This Board Policy applies to the San Francisco Unified School District and the County Office of Education.

 

 

Introduction

 

 

In December 2008, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Board of Education convened an Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment to provide a regular and public way for the Board of Education to conduct public policy discussions with staff about the redesign of student assignment.  The Board of Education established the following priorities for the redesign of student assignment:

1. Reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school;
2. Provide equitable access to the range of opportunities offered to students; and
3. Provide transparency at every stage of the assignment process.

 

Between December 2008 and January 2010, the Board of Education held monthly Ad Hoc Committee meetings, and staff, with assistance from local and national partners and guidance from the Board of Education, analyzed current conditions, explored different student assignment options, and gathered feedback from the community.

 

Complex Challenges

Key findings from the research and analysis illustrate the complexity of designing a student assignment system that will meet the Board’s goal of reversing the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school.

 

• Neighborhood schools are limited in their ability to reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school, although some schools may be less racially concentrated than they are today, and many schools would have a more robust enrollment.
   
• Different choice systems are limited in their ability to reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school because the applicant pools for individual schools are racially isolated, and all families do not have the same opportunity to understand which schools they like and to submit their choices on­time for the assignment process.
   
• To reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school through student assignment alone, the Board of Education would need to assign students to schools they have not historically requested and to schools far from where they live.  For example, some students living on the west side of the city and in the north of the city would need to be assigned to schools on the east side of the city and the southeast side of the city, and vice­versa.

The diversity index lottery, a mandatory choice system with limited connection to where students live, has resulted in the dispersion of students throughout the city.  This dispersion of students and lack of predictability regarding enrollments makes it very difficult for the District to develop projections for strategic planning purposes, to use facilities efficiently, and to cost­effectively create PreK­12 instructional coherence and equitable access to programs and services. 

Many schools are currently operating under capacity, despite the fact that they are located in densely populated neighborhoods. The District is constrained in its ability to efficiently provide under­ enrolled schools with access to the variety of programs and services available at robustly enrolled schools.

 

Conclusion and Theory of Action

Staff concluded that a new student assignment system is one part of creating educational environments in which all students can flourish.  School quality is the paramount concern, and a student assignment system alone cannot ensure school quality, although it does have a role to play in creating diverse learning environments and robust enrollments in all SFUSD schools.

 

Five things together need to be in place to have a strong enough effect to have an impact on reversing the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school, and closing the achievement gap.

 

If the SFUSD has:

1. a student assignment system that is aligned with and supports other initiatives within SFUSD that are designed to create and support diverse enrollments and quality schools in every neighborhood
2. a human capital allocation system that ensures quality teaching and instructional leadership and promotes diversity among the faculty at each school;
3. strong and effective programs that attract a diverse student body and meet the needs of the students within each school;
4. professional development focused on culturally and linguistically responsive instruction and strategies to support integrated learning environments within each school; and
5. an equitable distribution of resources designed to promote and support diverse enrollments and quality schools in every neighborhood

then the SFUSD can:

• reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school;
• provide equitable access to the range of opportunities offered to students;
• provide transparency at every stage of the assignment process;

and this will dramatically accelerate the achievement of those who are currently less academically successful, and increase the achievement of already high performing students.

 

Goals for the Student Assignment Policy

This Student Assignment Policy is designed to be flexible so it can be easily monitored and adjusted if it is not accomplishing the goals set forth below.

 

1. Facilitate student diversity within the parameters of current law.
2. Work in alignment with other District initiatives designed to avoid racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school.
3. Support the strategic use of limited resources to provide PreK­12 program pathways and quality schools in every neighborhood.
4. Provide equitable access to the range of opportunities offered to students.
5. Create robust enrollments at all schools.
6. Be simple and easy to understand, and provide transparency at every stage of the assignment process.
7. Offer families a degree of predictability regarding where their children will attend school.
8. Minimize the degree of effort families must invest to enroll their children in school.
9. Permit the efficient and cost­effective use of school facilities and transportation.
10. Be cost effective to implement and sustain over time.

 

Definitions

 

The following definitions apply to terms used in this Student Assignment Policy (hereinafter “Policy”).

 

Attendance Areas: Boundaries drawn around individual schools.

 

Elementary City­Wide Schools: Elementary schools (K­5 and K­8 schools) that do not have an attendance area and therefore do not offer any local preference to students.  The purpose of the city­wide school designation is to facilitate equitable access to the range of opportunities offered by SFUSD.  The Superintendent will have the authority to designate city­wide schools as attendance area schools, and vice versa.  The Superintendent shall notify the Board of Education about any modifications or adjustments to city­wide designations at a properly noticed Board meeting.

 

Elementary City­Wide Programs:  Programs that are (a) clearly defined and listed on the SFUSD application form as a discrete choice, (b) are available at a limited number of elementary attendance area schools, and (c) have a separate enrollment capacity with seats reserved specifically for students enrolled in the program (for example, the Cantonese Immersion program at West Portal), may be designated city­wide programs, which do not offer any local preference to students.  The purpose of the city­wide program designation is to facilitate equitable access to the range of opportunities offered by SFUSD.  The Superintendent will have the authority to designate programs as city­wide, and shall notify the Board of Education about any modifications or adjustments to city­wide designations at a properly noticed Board meeting.

Program Pathway: A program that is listed as a discrete choice on the SFUSD enrollment form and continues from pre­K/TK to kindergarten, elementary to middle school, and/or middle school to high school.  Spanish Immersion is an example of a program pathway.  General Education is not considered a program pathway.

Service Attendance Areas: Boundaries drawn around one or more schools based on the location of services and programs that are not available at every school (for example, Special Day Classes). Because there may be different service attendance areas for different types of programs, an individual school may be in more than one service attendance area.

Transitional Grades: The first grade of enrollment at any particular school.  For example, in middle school, sixth grade is a transitional grade.

Combined Census Tracts: Geographic areas containing one or more adjacent census tracts from the federal decennial Census.   These combined census tracts shall be approved by the Superintendent, who has the authority to change the combined census tracts in response to any adjustments the US Census Bureau may make to the current configuration of San Francisco’s 176 census tracts, and to ensure that the combined Census tracts have substantial numbers of students living in them, minimizing the effects of random variation.

 

Local Preference (“LP”): A preference in program or school assignment for students who live in the attendance area of a school or the service attendance area for programs and services not available at every school.

 

Census Tract Integration Preference (“CTIP”): A preference in program or school assignment based on a demographic value that is assigned to each combined census tract.  This preference is designed to facilitate attendance at the same schools by students who live in demographically different areas of the city.  In the first year of implementation of the Student Assignment Policy, the CTIP value will be based on average K­12 California Standards Test (“CST”) scores of students who reside in the combined census tract.  Following the first year of implementation, the Superintendent may recommend that the Board of Education use different demographic data to assign CTIP values to combined census tracts in order to better fulfill the goals of the Student Assignment Policy.  Any recommended changes approved by the Board of Education would be incorporated into this Student Assignment Policy.

CTIP1 and CTIP2 Tracts: For the first year of Policy implementation, an average K­12 CST score will be computed for each combined census tract, and those combined census tracts will be divided into quintiles based on average CST scores so that approximately 20% of all SFUSD students live within each quintile.  CTIP1 tracts will be the quintile with the lowest average CST scores, and CTIP2 tracts will be the four remaining quintiles.  Following the first year of implementation, the Superintendent may recommend changes to the quintile method, adjustments to the definitions of CTIP1 and CTIP2, the creation of additional CTIP categories, priority for different CTIP categories in different schools, and/or splitting capacities so each school has a preference for both CTIP1 and CTIP2.  Any recommended changes approved by the Board of Education would be incorporated into this Student Assignment Policy.

 

English Learner (“EL”): Students who are in the process of acquiring English as a second language and have not yet reached Fully English Proficient (“FEP”) status.

 

Enrolled: Students are enrolled in a school or program if they have accepted an assignment to and actually begun attending that school or program.

 

Racial Isolation: Although the SFUSD enrollment is diverse and does not have a majority group, in CBEDS 2008 twenty­five schools (which is approximately a quarter of all K12 schools) had more than 60% of a single racial/ethnic group, ten schools had more than 70% of a single racial/ethnic group, three schools had more than 80% of a single racial/ethnic group, and fifteen schools had more than 60% of a single racial/ethnic group coupled with an Academic Performance of 1, 2, or 3. The Board considers such schools racially isolated, and a goal of this policy is to reduce the number of racially isolated schools.

 

Underserved Students: Students performing Below Basic or Far Below Basic on the California Standards Test and other equivalent assessments administered by the District

Sibling: Students who have the same parent/guardian and reside in the same household.

Superintendent: The Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District (“SFUSD”).

Board of Education (“Board”): The SFUSD Board of Education.
 

Bayview Preference: Preference category used in student assignment for Willie L. Brown, Jr. middle school based on students’ fifth grade enrollment in one of four elementary schools:  Dr. George Washington Carver, Dr. Charles Drew, Bret Harte, Malcolm X Academy.

 

94124 Preference: A preference category used in student assignment for Willie L. Brown, Jr. middle school based on residence in the 94124 zip code.

Brown Preference: A preference category used in student assignment for students who were enrolled in and attended Willie L. Brown, Jr., middle school in 6th, 7th, and 8th grade when they transition from eighth to ninth grade.

 

Bayview ES to - All MS Preference: A preference category used in student assignment for incoming 6th grade students that will be applied to all students who were enrolled in and attended any of the following four elementary schools for all grades Kindergarten through 5th grade: Dr. George Washington Carver, Dr. Charles Drew, Bret Harte or Malcolm X Academy.

 

 

Student Assignment Method

Attendance Area Boundaries

 

In drawing attendance and/or revising area boundaries, the following factors will be taken into account: neighborhood demographics (with the goal of maximizing racial diversity); where students live now and where enrollment changes are expected in the future; availability of facilities; traffic patterns; location of programs (for example, pre­K/TK, special education, and language pathways); and coherence of pre­K/TK to kindergarten and elementary to middle school pathways.

 

Elementary attendance areas will be contiguous.

 

Attendance area boundaries will change over time.  On an annual basis, SFUSD staff will review attendance area boundaries and make recommendations to the Superintendent as to whether modifications are needed.  The Superintendent shall have authority to adjust attendance area boundaries.  The Superintendent shall notify the Board of Education about any modifications or adjustments to attendance area boundaries at a properly noticed Board meeting.

 

Service Attendance Areas

 

Service attendance areas will be created for programs that are not available at every school (for example, Special Day Classes).  The Superintendent will have the authority to approve service attendance area boundaries.

 

In drawing these boundaries, the following factors will be considered: program location, neighborhood demographics (with the goal of maximizing racial diversity), where students live now and where enrollment changes are expected in the future, availability of facilities, traffic patterns, and coherence of pre­K to kindergarten and elementary to middle school pathways.

 

On an annual basis, SFUSD sta