Sequoia Adult School celebrates 100 years

After its establishment 100 years ago the Sequoia Adult School still stands, having faced down new and familiar challenges while remaining dedicated to its goal of helping students achieve academic success.

“It’s pretty amazing. Our school has gone through a lot of transformation,” Sequoia Adult School Director Jonathan Fu said.

Sequoia Adult School has been serving mid and south county residents since its founding in 1921, largely catering to immigrants in need of language classes and lessons on key trades of the eras.

While much has changed over the decades, Fu noted the demographics of the more than 2,000 students being served by the institution annually are largely the same. With its current campus located in North Fair Oaks, a prominent Latino community in the Peninsula, Fu said the school has been aptly placed to serve those most in need of the resources.

Dinora Solano, a former Sequoia Adult School Student, knows firsthand how vital the school’s offerings are. After moving to California from El Salvadore with limited English skills, her husband encouraged her to go back to school and the free courses at SAS helped her excel into classes now at Cañada College as an Upward Scholar, a program aimed at providing low-income adults with financial, academic and community support.

“If it wasn’t for Sequoia Adult School, I don’t think I would have taken those first steps to learn English,” Solano said through an interpreter.

Speaking in English, Solano said her understanding of the language is good but she still gets intimidated because she feels her vocabulary is limited. Part of her determination to continue learning the language comes from the encouragement of her husband and peers. Her interest in studying child development and upward mobility is another key factor.

But the journey hasn’t always been easy, Solano noted. When she first arrived, she began working at a bakery where she often was a cashier. Having been a small business owner in her home country, Solano felt comfortable operating the register and most customers who entered the Latino-owned and operated store spoke Spanish.

It was after an English-speaking customer berated Solano for not being able to converse with him that she decided she never wanted to experience that type of humiliation again.

“I was crying and felt terrible. My manager told me to remember the man’s words not in anger but in a way to motivate me,” Solano said.

Refocusing during the financial crisis

Lionel de Maine, Sequoia Adult School’s former director of nearly 20 years, said serving students like Solano has been the core mission for adult schools but the 2008 financial crisis brought that into focus. During that time, Fu said the institution saw its budget cut by 65%, and de Maine was tasked with downsizing the school’s offerings to keep afloat.

Initially, the school was offering fee-based classes in partnerships with other community-based organizations like programs for senior community members and parent education, de Maine said.

Many of those programs were forced to leave the campus after the school no longer had the revenue to subsidize lessons. In turn, de Maine said the school’s focus switched to the vital programs made available today, noting closing was never a question. Instead, they came out of the financial crisis stronger and returned to their roots of serving immigrant and nonnative English speakers.

“Adult schools have always been crucial. The emphasis was stronger now on building up the workforce,” de Maine said. “Things like that which are an important part of communities, they continue.”

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the state has changed the way it funds adult schools, separating revenue streams from the kindergarten through 12th grade school districts that once held control. Fu said that change is because of a shift in how the state values adult schools, ultimately providing the system more stability as an essential community resource.

Still, funding for adult schools is only a fraction of what elementary and high school districts receive, Fu said. Unlike school districts, Fu said the adult school doesn’t have the capacity to establish a foundation to fundraise on behalf of the institution and while the school can accept donations, Fu and his team can’t actively campaign for the assistance.

“We do have to be scrappy,” he said. “We have to be extremely resourceful.”

Pandemic challenges

Like de Maine, Fu has also had to lead the school through tough times, taking on the director position at the start of the pandemic. Having been with the district for six years — starting out as an English as a Second Language coordinator before becoming a program director and assistant director — Fu was intimately aware of the types of support students would be needing both academically and in their personal lives.

As classes transitioned to remote, Fu said officials had to figure out how to provide students with the necessary technology, noting that while the school is technically part of the Sequoia Union High School District, its students do not have access to district equipment.

The school has played an important role in connecting apprehensive residents to vaccinations through events hosted in partnership with the county.

And thanks to a partnership with a local nonprofit, Fu said the school began hosting weekly food distributions for community members regardless of whether they’re enrolled in classes that still serve more than 125 families today, however, food support has long been an available resource on the campus, de Maine said.

Other resources have also been standard before the pandemic, Fu and de Maine said. The school has acted as a bridge to legal assistance, access to health care, mental and emotional support and a path into local community colleges to continue their higher learning.

“Because of our history, we’re pretty well established. I feel like we have a lot of trust in our community,” Fu said.

Future stability, services

Looking ahead, de Maine said adult schools across the state will have to contend with major staffing and recruitment challenges without the larger budgets and employment benefits provided through the public school system or in community colleges and four-year universities.

As Fu framed it, a teacher can more easily nab a community college role at a higher, more stable pay rate than they can while teaching at adult schools given that roles are often part time, come without union support or health benefits and require costly credentials.

To address credentialling challenges, local adult schools in partnership with the San Mateo County’s Adult-Education, College, Career, Educational Leadership Consortium offer scholarships to those who are interested in teaching at the adult school settings.

“We have to have people in place to make sure they’re transitioning successfully,” Fu said.

Ultimately, de Maine said those who do opt into becoming adult school teachers often do so out of a passion for the work and are met with flexibility in their scheduling.

They also get the opportunity to work with students who frequently turn to adult school programming with a strong drive to improve their lives, a growing population as many started to reconsider their paths during the pandemic, de Main said.

“There’s a lot of rigor in adult school education, especially in those core programs people aren’t aware exist and two decades ago didn’t exist,” de Maine said. “In our case, it’s not lack of colleges, it’s lack of awareness and belief.”

sierra@smdailyjournal.com

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