On Thursday night, the Sacramento City Unified School District Board voted to create the Yav Pem Suab Academy.

 

Dennis Mah is president of the Urban Charter School Collective…a group formed to lobby for the new school.

 

He says Hmong children continue to have the district’s lowest test scores.

 

“Many people thought that ‘Hmong are Asian, they’re going to do great. They’re going to go on to UC and be top students.’ But in the process of introducing this charter they found that many kids drop out of school, have difficulty, have brushes with the law and don’t go on to university. They don’t fit the mold of the typical Asian.”

 

Mah says the new charter school will be open to children of all ethnicities. But rather than offering Spanish or French language classes like other schools…the new academy will focus on the Hmong language and culture.