Updated 10:30 p.m. August 20 — I really do need to get a good night’s sleep tonight, but I’m trying to answer all the questions I’m getting and sort out for myself what issues really need addressing by the staff and which are just issues that are bound to arise because some people feel they “won” while others feel they “lost” when they saw the attendance area maps and feeder patterns. Here’s my working list of questions I am filing away to ask the staff at my next opportunity:
- Language programs and pathways – lots of questions here about why some pathways are separated and others are merged — why wouldn’t it make sense, for example, to have both of the Japanese language/culture pathways (one at Clarendon and one at Rosa Parks) go together to the same middle school? Why did we feed the two very small Mandarin pathways (Starr King and Jose Ortega) into two separate middle schools rather than bringing them together?
- Child development programs – the explanatory materials for parents need more explanation of our Child Development Programs, how to apply and a map of where they are located.
- Middle school capacities vs. likely enrollment year one: the McKinley parents have complained that it looks like too few schools are feeding into Everett Middle School, but that seems to be the case for most of the middle schools. See this comment thread for more info.
- Should we tweak the west side feeder patterns? I love that Cobb is feeding into Presidio and the 1-California and 38-Geary bus lines are a straight shot from Lower Pac Hts to the outer Richmond. But I wonder if perhaps Peabody or McCoppin should also feed into Roosevelt to boost the school’s neighborhood draw and keep the school socioeconomically diverse. Both schools are much closer to Roosevelt than they are to Presidio.
- “Placeholder” pathways for Flynn and John Muir into ISA — IB programs are sequential and are not fully built at the elementary schools. Until they are, students feeding into ISA will not be getting IB in any form — why make them travel so far until the program options are in place?
- (Added Aug. 20) GATE – some middle schools have honors programs; others take a differentiated approach with high-achieving students. This is an enormous hot-button issue, as some people think the answer is to eliminate the remedial track altogether and instead educate everyone to a higher (i.e., college-ready) standard. Others think that the equity issue is that there aren’t honors tracks at all schools. Historically, the “honors” track was really the “college-prep” track, but now everyone is supposed to be on the college-ready track. Most people will probably agree that there isn’t much place for a remedial track at middle and high schools, but some will insist that a high-achieving track should still exist. My question is — how many students are truly gifted and how many are happily yet appropriately on-track for college? This distinction has gotten blurry over the decades and there are big fireworks to come on this issue.
Rachel Norton 
With regard to the TI kids and busing. I think I am going to throw in a penalty flag here. I understand that in the interest of choice it makes sense to pick more than one school for TI – but how were those two schools chosen? Chin and Sherman are very high performing schools, traditionally – so was the intent to make sure that the children living on TI are guaranteed spots at high performing schools? Clearly, proximity wasn’t high on the priority list, because Redding, Lau, Spring Valley and Parker are all closer to TI than Sherman. So, perhaps it is that it will increase diversity? But why not give these kids access to less diverse schools? Claire Lillienthal has only 20% low income and 12% ELL – compared to 56% free/reduced lunch and 40% ELL at Sherman. Not to mention that if most of the children residing on TI currently ride the bus, a statistic that I am sure is available, isn’t the assignment process almost forcing these kids to pick between Sherman and Chin. How would they get to Claire Lilienthal? And lets not forget that Claire Lilienthal has a bus going between its two campuses several times a day. But those kids can’t benefit because they can’t get there to begin with. This looks like poor planning to me.
I would like to echo what Christine wrote on 8/21. I also live in the boundary of a school that has been identified as one of the worst in the state (Muir) but I am not CTIP 1. It seems to me that at least for the worst schools, the maps should be drawn so that only CTIP 1 areas feed that school – that way I am on a level playing field with all the other CTIP 2 parents in the district.
One of the reasons this is particularly unfair is that the lottery preferences favor folks from “densely populated” school districts, which is defined by the number of people who submit an application on time. What this means as a practical mater is that people who live in popular or good school districts (i.e. white and Asian and not dominated by CTIP 1 parents) will very likely get the “dense population” preference – which means they have a leg up not only for their neighborhood school, but also for city-wide schools and programs as well as other neighborhood schools outside of their own area. CTIP 2 parents in bad school districts lose out to CTIP 2 parents in good school districts, even when those favored parents choose schools that are not their assigned neighborhood school. I have yet to see any justification for favoring one group of CTIP 2 parents over another when they choose schools that are not their own neighborhood school.
The simple answer is to draw the Muir school boundary so it only includes CTIP 1 areas. But I think the better option is to get rid of the “dense population” preference completely because it unfairly gives a group of CTIP 2 families an advantage even when they aren’t listing their own neighborhood school. As an example – a parent who lives in the Alamo school district, but wants Rooftop will have a preference over me, a CTIP 2 parent assigned to Muir. The Alamo parent would even have a preference over me if we both choose McKinley. That is not fair and I have yet to see any justification for this preference.
I know I have read at least a few times the new SAS treats all CTIP 2 parents the same, but it does not.
Thanks for all your hard work Rachel.
Rachel,
A read of the Board Policy P5101 seems to indicate that your child would be assigned to their elementary school feeder middle school in the general education program. Since immersion programs are considered city-wide, you would then have to go through the lottery to receive placement in an immersion middle school program, even if one exists at the school you are feeding to? So in other words, you are not guaranteed a slot in the immersion program at the middle school you were originally assigned to? Am I interpretting page 10 correctly?
I have two daughters enrolled in the Mandarin Immersion at JOES. I recently heard that there are two middle schools are proposed for the MI programs, which ours being Aptos. I believe is good for my children, but I cannot speak for everyone though I believe the majority are in favor of this transition based on survey results. The point being, I am happy with the decision so far and want to offer my family’s support for the choice that Aptos remain the target school.
I attend JOES in the OMI and Id like to mention our school body is very happy with the district’s draft assignment to Aptos. We have been hard at work surveying our parent body over the last several days and more than 85% like the district’s decision. We have more community meetings scheduled but all-in -all, the community is supportive.
Aptos is a local school and many of our families live in the community. Community is an important concept at our school-since we have been working very hard to build a cohesive school, with improving academics, through strong parent involvement and a committed teaching staff. We are beginning to truly gel, despite the fact that we have multiple tracks ( GE, Immersion, etc) at our school.
Many in our community have noted the strong set of comments coming forth on the topic of Mandarin Immersion.
Having more than one Mandarin middle school is a positive for the city. it allows different neighborhoods a chance to access immersion language; it represents a platform for growth and expansion of a clearly attractive program, and it allows benchmarking, sharing of best practices, and overall I would suspect a better experience for students at both programs. Obviously the district has seen wisdom and value in multiple immersion tracts for other languages–isolating Mandarin to one school in my mind diminishes it as an SFSUD offering.
There are probably a list of other reasons both for and against a combined immersion track. Im sure people could argue either side. One would say its inconsistent from a stewardship perspective to bus children from location A to B when they could simply go to a school nearby. Others might say its equally inconsistent to hire staff and A and B to teach a program when it could be done centrally at A. B. or C. Similar pros and cons could be made with respect to academics, social justice, etc. The decisions are not easy.
I just wanted to make certain our voice, one of satisfaction with the current recommendations is noted. I hope as you explore your own positioning with staff, they are at least reaching out to those affected.
@CeCe – I asked that question last week at the meeting and was told that the team wanted to give TI kids a choice, which is probably partly true but I think there are enough kids on TI that they would essentially fill any one school they were bused to (the entire area is CTIP – 1) and result in more racial isolation. So now the proposal is to have one bus route out of TI serving two schools — Sherman and Chin. In addition, any TI student is able to choose any other school as they will all have CTIP preference, but busing availability will limit access to many schools if families have no other transportation.
@Carolyn K-5 immersion strands feed into immersion strands at middle schools. Monroe’s immersion strand is designated to feed into an immersion strand at Denman. Alvarado’s GE track will feed into GE at Lick. Alvarado’s SI track will feed into SI at Lick. So that is a complicated way of saying that immersion strands are not citywide at the middle school level — there are designated feeder patterns (lots of immersion parents currently have issues with them, but all of this is out there for discussion).
@gbtw read Anne’s comments about James Lick — schools without a GATE program don’t necessarily ignore their gifted kids — they just serve them differently. It’s a philosophical difference. I think it’s problematic to families, since some are OK with that approach and others want a more traditional “honors” program; and anyway we need to have a conversation at the district level about why it’s OK to keep some kids in a remedial track when “honors” has always meant college-prep. Now we want everyone to be college-ready, so why hold some kids back? It’s a really difficult discussion that gets emotional very quickly for people. But we have to figure out how to have it.
Re moving the spring after 5th grade, doesn’t help you very much since middle schools have feeder patterns, not attendance areas. You’d be better off participating in a choice process if you don’t like your initial middle school offer. And btw since you have emailed me offline, I know what middle school you’re referring to — I would just say, go there, meet the principal, spend some time getting to know the school in the next few years. You might feel differently!
@dale and rosa parks parent – thanks for your very thoughtful comments on various sides of the immersion/feeder debate. To me the issues seem to be on the one hand viability for our still very small but very promising Mandarin programs vs. space and second language exposure for students in FLES and not immersion programs. To me, those things don’t seem mutually exclusive and I must say — pending some deeper discussions with staff, I’m inclined to advocate for 1 Mandarin feeder program as opposed to two; but keep the Spanish immersion pathways much as they are. Chinese Immersion School and Buena Vista have both raised good questions about the district’s ability to create new immersion strands; I agree we need to pay attention to these questions. I particularly appreciate the insights about the two Japanese FLES programs and find them persuasive. Anyway, I’m asking for much more public discussion of the staff’s thinking behind the language pathway proposals, so stay tuned for that probably at the Sept. 13 meeting of the ad hoc committee.
Why is Treasure Island divided in half? If I was a parent and lived out there I think I would want to be able to carpool with other parents who live out there. This does not help in building community, instead it divides communities. This is one neighborhood…why won’t it be treated this way for schools/families? Thanks Rachel.
thx rachel. even though i’m feeling underwhelmed at the middle school we’ll be assigned to if i don’t move, in general, i think this whole system is an improvement. i do think having neighborhood schools offers great predictability, and that’s a very big step in the right direction. i am disappointed about argonne, but, in the end, if things stay this way, really- i could just move. that wouldn’t have worked before, so maybe i’m better off that it’s a neighborhood school. just skimming over these GATE comments and this is way ahead of me b/c my daughter isn’t even in kindergarten yet— but what if a child tests as gifted, but the middle school he/she is assigned to does not have a GATE program? are there any alternatives or preferences given for them to transfer somehow? also, what happens if you move… meaning, (although i’m sure it’s discouraged), can i just move to the neighborhood of the middle school we want to attend anytime by the summer before my child is slated to start middle school? i hate to be so negative and maybe our middle school will get better before we get there, but i gasped when i saw their scores just recently (i hadn’t looked past elementary schools before).
I sent this into the district feedback site ( http://sfusd.ggnet.net/feedback/) too, but I also wanted to put it here. I live in the inner Sunset and already have a school assignment I’m happy with, so this doesn’t affect me directly, but I still think it’s important.
—
I’ve been thinking more about the access to city-wide programs, especially to language programs. I do think that the current proposal is quite logical when it comes down to how it designates a city-wide school: K-8s, language immersion and Montessori are all city-wide. (The artificial separation between the Japanese and the Russian, Italian and Spanish FLES programs being the sole oversight.) However despite its logic, I find that the current proposal is unfair.
Due to historical influences in the District, most of the language immersion programs are on the east side of the city, mostly because the schools on the west side have historically been high demand schools. But we now have the situation where most of the schools in the west are high-scoring attendance area schools and most of the high-scoring (or at least highly demanded) schools in the east are city-wide language immersion schools. This has a disproportionate impact on families in the east who will lose access to the attendance area schools in the west and won’t gain access to the high-demand city-wide schools in their area.
I think that a compromise needs to be struck. I don’t have a very specific proposal, but Paul Revere and Flynn should remain city-wide programs, due to their respective K-8 and IB programs. The other Spanish immersion programs should have some reserved for local residents and others city-wide. Perhaps some of the programs could have a larger, overlapping attendance area. For example, Fairmount would have a “regional attendance area” that would consist of the Glen Park, Serra, and Alvarado areas and Buena Vista would have a “regional attendance area” that would consist of the Flynn, Chavez, Moscone and Bryant areas. It’s true then, that residents of the Alvarado attendance area would have a better chance at getting assigned to two schools (Alvarado GE and Fairmount SI), but residents of CTOP1 tracts also get an advantage at multiple schools. With this change, it is likely that the “English-dominant” applicants will come from the region and the “”Spanish-dominant” applicants will be city-wide. Other Spanish immersion programs should remain city-wide.
I realize that one of the goals of this redesign is to simplify the process, and my proposal would re-complicate it, but the current plan is not equitable to the families in the southeast and my proposal would be a way to rectify that. The current plan is logical but inequitable.
Hi Rachel–I have not read all the comments so if this question was already asked please forgive me. (And I did not see any info on this on SFUSD’s Q&A.) These questions have been coming up with Monroe parents. #1 I assume that immersion middle schools or middle schools with immersion programs are still considered part of the “citywide” application program, correct? #2 I assume that kids from SI elementary schools that feed into Lick (like Alvarado/Fairmont)- only feed in to their General Ed program and not the SI program- and these kids will have to apply to the middle school immersion program just like the rest of the SI kids from schools that don’t feed into an immersion middle schools—is this correct? Thanks!
I strongely believe that combined Mandarin program is the best approach. The same applies to the Cantonese and JBBP. That does not mean the MI and GE tracks need to be separated, as Omar implies. It only means they need to feed into the same school.
1. We are facing a economic hard time right now. We don’t know when the economy will recover. Even when it recovers, the district’s plan to add so many language programs in middle schools in a few short years look very ambitious, unrealistic ambitious. Where do you get the qualified teachers, administers, and other personnels?
By having separate programs, it automatically doubles the work.
2. Smaller programs do not have the economy of scale. To cover the width of the program, it has to sacrifice the depth. I will use the library as an example. For a small program with 1 class per grade, what kind of library collection can you build? Now, what if there are 3 classes?
To get even better economy of scale, merge the Cantonese and Immersion programs. Imagine what kind of library collection this can create.
3. Honor tracks. Immersion kids deserve honor programs too. How is it possible if there are only 20 or 30 kids in the program? When we are talking about 60 kid MI, 80 kids JBBP, or 100 kid CI, it is not only possible, but you will have a lot of flexibility in designing the classes.
4. I understand that there is a concern of language isolation. However, we live in San Francisco, I don’t think it is a valid concern. Immersion parents purposely choose to have the kids taught in another language, because they know the importance. Many families have two or three languages at home.
I doubt any parents in immersion programs will even consider language isolation as an issue.
Again, I believe that the district did a terrific job with the immersion programs at ES level. I hope you can continue to focus on the primary goal of having the best language tracks, public or private, not only in bay area, but in the state, or even nation-wide. There is a real opportunity here. Please listen to the parents.
Have to agree that it seems VERY hard to justify the splitting of the Mandarin programs. Keeping different strands within a school together is great– but not when it comes at the clear detriment of the education of the Mandarin immersion kids, not to mention the district’s own Mandarin immersion program. There’s a real danger that parents will start walking away come middle school, not because of the particular school, but because the district has failed to show a real commitment to a strong Mandarin program beyond elementary school. Keep the kids, parents, resources, and momentum in one place.
Under the draft plan, my family has been placed within the attendance area (the boundary is just across Guerrero Street) of a school that is classified by the State as persistently underperforming, yet we are a block outside the nearest CTIP1 boundary. Is this typical or intentional? We’re feeling pretty unlucky — people across the street have a great neighborhood school, people on the next block have CTIP1 preference, and we have neither.
My suggestion is that, for persistently underperforming schools at least, the attendance area should be drawn to be contiguous with the CTIP1 boundaries. This means that no one will be assigned to that school without a meaningful choice. I understand that socioeconomic diversity within the attendance area will suffer, but many parents like me will choose private school over a persistently underperforming school and so SE diversity within the attendance area will not translate into diversity within the student population.
Thanks for maintaining this consistently helpful and insightful blog.
Rachel–
James Lick approach to Honors/GATE/differentiated instruction works quite well overall, even for high achieving kids. A student can go into more or less depth in an English assignment, write a longer more detailed history essay, etc. With a good teacher, kids can tackle a subject at their level. Where this approach has fallen short is math instruction because a slower class really can hold higher achieving student back (it’s tough for a math teacher to teach multiple concepts at once, so the teacher has to choose between leaving some kids behind in confusion, or having other kids waiting in bored agony.) This year James Lick has implemented more ability/achievement based math classes. So far (end of week 1) my daughter is so much happier to be in a math class that meets her needs. Other than math, I think a general mix of kids is a good idea in middle school. Keeps everyone on their toes.
i agree that the mandarin programs should be integrated at one school. should the district, in the future, decide to create more elementary school mandarin programs, they then should add mandarin immersion at a second (or third!) middle school. for now, the numbers of children are small and would be best served in one school.
working together as one program proves invaluable when sharing resources, recruiting and training staff, and continuing to plan the program as it grows.
my concern is less about the school site than the division of the program. i know that the aptos assignment for JOES is considered more desirable than mann, and i must point out that the new feeder plan will reduce the diversity of aptos, which is unfortunate. starr king has diversity to offer.
we were told, both SK and JOES, many times that their would be one middle school placement for our program. discussions with the district took place until this past summer about where that place would be – with no mention of feeder school system changes or division of our program.
Rachel – I am a parent at Rosa Parks, with a daughter currently in the JBBP program. I also have a 7th grader who experienced the merge of JBBP from the perceived “comfort” of the Sunset to Rosa Parks in the Western Addition. She is currently very happy at Lick GE. (BTW, I am also content with Lick’s approach to differentiated instruction as my daughter is a GATE kid). We live one block from Aptos, and most of her classmates went on to Presidio and Hoover, but my middle schooler wanted a small middle school. Needless to say, I appreciated the “old” choice system which allowed families access to schools anywhere in the City (not that the new system eliminates choice altogether).
I wanted to respond to your question about combining Clarendon and RP Japanese programs, both FLES programs, into a single Japanese pathway. I’m guessing that keeping the pathways separate is an intentional strategy to advance the BOE’s Multilingual Resolution which states that every child in SFUSD will have access to proficiency in a second language. One of the recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Task Force for this initiative is to increase FLES programs throughout the District, including articulation of existing programs in middle school (Japanese and Russian) and development of new programs. FLES programs provide a language option, for non-immersion families in elementary schools. They are also an important access point for the middle school years — a time when many may become interested in a second language — since unlike immersion, families are not shut out after the first grade. Two FLES programs would increase that access. If Clarendon and RP fed into a single middle schoool program strand, then there might not be capacity for entering FLES kids.
BTW, one of the challenges of FLES programs at any level is differentiating instruction based on language proficiency. Even combining Clarendon and RP programs would present this challenge, as both programs are pedagogically different. It is challenging but can be done. At RP, we have native speakers, kids that have exposure to Japanese immersion preschools, and kids entering, say, 3rd grade with no previous language exposure. It helps that we have teachers, Sensei, and volunteers to accommodate the spectrum in any classroom.
Its great to hear from Omar and Dale about other multistrand schools and efforts to build school-wide unity. At Rosa Parks, we’ve had a lot of success by combining grade level fied trips and also mixing kids from GE and JBBP by grade level for rotating teaching blocks: a great way for kids from both programs to know each other and all the teachers. I think the multistrand schools who work so hard to build unity between a very wide demographic of economic, cultural and social factors should get together and share notes and best practices.
Please Please reconsider ISA as a Middle/ High School 6th graders should not be in a school with 12th graders. Thanks for all of your hard work.
Rachel – Thanks for paying attention to the smaller immersion programs.
I agree it is important to hear all sides, and I’m glad Omar presented his perspective. Starr King too, has worked very hard to foster unity between program strands within the school. We’ve even been experimenting with something called “unified teaching blocks” where we co-mingle students from different strands for some English language instruction. As a Starr King Elementary School Site Council member, our “Four Programs, One School” philosophy is something I’m proud of. And while I agree with Omar that traveling with friends or keeping a community together are nice and desirable, the primary goal of education is to educate. And within that context, the primary goal of an immersion program is to have children leave the elementary school system with full fluency in another language. Most (but not all) of us who enroll in an immersion program do so for that purpose, and have made that outcome a major priority for our child’s education. So the question here, is what is in the best interests of the educational goals of the Mandarin Immersion Program?
Would it be wise to keep two very small Mandarin programs divided? These programs tend to experience attrition, so that, for example, a Jose Ortega class that started in Kinder with 20, may reach middle with only 15… maybe less. Is the district really prepared to hold separate classes of Mandarin instruction at one middle school for only 15 kids per grade? Will those families be able to advocate for their needs with the school or district when their numbers are so small? Will the two different program tracks result in programs of equal quality? Will the larger Starr King contingent be able to get a more robust MI program in the upper grades due to their larger numbers? On the flip-side, if one program’s track leads to what is commonly perceived as a ‘desirable’ middle school, and the other leads to a less ‘desirable’ school, how will that affect enrollment at the elementary level? This is just a sampling of the kinds of questions we should be asking… there are plenty more I won’t take up space to ask now.
Many Starr King and Jose Ortega Mandarin Immersion parents have been working together for years in a common goal to create one healthy, robust program, with an intent all along to have the two schools merge at middle school. The current proposal comes as a shock and disappointment to many of us. After all the hard work the some of our parents have put in over the last 4-5 years to help the district start and build two successful elementary programs, it feels like a slap in the face to have their input and requests ignored by the district. Understandably, emotions are raw right now.
But once the dust settles, it all ultimately comes back to the question: what’s best for the health of the Mandarin Immersion Program? Given the number of questions and concerns this proposal raises, and given the way our input seems to have been ignored, I can’t help but wonder if those who came up with this proposal have put any substantive thought into how this might impact the Mandarin Immersion Program. IMHO, while feeder schools by neighborhood may be generally a good thing (I don’t have an opinion on that), consideration as to the specific needs of individual programs should also be factored in, and exceptions made when the educational need is justified. It appears to me that this has not been done in the case of Mandarin Immersion, and that the fundamental question – what is best for the Mandarin Immersion Program and it’s students? – has never been asked, let alone answered.
Thank you for your responsiveness
@Omar Thanks so much for chiming in. I think it’s tremendously important for people to know that there are two points of view on this issue.
@Gate huge question. some schools (Lick?) take a differentiated approach to high-achieving students. I confess I don’t know a lot about how Lick does this, but I think this is a great question for parents to pose at community meetings. I am going to add it to my working list as well. What is the district-wide approach to GATE in middle school? We’ve voted to expand access to Honors (GATE) to all middle school students who wish to challenge themselves (a move I strongly and unequivocally support), but some schools have more robust Honors programs than others. Is it an equity issue when one middle school has an Honors/GATE program and another doesn’t?
(Note to Pre-K and Elementary parents — ALL elementary schools have GATE and students are identified for GATE starting in the spring of 3rd grade; if you are interested in/concerned about your elementary school’s GATE program, talk to your principal).
Here’s what I don’t get.
If you are going to create feeder middle schools, with default assignments, then you darn well better have GATE programs at all of those middle schools. GATE programs are not electives, they are CORE courses designed for students that REQUIRE more rigorous instruction.
It is outrageous that you can feed these children into school where most DO NOT have courses to help them reach their potential.
This is like sending IEP students to schools that have no resources to deal with students with learning differences.
Someone please tell me how this is different?
I wanted to chime in on your comment on Mandarin Immersion. We were actually thrilled to see the kids in the MI and GE programs would follow the same track. The schools offering immersion have done a great deal of work integrating two communities in efforts to create stronger schools. At Jose Ortega, we have just merged our afterschool programs to create better unity. I’d hate to see that community disrupted and the friendships our children have made taken away.
Rachel, I know there is a vocal voice on this issue but it is not necessarily the voice of the school community at large. I’d ask your staff reach out to the schools directly versus those able to comment online and see what their preferences are. I think what you will find is the vast majority of families want the schools to stick together. It seems to me two Mandarin programs in middle school is not unreasonable given the District language goals and the growing prominence of Mandarin
@parent – the process for non-transitional grades will be exactly the same. In other words, if you are applying for 2nd grade next year, you will get attendance area preference at your attendance area school, after any siblings and students living in priority census tracts (CTIP).
@Frank and @gbtw – the rationale for citywide schools were:
1)schools offering a specialized language program or pathway;
2)schools with entry requirements (e.g., Lowell, SOTA, Montessori);
3)schools with K-8 configurations.
The Argonne question was a tough one and I am still not certain I like how it came out. The Argonne community would like to remain a citywide school, as would New Traditions, as both feel their schools offer options that should be available to all students. Unfortunately these requests did not get traction with the staff in charge of developing the proposals.
I understand staff’s reasoning, too — very few people apply to Argonne outside the Richmond and Sunset districts, and the more citywide schools you create, the more pressure you put on the attendance area schools because you have to make the attendance areas larger. This is the way the staff balanced the overall question but again, all of this is a draft proposal (boundaries, feeders, citywide schools) so it could change if the Board as a collective decides to do so.
@gbtw It looks like all the K-8 schools and immersion schools and programs stayed (or became) citywide schools. All alternative schools that were K-5 (like Clarendon and Lakeshore) become attendance area. Actually pretty logical, I think!
I’m curious about the changes in the city wide school list. I had been following these discussions. Although I wasn’t reading every word, I was shocked to see some of the trophy schools that are no longer city wide schools? I didn’t even know this was a possibility. Is there any rhyme or reason to making Argonne, for example, a local school versus a city wide?
For what it’s worth, my assignment area elementary is satisfactory- but my middle school is attrocious. Unfortunately, I see a move in my future, but I didn’t have a lot of hope for middle school anyway. *sigh*.
Thanks for posting these. The language and Roosevelt ones I’d seen, but the CDC point is a very good one too. A friend was asking about preschools, so I pointed her to some specific pages on the SFUSD site. She hadn’t known about these options. Something as simple as a map would be nice.
Rachel – I need help. What will be the assignment process for NON-transitional grades – That is, 2nd grade? Will CTIP be considered? I can’t find this anywhere in the new documentation.
Thank you