The questions I hear all the time center on the admissions policies and local school issues. Here are some interesting facts that came out in the presentation.

When a child is entering school or moving up to the next level, middle and high school an application is filled out by the parents naming seven choices of schools the family has chosen. Although most schools have a designated attendance area, the administration has found over the past five years that the majority of families chose schools based on special programs available in individual schools rather than proximity to home addresses. The first round of admissions to those schools goes to the students that live in the attendance area and then the siblings of students that already attend the school. The remainder of the admissions go to students that have chosen it as one of their seven choices. 67% get their first choice of schools and 87% receive one of their seven choices.

If the school has more applicants than seats available the diversity index is used to assign students. The Diversity index currently is:

1. Academic background of the student. (Pre-school for kindergarten)

2. Academic background of the sending school.

3. Extreme poverty.

4.Language spoken at home.

5.Family income
We were presented with a number of facts that show perceptions to be false:
In San Francisco 70% of our students go to public school and that number is consistent with ratios throughout the country.

USA Today reports that overall performance in core subjects, student’s performance is no better if the student graduates from private high school or public high school.

SFUSD has 7 high schools in the top 5% of high schools in the country according to Newsweek Magazine. For six consecutive years SFUSD has improved on test scores and outperformed the seven largest urban school districts on the California Standards Test (CST).

SFUSD has an 11.3 year average term for teachers, which is higher than the CA average of 10.4 years. San Francisco has a declining population of school age children, but that the entire state is losing at the same rate.

SFUSD has 56,000 students and is losing 800 each year. The high cost of living and the assumption that you can’t get a quality education in San Francisco’s public schools has led to the fact that SF has the lowest population of school age children. My own experience raising two children in San Francisco has shown that there are good schools and great educations to be had. Parental involvement keeps the children on track and community involvement keeps the schools on track.

San Francisco is a great place to raise kids. They have a level of sophistication because they are a part of this City.

This presentation was so informative that Zephry Real Estate has sponsored it in various locations.