Daniel Webster to Continue General Education Track, for Now

On a quiet stretch of Missouri Street in early October, families at Daniel Webster (DW) Elementary attended a community meeting led by San Francisco Unified School District’s (SFUSD) communications team to discuss ‘great news for the future of the Spanish Immersion program’. The district was set to announce the institution’s conversion into full Spanish Immersion, and the end of DW’s general education (GE) track. 

The potential impact on the roughly 360-student campus wasn’t small. Based on the school’s current structure—two Spanish Immersion (SI) classes and one GE class per grade from kindergarten through third; paired SI and GE classes in the combined fourth/fifth—roughly one-third of Daniel Webster’s pupils participate in the GE track. Eliminating GE would mean shifting an entire segment and dozens of children away from a program that’s long anchored the campus and provided a neighborhood option for Potrero Hill families. 

The proposal’s suddenness prompted concerns about teachers’ positions, families being split between campuses, and how such a transition would affect siblings and the role Daniel Webster plays in the community.

Parents described what followed as an intense 24 hours. 

“The news hit the same day as a press release about Mission Bay opening as English-only,” one parent said. “Then it was a flurry of activity; parents emailing, the PTA stepping in, teachers worried about their jobs.” 

Within a day, SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su sent an email stating that the district had decided not to pursue the plan and instead “will closely monitor Webster’s enrollment and program needs as we open the new Mission Bay Elementary school.” 

“The plan was to start phasing in the new structure the following year, but once we received feedback and questions from DW, we decided to assess the data next year before making any decisions,” said Laura Dudnick, SFUSD director of communications. “Currently there are no changes in DW next year or the year after.”

“It was a complete 180,” recounted a parent. “The whole thing is kind of a mess; caused a lot of distress in the community. The Board made a hasty decision and then unmade that decision.”

For Daniel Webster families and staff, the proposed phase-out prompted questions about job security and how classes would be operated if GE disappeared. At community and workforce meetings, district officials didn’t offer concrete answers. Several GE teachers reportedly believed that they were about to lose their positions, creating what one parent described as “24 hours of panic” before the plan was reversed. 

“I can’t find experienced candidates to fill bilingual positions as it is,” DW Principal Anita Parameswaran said. “There wasn’t one staff member who was on board.”

Set to open in August 2026, Mission Bay Elementary School will be English-only, offering Pre-K, Transition Kindergarten (TK), and kindergarten in its first year, expanding to TK to fifth grade by 2032. The district’s original idea was to gradually phase out DW’s GE program. Under the concept, English-instruction kindergarten would end in fall 2027. The school would gradually become an all-Spanish-instruction campus by roughly 2032. Families seeking an English pathway would be directed to the Mission Bay campus, with one year of overlap between the two schools before GE disappeared from Webster entirely.

“Currently DW can only accommodate about 10 percent of students who live in the attendance area for GE,” Dudnick emphasized. “At the same time, we saw a high interest in DW’s Spanish Immersion program and saw that they won’t be able to accommodate everyone that requests as well. We thought splitting it this way can accommodate as many families as possible for both tracks.” 

Eliminating GE at Webster would reduce neighborhood access to a school that’s long served Potrero Hill. A language-program-only Daniel Webster would become a citywide institution, with students likely coming from across San Francisco. Several parents argued that would effectively diminish priority for local children and force especially lower-income and South Slope families to travel farther for English-instruction seats. Parameswaran emphasized that the GE pathway is deeply rooted in the school’s history and central to its student body composition. 

“The majority of our Black kids are in our GE pathway,” she said, “and some rely on being able to walk to our school. Rerouting them all the way down the hill is not okay.” 

Under the proposed phase-out, those families would have to travel to the Mission Bay campus; a longer and less accessible journey for many. 

As a result of Mission Bay Elementary’s 2026 opening, SFUSD will soon be managing three elementary schools in a dense and diverse enrollment zone, reportedly the fastest growing in San Francisco. For Daniel Webster families, the jarring episode demonstrated how tightly woven the school is into Potrero Hill. The district’s rapid reversal suggests that community voices continue to carry weight at SFUSD. 

“This is our local public school,” one parent said. “When decisions are made and unmade this fast, it shakes the community. People make real choices about housing and childcare based on this stuff.”