San Xavier Mission School reopens after two years of being closed

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — When entering San Xavier Mission School, you’re going to be immediately met with the sound of children learning. It’s a sound that has been gone the past two years after their guardian Friar Ponchie Vasquez sent a letter to parents in August 2022 letting them know the school was closing.

It closed because of declining enrollment and not enough teachers. Now they have a few teachers and staff members that are in charge of 15 students in kindergarten, first, and second grades.

Minh Randolph Solorzano, their principal, is excited to see the new students and also renovations like an updated library and classrooms and a new playground.

“It’s a mixture of a lot of emotions like a roller coaster,” Randolph Solorzano said. “It’s exciting at the same time and also there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it.”

That hard work included getting grants from the Catholic Foundation for the Diocese of Tucson and the Tohono O’odham Nation as well as donations from organizations, churches and parishioners.

“One of the main challenges is recruiting teachers,” Randolph Solrzano said, pointing to a state-wide problem in Arizona to retain and get new teachers.

Rossario Esquer teaches kindergarten, first, and second grades. On Monday she was in her classroom, asking kindergartener Marley Schmitt and first grader Samyra Ignacio their thoughts on the new school and their favorite parts about their days.

“It’s definitely a challenge because every kiddo is at different levels,” Esquer explained.

Originally, she was going to be the second grade teacher but she said the school didn’t need an upper grade teacher.

“So what we have come up with is teaching them at their level and so that was our base and our foundation,” she said.

That involves teaching some students a specific lesson, even if they’re in different grades, while the rest of the class does packets of work.

“They are listening to the lesson and sometimes when their classmates get stuck, obviously my kinders, they pipe in and they help them out with an answer like oh, you can use your fingers, or oh you can use your learning tools,” Esquer said.

The school also has another teacher for their Tohono O’odham language program and also teacher assistants while Randolph Solarzano teaches religion.

“Being able to teach them has been such a wonderful experience, so we’re looking forward to continue to see them grow,” Randolph Solorzano said.

Next year the staff is hoping to open up a third grade and they are hoping to expand every single year until they reach the eighth grade.

Esquer said while they’re providing students with the best education possible, their mission is to also expand the San Xavier Mission Reservation’s mission to include the community.

“Our school and our mission statement for this year is bringing the community back in and breathing that life back into the San Xavier reservation,” she said.