The Facts

Families will get a guaranteed neighborhood elementary school instead of navigating an unpredictable lottery starting in fall 2028. The board voted 5-2 to switch to neighborhood schools while retaining the ability of students to attend specialized programs in other schools citywide. Final approval is scheduled for April 13, 2027.

The Context

The district ran a survey of three options:

A) Zones of choice: pick between 3-5 schools near you

B) Neighborhood + city: guaranteed seat at your neighborhood school with the option to apply to any other school

C) Neighborhood + citywide special programs: guaranteed seat at your neighborhood school with the option to apply to specialized programs (language immersion, special ed, etc) citywide

Among respondents, 82% favored a guaranteed nearby seat, with options A and B both getting 72% support, and option C getting 48%. The district said option A was too difficult to implement, and the Board of Education voted to adopt option C.

Research on Los Angeles’ high-school Zones of Choice found improved test scores and college enrollment compared with traditional neighborhood assignment, with larger gains at schools facing more competition.

The GrowSF Take

We don't yet know the impact of requiring students to attend a low-performing neighborhood school. Some people think it will hurt those kids. Others think the added scrutiny from parents who would have otherwise chosen a different school will result in more investment and improvements. And others think parents will just opt into private schools or leave the City entirely, though a lot of parents have already opted out due to the lottery... so maybe some decide to opt back in to SFUSD.

There's also a time aspect to this: in the short term, families who already live near great schools will be happy their child can easily attend a good school, but families who live near underperforming schools likely will feel a lot of stress and frustration. But in the long term, perhaps performance will even out and (hopefully) rise across the city.

We do know, though, that the lottery failed to improve academic performance while simultaneously worsening segregation. So we're hopeful that this change will result in better outcomes. Predictability is nice, but we are withholding any judgment until we see how it affects academic performance.