MPUSD will move a school out of federal jurisdiction, calming immigration fears.

For parents, taking kids to school and dropping them off in the morning is usually a simple, everyday task. But for parents entering federal jurisdiction, this routine dropoff and pickup can cause distress, particularly for people who have undocumented immigration status.

The Dual Language Academy of the Monterey Peninsula in Seaside is in this unique situation, and for years some parents have raised concerns about it. The Academy is located just off Gen. Jim Moore Boulevard, which is patrolled by the Presidio of Monterey Police Department.

Monterey Peninsula Unified School District Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh says since he came on board eight years ago, undocumented parents have shared their anxiety about crossing into an area under federal law enforcement jurisdiction. “I think it really intensified after the Trump election,” Diffenbaugh says.

The Dual Language Academy is MPUSD’s only Spanish/English program for transitional kindergarten-eighth grade, and started as a program in 2006, and became a stand-alone school in 2014.

The school is also facing low enrollment numbers. Instead of having about 550 students, an average for a school of its size, it has 310. It is also one of the schools that is part of a consolidation process MPUSD started last year because its student body is shrinking overall, from 10,409 students in 2011-12 to 9,393 students in 2020-21, a decrease of about 10 percent over a decade.

The district’s consolidation process also includes closing Highland Elementary in Seaside and Foothill Elementary in Monterey, both of which closed last school year. Colton Middle School in Monterey will close at the end of the 2022-2023 school year. For the 2023-24 school year, the Dual Language Academy is set to relocate about three miles away from its current location to Sonoma Avenue in Seaside, where Highland Elementary was formerly located.

MPUSD is investing about $5 million in that campus to upgrade the facilities, including new windows, carpets and floors. The Dual Language Academy is set to move there for the 2023-2024 school year. Plans for its existing campus remain to be determined.

“Once Campus Town is built out it would be a natural site for an elementary school or TK-8 that serves the new development,” spokesperson Marci McFadden writes by email.