FINAL final_(Dec 1, 2020 CoW) Elementary Student Assignment

Historical Context ● 120 years of de jure and de facto school segregation in SFUSD 1851-1971 ● 50 years of school integration efforts SFUSD believes that students are best served in lea

3 Disconnect between schools and communities

a Unconstrained choice undermines confidence in

b Too many children in San Francisco attend

private or charter schools instead of SFUSD

1 Diversity: Create integrated elementary

schools that provide students with the opportunity to experience the rich diversity

of our city

2 Predictability: Offer families of elementary

students a high degree of predictability about where their elementary children will

be enrolled in school

3 Proximity: Create strong community

connections to local schools and reduce the number of families with elementary students traveling across the city

Historical

Context ● 120 years of de jure and de facto school segregation in SFUSD

(1851-1971)

● 50 years of school integration efforts

SFUSD believes that students are best served in learning environments that are racially and socioeconomically integrated and has, since 1971, implemented a series of court-mandated and voluntary student assignment plans designed to support integrated learning environments:

○ 1971 - Horseshoe Plan

○ 1974 - Operation Integrate

○ 1978 - Educational Redesign

○ 1983 - Desegregation Consent Decree

○ 1999 - Last year using race in student assignment

○ 2002 - Diversity Index Lottery

○ 2010 - Current Student Assignment System

○ 2018 - Board Reso 189-25A1: Developing a Community Based Student Assignment System for SFUSD

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1937 Redlining Map

Our Journey Since 2018

Dec 2018

Resolution 189-25A1

unanimously approved Begins

policy development process

Summer 2020

Simulate policy options and evaluate findings Begin to develop policy recommendation

Spring 2019

Conduct extensive communications and community engagement throughout the City

Fall 2020

Refine recommendation and bring final policy to Board for a vote Communicate with families to ensure transparency

Fall 2019

Define key terms, generate potential concepts for new system

Choice within Zones with Diversity Categories

● Move from district-wide choice to choice within

zones

○ Preserve access to language pathways, K-8 schools, and special education programs for every child

● Streamline tiebreakers for TK & K and limit the

number of requests that receive a tiebreaker

○ Sibling, Equity, and PreK

● Apply “diversity categories” to disrupt segregation

○ Intended long term impact: every elementary school falls within a 15% range of the District’s average for FRPM, and focal students are enrolled in schools with similar poverty rates as non-focal students

Choice within Zones Diversity Categories: Every

School Resembles its Zone

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School A

Zone

Orange Circles

Purple Stripes

Blue Triangles

School G - Special Day Class

My Special Education Zone

School H - Special Day Class

Case Studies

Simulations of Policy Outcomes

How well do options achieve the

Board’s policy goals of diversity,

predictability, and proximity?

Process for Policy

Simulations

● Research partnership with Stanford University

○ Irene Lo, Assistant Professor, Management,

Sciences and Engineering

○ Itai Ashlagi, Associate Professor, Management,

Sciences and Engineering

● Simulated and evaluated thousands of zones

● Optimized to balance students with school

capacities, and socio-economic and ethnic

diversity before and after choice

● Compared different zone shapes and sizes

● Measured predictability, proximity, and

diversity of assignments

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Current policy

Neighbor -hood schools

Choice within zones

Proposed policy

ability

Important

Tradeoffs

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● Smaller zones are less socioeconomically diverse

due to residential segregation

● Non-contiguous zones best disrupt existing residential patterns of socioeconomic disparity.

● Large zones have most diverse student populations,

but choice can lead to resegregation within zone.

● Zones with diversity categories can significantly

improve diversity, but result in slight decreases in proximity.

What Feedback

Have we Already

Heard from the

Community? Families recognize that school choice can be inequitable and can

harm schools that are perceived as being less desirable At the same time, families want to be able to

choose a school that works for them.

Above all, families want to send their

children to high quality schools and

expressed that student assignment would not be as important if all schools were considered high quality

Many African American and Latinx families were distrustful of the motivations for redesigning student assignment Families raised serious concerns that a neighborhood-based

system would harm those with the

least resources.

All else equal, most families would

prefer to send their children to school close to home However, most families

would not want to send their child to a neighborhood school unless they viewed it as a high quality school

Feedback From Spring 2019 Community Workshops

www.sfusd.edu/studentassignment

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● Created a newsletter and blog series to

provide transparency throughout the process

● Hosted 4 panel discussions in partnership

with Stanford and UC Berkeley

● Hosted 4 virtual Community Information

Sessions in late October and early November

● Families were able to watch on YouTube Live

and Facebook Live and ask questions and give

input via Thought Exchange.

● Community partners hosted 11 virtual watch

parties to provide a more personal forum for

families to talk to other families and ask

questions in a smaller group setting

● 2,000 watched the Information Sessions

● 345 participated in ThoughtExchange

● 312 attended a watch party

○ 52 African American Parent Advisory Council (AAPAC)

○ 8 Parent Advisory Council (PAC)

○ 20 Community Advisory Committee for Special Education (CAC)

○ 63 Parents for Public Schools (PPS) *English

○ 7 2nd District PTA

○ 60 Parents for Public Schools (PPS) *Cantonese

○ 30 APA Family Services *Cantonese

○ 3 Chinatown YMCA *Cantonese

○ 14 Wu Yee *Cantonese

○ 15 Parents for Public Schools (PPS) *Spanish

○ 40 Mission Graduates *Spanish

How Did We Inform Families

about the Policy and Gather

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● Quality Schools: “My hope is for high quality schools across the city that are well funded.” In Watch Parties, parents shared a concern that zones would isolate black and brown families in poor neighborhoods and further isolate them

● Proximity to School: “Every family should be allowed to choose a school in their own neighborhood.”

● Language Pathways: “I want language pathways to remain citywide.”

● Tradeoffs Between Goals: “San Francisco is economically and racially segregated Diversity &

Proximity are hard to achieve at the same time.”

● Transparency: “Transparency about how the zones are determined.” “Can you be more clear and transparent about the block-by-block assignment of ‘diversity

categories’?”

Questions From the

● Siblings: “Will younger siblings have access to the older

sibling’s school even if it’s not in our zone?”

● Language Pathways: “Will citywide language programs

continue to be citywide?”

● Special Education: Many families of children with IEP’s

wondered, “where do we fit” in the new system?

● Details of Zones: “Has the number of zones been

determined yet?” “How will we provide input around zone

development?” “Who makes the final decision regarding

zone design?”

● Demographic Data: “What data are used to measure

block level diversity, and how will that be updated over

time?”

● Getting a Top Choice: “If we are not happy with our

assignment, can we apply to change schools?”

Proposed Amendment to Policy

Submitted for First Reading

Why we’re proposing an amendment

We heard very clearly in community feedback

that drawing zones and/or creating diversity

categories must include explicit, meaningful

opportunities for families to participate in and

inform that process The final results should

demonstrate how feedback from families has

impacted the decision-making process

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Decisions about zones and diversity categories will be made in partnership with staff, District advisory bodies, families, and the community Specifically, representatives of the

aforementioned stakeholders will be part of the team recommending zones and diversity

categories to the Superintendent

The approach to developing zones and diversity categories will be an active, conscious, and non-neutral process focused on the proactive counteraction of race inequities

Proposed Language to Include in Second Reading

● Communicate clearly & constantly

● Facilitate community engagement

● Build public confidence & support

● Prepare, equip, and support

schools and families to

● Build data architecture

● Create equity tiebreaker

● Develop diversity categories

● Revise bell schedules

● Build new transportation routes

● Respond to ripple effects, e.g., human capital, resource allocation, facilities utilization

Infrastructure

● Design a simple user experience

● Transition how EPC operates

● Develop marketing and outreach campaign

● Build monitoring and evaluation systems and structures

Enrollment

● Develop new software/

algorithm

● Integrate data systems

● Build zone-based application and

school finder tools

Technology

Data, Zones &

● Marketing and Communications analyst to help build community confidence, knowledge, and support New marketing materials in multiple languages.

● Change management tools and strategies to prepare, equip and support EPC, schools and

Enrollment

Technology

● Project Manager to develop new software and data systems Development support New

Transportation ● Transportation Analyst to help create new zone-based routes, revise bell times, and

maximize transportation resources for families $200,000

Fiscal Impact Analysis

+ Cross departmental collaboration + Research

Partnerships

Immediate

Next Steps ● Complete policy development work○ Submit proposed amendment for Second Reading and Action

on 12/8/2020

○ Develop, translate, and disseminate FAQ

○ Document and share policy development process

● Transition from policy development to implementation

○ Build teams and collaborative work structures

○ Kick-off planning process

○ Review the implementation timeline

SAN FRANCISCO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Questions

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SAN FRANCISCO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT

Appendix

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2020-21 School Year 2021-22 SY 2022-23 SY

Fall Winter Spring Summer Fall Winter Spring Summer Fall

Start of School

● Boundaries & feeders

● 12/1/202 3 pm Committee of the Whole

● 12/8/20 Second Reading and Action

Launch enrollment

2023-24 SY

* Might require more time depending on the scale of change

Policy Development Timeline

○ Itai Ashlagi, Associate Professor of

Management Science and Engineering

○ Irene Lo, Assistant Professor of

Management Science and Engineering

Background/expertise in matching

markets & algorithm design

● Adonis Pugh, Undergraduate student in Chemistry

● Faidra Monachou, PhD student in Management Science and Engineering

● Juliette Love, Masters student in Computer Science

● Kaleigh Mentzer, PhD student in Computational and Mathematical Engineering

● Lulabell Ruiz-Seitz, Undergraduate student in Mathematics

● Max Allman, PhD student in Management Science and Engineering

● Web page: www.sfusd.edu/studentassignment

○ Community Engagement Report

● Class Action: Desegregation and Diversity in San Francisco Schools,

by Rand Quinn (UPenn)

● Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works, by Rucker Johnson (UC Berkeley)

● The Color of Law : A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein

● How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi

● Nice White Parents, New York Times Podcast

Suggested

Reading and

Podcasts

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Policy Development Materials

● Resolution 189-25A1: Developing a Community Based Student Assignment

System for SFUSD (Approved 12/11/2018)

● Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment

Quality Schools

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What We’ve Heard From the

Community (2007-2018)

[2019]

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Human Capital

Vision

2025

Student Assign- ment policy

Quality teaching and learning

Programs

& Services e.g After School

Structures e.g Size, Start Times

Marketing

&

Outreach

Family & Community Partners

ation

Transport-Resources

● School quality is the paramount concern, and student

assignment does not create high quality schools.

● Providing equitable access to quality schools is not the same as ensuring that each and every

elementary school is high quality.

Quality

Schools

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SFUSD’s Core Belief

● Quality schools offer engaging and challenging programs, caring and committed staff, strong and visible leaders, and instruction

differentiated to meet each child’s needs

Student Assignment and Quality Schools

● Student assignment does not create high quality schools; it can help create equitable access to quality schools

● Creating equitable access to quality schools is not the same as ensuring that each and every one of our schools is high quality

● We believe creating a measure to rank quality within the context of student assignment might be harmful to schools [10/21/2019 Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment]

If… (implementation of change idea) then (immediate impact) so that… (long term impact)

If the Student Assignment System:

● Creates assignment zones that are socioeconomically, racially/ethnically, linguistically, and academically diverse; and

● Limits the number of schools included in each zone and reduces the distance students must travel to attend any school

in their zone; and

● Ensures every zone has sufficient capacity to accommodate all residents; and

● Is supported by transportation services designed to support zone assignments; and

● Gives all students access to the range of programs in the District;

and

● Prioritizes students who reside in Federal public housing or historically underserved areas of San Francisco; and

● Assigns students so that every school mirrors the diversity of its zone; and

● Offers a simple process that makes it easy for families to apply and enroll.

SFUSD will achieve these outcomes

in the short term:

● Student assignment will provide students with equitable access to the range of options in the District; and

● Student assignment will help create more diverse

enrollment and will help increase enrollment in currently under-enrolled schools; and

● Elementary schools will have the opportunity to facilitate positive interaction across difference and provide equitable access to resources and opportunities that exist within the school; and

● All students will have certainty that they can be enrolled in a school in their zone; and

● All students will have the opportunity to live within a reasonable geographic distance to school.

And therefore the long term impact will be that:

● Each and every elementary school is socioeconomically representative of the District Specifically, every elementary school falls within a 15% range of the District's average for FRPM; and

● The District’s focal students are enrolled in elementary schools with similar poverty rates (as measured by FRPM) as non-focal students; and

● Integrated schools and classrooms will help narrow the opportunity and achievement gap in the District; and

● Each and every student will receive the quality

instruction and equitable support required to thrive

in the 21st century.