The St. Paul school board voted Thursday night against a plan that would split the district’s Hmong language and culture program to ease overcrowding. Jim Vue, the district’s only Hmong school board member, was the only vote in favor of the proposal.
Instead, the board voted to add another specialist teacher to the middle school and identify ways to better utilize space at both the Txuj Ci elementary and middle schools. Vue was the lone vote against that proposal.
Several Hmong parents who had advocated for the plan to split the program walked out of the school board meeting in anger as it became clear the board would vote down their proposal.
“No more holding us back!” one parent shouted, pointing to his sign with the same message.
Another parent, leaving the school board meeting, berated Superintendent Stacie Stanley, asking that she learn to pronounce the name of the school.
School board members explained that they wanted to address the problems parents had raised, but did not think the proposal would provide the education or community that students needed.
Board member Yusef Carrillo said he had hoped to come around to supporting parents’ preferred plan as a means of redressing past harm to the Hmong community, but ultimately concluded that splitting the program would not meet the parents’ goals.
“Unfortunately, the division that that’s going to cause, I think, is going to lead to more enrollment loss and more student loss and more learning loss,” he said.
The board pledged to keep its promise to open a preK-8 school for the program, bringing the elementary and middle schools under one roof, no later than 2032 — slightly moving up the previous timeline the district had provided.
But for many parents, it was too little, too late.
“Our community won’t be here,” parent Ying Yang told the school board, before also walking out of the meeting. “I’ll make sure of that.”
ThaoMee Xiong, the executive director for the Coalition of Asian American Leaders, expressed frustration that the district had led the parents through a time-consuming process only to reject their recommendation.
“To put the community members through a process that was going to result in nothing is meaningless community engagement,” she said. “The Hmong community is sick of that. All communities are sick of that.”
Frustration spurs a walkout
Asian students comprise 28% of the St. Paul Public Schools student body, making it the largest demographic group in the district, and about half of those students speak Hmong at home.
But many Hmong families have also left St. Paul Public Schools, often opting for K-12 charter schools that offer a focus on Hmong culture and language. This trend began more than 25 years ago after families felt frustrated with St. Paul Public Schools’ failure to respond to their needs, said Joe Nathan, a longtime education advocate who helped develop the state’s first Hmong-focused charter school.
Parents at Txuj Ci HMong Language and Culture School, a popular St. Paul Public Schools program with a separate elementary and middle school, have been pressing the district for years for one school that would keep older and younger children together. The district agreed to develop a preK-8 school that would open sometime between 2031 and 2033. But parents were dismayed by the long and shifting timeline from the district — they said they had previously been told the school would be ready in three to five years.
In recent years to address overcrowding, the district had moved prekindergarten to a separate building, but parents took issue with sending the littlest kids off on their own. To bring back the prekindergarteners, they moved the fifth grade to middle school — but they thought that would just be for a few years before the preK-8 school opened. With a new timeline, they wanted a new solution.
A workgroup that included parents, convened by the district, voted in March to recommend an interim option to ease overcrowding before the preK-8 school opens. The workgroup chose from among options the district presented. Their recommended option would separate the smaller Hmong studies program, which focuses on culture, from the language immersion program. Under that plan, the Hmong studies program would move to a currently vacant building on Prosperity Avenue. The fifth-graders, who are currently housed in the middle school, would also return to the elementary school.
But there was a six-month delay in the workgroup’s recommendation reaching district leadership, as the district welcomed a new superintendent. When the board considered the recommendation in October — as well as a second, newly introduced option to move the Hmong studies program to Hazel Park Preparatory Academy — Superintendent Stanley said that she could not recommend either option.
Txuj Ci parents, tired of their needs going unmet and feeling ignored by the district, called for a stay-home day of Hmong students on Dec. 15 to show their power in numbers and pressure the school board to take action.
Sai Thao, one of the organizers of the stay-home day, estimated that more than 1,000 students stayed home in protest Monday. District data show that 59% of students were absent at both Txuj Ci campuses — about 500 more students absent than the previous Monday. Several high schools also had significant participation, Thao said. Thao is married to Vue, but stressed that she is speaking on her own behalf.
Districtwide data show that 24% of all St. Paul Public School students were absent on Monday, up from 18% the previous Monday, though it’s difficult to know how many of those absences are attributable to the stay-home day; on another day last week, 27% of students were absent.
But some parents in the Hmong studies program objected to the proposal to move out their children.
Pao Vang has children in both the Hmong studies and dual language programs, and was considering moving them out of the school — or the district — if the school board voted to separate the programs. He supported the workgroup parents’ goals, but not their solution, he said.
“From my perspective, it’s just like you don’t want me in your school,” he said. And many parents in the Hmong studies program were not aware of the proposal to move their program out, he said.
RELATED STORIES
Parents and students held a rally in district headquarters’ frigid, snowy parking lot Thursday evening prior to the school board meeting, holding signs and chanting for Option A, the choice that would move the Hmong studies program to the Prosperity building.
“We’ve been dismissed. We’ve been silenced. They have not been listening to us,” Yang told the crowd through a megaphone from the bed of a truck. “We’re here for our students, and without you all here today and pushing to make sure the school board makes a vote for us, our language and culture and our school is going to slowly die.”
Difficult transition to middle school
In a public comment period before the school board meeting, several Txuj Ci students spoke, alongside Hmong elected officials and African American community leaders standing in solidarity with the Hmong community.
Sixth-grader Julia Yang said she’d felt isolated when she moved to the middle school as a fifth-grader.
“My experience at the upper campus was quite empty. This was because the only other classes we had were science and gym for electives,” she said. “I know that this was supposed to be a temporary move of five years, but now it may be an eight- to 10-year project. That’s a long time for the fifth-graders to be isolated from the lower campus.”
Fourth-grader Nkauj Ib Yang — Ying Yang’s daughter — told the school board she eats lunch at 2 p.m. because the cafeteria is so crowded.
“Can you imagine how it feels like to try to learn and feel hungry at the same time? I imagine most of you do not eat lunch that late,” she said. “Please vote for Option A. If you do nothing, I stay hungry and my language disappears.”
Sixth-grader Seng Thao also described a difficult transition moving to middle school as a fifth-grader. He’d been sad to leave his siblings, cousins, and teachers, but his parents convinced him this move would be temporary.
“Now, I heard that it will not be soon. It will be a very long time from now, maybe even after I graduate high school,” he said. “Adults ask kids to be responsible for action and words in school. I was asking the same thing from you. Please stop fighting our parents and just listen to them.”
Ramsey County Commissioner Mai Chong Xiong, whose children attend Txuj Ci, also spoke at public comment.
“This program is a success story,” she said. “This is a good problem to have, and right now, our children are being held back by severe overcrowding and lack of space.”
She asked the district to adopt the workgroup’s recommendations.
The board votes
As they began to discuss the future of Txuj Ci, board members first shared reflections on their visits to the schools. They praised how students could see their culture reflected at Txuj Ci, and described a warm environment.
“It’s a beautiful community,” said Vue, whose child attends the lower campus. “It’s an extension of my home. When I go to that building, I don’t see a school, I see a family. When I see the other children in the school, I don’t see students. I see our future.”
But as the conversation turned to practical next steps, it soon became clear that the proposal to move Hmong studies into a separate building did not have the support to move forward.
Board member Carlo Franco said it had become clear to him that Txuj Ci had a thriving community and had urgent needs for better facilities.
But, he said, both options were unworkable.
“What also has become more clear is that the two options that the district — us — presented to the Txuj Ci facilities workgroup, were not options that, in my opinion, can really meet this moment, that really will work to yield the desired outcomes that the community has told us that they want, or that will extend to every scholar in our district,” he said.
Board chair Halla Henderson expressed appreciation for the workgroup’s efforts, but said moving out the Hmong studies program could get the school further from its goal of unifying.
“What we have also heard time and time again that the beauty of Txuj Ci Lower specifically is being together,” she said. She had heard from many parents that they would choose their school community over their specific program, she said, which raised questions about the viability of a separate Hmong studies school away from the existing school community.
However, she added, she still wanted to address community concerns about a well-rounded education for fifth-graders, and demonstrate that the board intended to follow through on the preK-8 school. She also stressed that the work to address these needs would be ongoing.
Carrillo acknowledged that the workgroup had followed the guidelines that the district had laid out, and apologized.
“The workgroup did the absolute best that they could with the options that they had, and dismissing their choice is hurtful,” he said. “We operated under a set of guidelines and rules that we didn’t fully understand, and then brought you to a place where your two options were going to, I think, really, really hamper the programs.”
Vue, speaking last, expressed deep disappointment. He referenced an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” comparing it to the district’s history of letting down the Hmong community.
“The crew of the Starship Enterprise was stuck in a time loop where their collective decisions in that loop inevitably destroyed the ship. Upon the destruction of the ship, the loop would repeat itself,” he said. “We, as a board, find ourselves in that loop again.”
Franco proposed a resolution to add a specialist to the upper school, work with both schools to maximize cafeteria, busing and assembly space capacity, and open the preK-8 school no later than the 2032-33 school year. Vue voted against it, but all other board members voted in favor.
Vue addressed the audience, invoking incoming St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her. Her has frequently quoted her late friend state Rep. Melissa Hortman in explaining why she challenged a sitting mayor.
“If this board does not represent your needs, then these seats do not belong to us,” he said.
