The school search: A rough guide to the less-mobbed elementary schools

Deco detail at F.S. Key Elementary

Parents seeking a San Francisco kindergarten are freaking out right now about the looming decision and lottery. More and more SFUSD public schools get more applications than they have openings. It’s great news for our schools that the list of oversubscribed ones is increasing rapidly, but it also makes things tougher for families.

(For the uninitiated, SFUSD has an all-choice enrollment process – families may apply to any school in the district. They may – and are urged to – list seven schools.)

The school district provides year-by-year information on openings and requests for each school. I went over the list to see which schools had fewer first-choice requests than openings in the most recent year (last spring’s lottery for this school year), hoping that would help parents seek out some less-oversubscribed ones. The complication is that some attract many, many total requests – lower-ranked but not first-choice requests – and those schools still fill up fast. This is admittedly a simplistic list. For any number of reasons, some schools get far more lower-ranked (not top) requests than others, so this isn't a clear gauge of an applicant's chances..

Still, taking note of which schools get fewer first-choice requests than they have openings gives some guidance as to which aren’t the very most oversubscribed.

A number of SFUSD schools have a language immersion track and a general education track. SFUSD’s language immersion programs are designed to enroll half native English speakers and half native speakers of the target language. Many SFUSD schools also offer programs specifically designed for students with a first language other than English, to bring them up to speed in English. Our district calls the latter type of language program “bilingual.” I’m not including them on this list on the basis that since these posts are unfortunately in English only, families who don’t speak English are unlikely to be reading them.

Here are the SFUSD elementary schools that had fewer first-choice requests than openings for kindergarten for the current (08-09) school year. (Note another caveat: Younger siblings of currently enrolled students have priority for these openings.) Schools with asterisks got fewer total requests than they had openings.

• Bessie Carmichael*

    375 Seventh St., South of Market

• Bret Harte*

    1035 Gilman Ave., Bayview

• Cesar Chavez

    825 Shotwell @ 22nd, Mission District

• Cleveland

    455 Athens St. @ Persia, Excelsior District

• Commodore Sloat

    50 Darien @ Junipero Serra, Balboa Terrace

• Daniel Webster General Education (GE)* (note: Daniel Webster opened a Spanish Immersion track after the initial lottery round, so that isn’t reflected here.)

    465 Missouri @ 20th, Potrero Hill

• Dr. Charles R. Drew

    50 Pomona Ave. @ Thornton, Bayview

• Dr. William L. Cobb

    2725 California @ Scott, Lower Pacific Heights

• El Dorado*

    70 Delta @ Harkness, VIsitacion Valley

• Fairmount Spanish Immersion (SI)

    65 Chenery @ Randall, between Glen Park/Noe Valley/Mission districts

• Francis Scott Key

    1530 43rd Ave. @ Kirkham, Outer Sunset

• Frank McCoppin

    651 Sixth Ave.  @ Balboa, Richmond District

• George Washington Carver

    1360 Oakdale @ Lane, Bayview/Hunters Point

• Garfield

    420 Filbert near Kearny, Telegraph Hill

• George Peabody

    251 Sixth Ave. @ Clement, Richmond District

• Gordon J. Lau

    950 Clay @ Powell, Chinatown

• Guadalupe

    850 Prague @ Cordova, Crocker Amazon District

• Harvey Milk

    4235 19th St. @ Collingwood, Upper Noe Valley

• Hillcrest

    810 Silver @ Cambridge, Portola District

• Jean Parker

    840 Broadway @ Powell, North Beach

• Jefferson

    1725 Irving @ 19th Avenue, Sunset

• John Muir

    380 Webster @ Oak, Western Addition

• John Yehall Chin

    350 Broadway, North Beach

• Jose Ortega GE
• Jose Ortega Mandarin Immersion (MI)

    400 Sargent @ Arch, Ingleside/Ocean View

• Junipero Serra

    625 Holly Park Circle, Bernal Heights/Outer Mission

• Lafayette

    4545 Anza @ 37th Avenue, Outer Richmond

• Leonard R. Flynn GE (but not SI)

    3125 Cesar Chavez @ Harrison, Bernal Heights/Mission

• Longfellow

    755 Morse (near Mission/Geneva), Outer Mission

• Malcolm X*

    350 Harbor Road @ Middlepoint, Bayview/Hunters Point

• McKinley

    1025 14th St. @ Castro, Duboce Triangle

• Monroe GE (but not SI)

    260 Madrid @ Excelsior, Excelsior District

• New Traditions

    2049 Grove @ Clayton, Panhandle

• Paul Revere GE and SI

    555 Tompkins @ Folsom, Bernal Heights

• Redding

    1421 Pine @ Larkin, Tenderloin

• Robert Louis Stevenson

    2051 34th Ave. @ Pacheco, Sunset

• Rosa Parks GE
• Rosa Parks Japanese Bilingual-Bicultural (note: the Japanese program is not specifically aimed only at native Japanese speakers)

    1501 O'Farrell @ Hollis, Western Addition

• Sheridan

    431 Capitol @ Lobos, Ingleside/Ocean View

• Spring Valley

    1451 Jackson @ Larkin, Russian Hill/Nob Hill

• Starr King GE
• Starr King MI

    1215 Carolina @ Wisconsin, Potrero Hill

• Sunnyside

    250 Foerster @ Flood, Sunnyside District

• Sunset

    1920 41st Ave. @ Ortega, Outer Sunset

• Sutro

    235 12th @ Clement, Richmond District

• Tenderloin

    627 Turk @ Polk, Tenderloin District

• Ulloa

    2650 42nd Ave. @ Vicente, Outer Sunset

• Visitacion Valley Elementary

    55 Schwerin St. @ Visitacion, Visitacion Valley