenting at a future immigrant forum meeting, I'm going to drop the link in the chat that I shared earlier in the meeting. You can sign up to present about a helpful resource that anyone can benefit from. And as we conclude, again, I just want to say thank you so much. I hope everyone is leaning on each other for support in these current times and continue to share resources over our listserv. If you haven't joined, please do. Go back in the recording or on our website to know how to join that listserv and share information or reach out for help and support. So once again, thank you and enjoy December and happy holidays if you celebrate. Thank you, everyone.