Families of next year’s kindergartners got their letters from SFUSD today assigning them to a school, after the first round of the placement lottery.
Or actually, it’s an “offer,” as SFUSD officials have said. Former Educational Placement director Orla O’Keeffe told me once that the initial letter is “the start of a conversation.”
Be that as it may, in our all-choice school district, a lot of families list seven school choices and don’t get any of them, because SFUSD has many popular, highly regarded, oversubscribed schools. If they don’t get one of their choices, they are assigned to the closest school to their home address that has openings (after the lottery). By definition, that will be a less-popular school, so lots of those parents are unhappy.
They can go through an elaborate process choosing other schools and trying again in the second round of the lottery, or putting their names in a “wait pool” for openings at a preferred school.
Congratulations to the families who got a school they’re happy with, and my condolences to the others.
The wildly popular blog TheSFKFiles, started last year by a parent then going through the process, provides a window on the outcomes, at least with the hundreds of parents who post there. Obviously it’s not a representative sample, but the blog attracts the high-powered, savvy parents who are most likely to be very selective about a school and very involved in the process.
The thread on this year’s placement has gotten more than 300 posts so far today (since everyone’s mail came). I followed the equivalent discussion on the blog last year too. From that unscientific sampling, it’s apparent that far more parents are happy with their placements than last year. Parents were also more braced for the worst this year, and – thanks largely to that blog – are generally much savvier.
The fact that the district has announced that it will reopen the closed De Avila Elementary School on Haight Street, as a Cantonese immersion school, clearly took a lot of the pressure off. Most of the parents posting whose kids were assigned to that school sound willing to accept it -- and hopeful and excited. They’ve already started a Google discussion list. One or two were concerned about the safety of the neighborhood (which frankly seems bizarre even though Haight Street admittedly has drug and homeless issues, since it’s a trendy and expensive place to buy or rent – if it’s so dangerous, why would people pay big money to live there?).
A number of parents were outraged about their kids’ assignment to John Muir Elementary in the Western Addition/Hayes Valley. It’s a largely disadvantaged school between a low-income neighborhood and an ultra-trendy artsy district. Again, the applicants who didn’t luck out, and got none of their seven lottery choices, tend to be clustered in less popular schools. It’s not a plot; it’s the way it works mathematically.
More than last year, we saw some posters voicing dismay about assignments to the very same schools other families were happy with. Jose Ortega general education (as opposed to its Mandarin immersion program) was a notable example. It’s ironic that Jose Ortega (albeit the Mandarin immersion strand) is where the daughter of the blogger, Amy Graff, ended up after last year’s process. And Graff and her husband turned down elite Marin Country Day School in favor of Ortega – which not on the middle class radar in the slightest until last year.
It’s very notable that far more than last year, what appear to be numerous posters (most are anonymous) are urging parents to give lesser-known schools a try, or even declaring that they’ll do that themselves.
So far it looks like the assignment process went relatively smoothly this year, but best of luck to those who are still trying for a school. As always, Parents for Public Schools is an all-purpose resource for families going through the process.
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