Heather Fernandez

I am actually surprised when any Realtor working in this City states that they don’t know how the school admissions are done. It seems to me that a professional should know and it really isn’t that difficult to find out. A few years ago I put on FYI seminars at the SFAR with a member of the school board, Hydra Mendoza, and the public relations spokesperson of SFUSD Gentle Blythe. Zephyr like the information and hosted a series of information seminars around the City with the same format.
Anyway, your first questions “will my child be admitted to the local school”? Yes if there are 60 spots and 50 kids apply yours will be admitted. If there are 60 spots and 100 apply then it gets a bit more complicated. In reality this is the situation in the higher performing schools, there are more applicants than spots. SFUSD policy has been to promote diversity. Since the 1970s they have tried to create diverse school environments. It still is the primary goal (which I argue the primary goal should be to provide every child a quality education) but they can’t use race as a deciding factor so they created a “diversity index”.
Each parent chooses 7 schools that are acceptable for their child. Assume it’s you and the neighborhood school is one of them. If the child adds to the diversity they have a better chance of being admitted because they live close and add diversity. Being in the neighborhood does factor in but only if there are open spots and the child adds to the diversity.
The factors that add diversity are extreme poverty, socioeconomic status, English proficiency, Academic Performance Index (API) of the sending school, and Academic Achievements Status.
There is movement at the Board of Education on a new system. There is talk of allowing neighborhood schools again. The best source of information about what is going on at the Board is Rachael Norton’s Blog posted below. She is a mom and a member of the Board. She writes well and is open with the information that is under discussion.
One other aspect of the system to remember is that the Board years ago started to make each school create a reason for people to go to them. It takes the form of language immersion programs, academic focus, arts, etc. So in many ways parents don’t want the neighborhood school because they want them to learn Japanese or Spanish so they choose to go to a school outside their neighborhood.
One last thing because I’ve seen it when my kids were in public schools and in my own neighborhood Miraloma Park, a school needs three legs to be a good school; an active, interested principal, dedicated teachers and involved parents. If any one of those three legs is not in place the school fails the kids. - Sun Jan 3 2010, 11:53