Indicator PI.2.d Public school capacity and demand
N/A = No schools located in this neighborhood
Data Source
List of Schools, Capacity and Demand from San Francisco Unified School District's 2006-2007 Four Year Comparison of Round 1 Demand spreadsheet, accessible at: http://portal.sfusd.edu/data/EPC/Demand_4%20years.pdf. (Accessed on August 20, 2009)
Map and table prepared by City and County of San Francisco, Department of Public Health, Environmental Health Section using ArcGIS software.
Table data is presented by planning neighborhood. Detailed information regarding geographic units of analysis, their definitions, and their boundaries can be found in the HDMT at the following links:
http://www.thehdmt.org/etc/Geographic_Units_of_Analysis.September_2009.pdf
http://www.thehdmt.org/data_map_methods.php
Explanation and Limitations
The table above shows the total number of Round 1 requests and total number of seats of San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) schools in the academic year 2006-2007, aggregated at the neighborhood level. The map illustrates the number of requests and number of seats available by school. The data above reflect all requests made in Round 1, thus the data includes more than one request per student participating in Round 1, but does not include the choices of all SFUSD students (since students not participating in Round 1 and those already placed at schools are not included). Total number of seats (capacity) and total number of requests to attend the school (demand) illustrate geographical differences in where students and parents want to attend public schools.
The following schools were not included among the SFUSD 2006-2007 list of ranked schools: Continuing Ed & Transitional Schools (including Chinese Education Ctr, Ida B. Wells Continuing, Mission Education Ctr, Newcomer HS, Downtown Continuation HS), Excelsior MS, Lowell and Independence High Schools, Charter Schools (including City Arts & Tech, Five Keys, Gateway, Life Learning, Creative Arts, KIPP Bayview & SF Bay, Leadership, and Metro Arts & Tech),County Schools (including Alt/Opp, Community, Juv Court, and Special Ed) and schools which opened a second campus post 2007 (Rooftop, Carmichael, and Lilienthal).
San Francisco has a choice based school assignment system, meaning that families can apply to any public school/program with openings in the city. There is no guarantee that a student will receive an assignment to any particular school, but if there are enough spaces at a school to accommodate all students who want to attend, all applicants will receive assignment offers.
Whenever requests are greater than the number of seats available, SFUSD uses a process called the Student Assignment System to determine which students get an assignment offer. The Student Assignment System is a formula, made up of five race neutral factors, that calculates the probability that in a given grade randomly chosen students will be different from each other based on the five race neutral factors. The five factors are: Extreme Poverty, Socioeconomic Status, Home Language, Academic Performance Rank of Sending School, Academic Achievement Status. SFUSD notes that “there is no ideal profile! The goal is to create classrooms that have students with different profiles.”
Since the District began its current student assignment system in 2002-2003, the vast majority of students have received one of their choices in Round One, with a high percent receiving their first choice. During Round 1 of the Student Assignment System, students and their families may list up to seven schools as their top choices for school placement. Parents/guardians are strongly encouraged to list 7 schools; selecting a higher number of schools will increase the likelihood of receiving a requested assignment.
The most significant determinants of a student’s school assignment are parental choice and school capacity. Whether students receive one of their school choices depends on a range of factors, including the number of seats available at the schools chosen, the number of students requesting those seats, the number of siblings who get pre-assigned, the ranking of the choices, the diversity of the applicant pools for the schools listed and, in some instances, the application of the Student Assignment System. For more information about the current Student Assignment System and efforts to revise the system, visit the SFUSD Enrollment webpage: http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement (Accessed on September 22, 2009)
School demand is just one indicator of school quality. Additional measures of quality could include: academic performance; availability of books, supplies and other resources; physical and social structures of the school; actual and perceived safety at the schools; proximity to green space; training and experience of teachers and staff; involvement of parents in children’s education; opportunities for extracurricular activities; whether the school is used as a multi-use facility in the afternoons, evenings and weekends; existence of afterschool programs; etc.. Thus it is important to recognize that school capacity and demand is just one of many possible indicators to assess school environment.