Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment

Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment

September 14, 2009

Tonight’s Objectives1. Narrow number of student assignment boundary

options for deeper exploration.• Focus on attendance areas or zones?

2. Provide feedback on elements to include in a student assignment system.

• One or multiple diversity characteristics?

• Maximize diversity, proximity, choice?

3. Guidance on next steps and the timeline for approving a new student assignment system.

Overview of Tonight’s Presentation

Quick review of last year’s work.

Approach to developing potential options:

• Creating boundary options;

• Exploring student assignment systems.

Potential Options.

Confirm next steps and timeline.

Discuss a community engagement plan.






Potential Options.



All presentations are available on the SFUSD web site

www.sfusd.edu

http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=policy.placement.assignment

Foundation

The Board sees the achievement gap as the greatest civil rights issue facing the District today.

Student assignment should support the implementation of the Board’s equity-centered strategic plan - Beyond the Talk: Taking Action to Educate Every Child Now.

Our Current Assignment SystemThe current process, in place since 2001, is designed to:

1. Give parents choice;2. Ensure equitable access; and3. Promote diversity without using race/ethnicity.

Any child can apply to any school in the District.

When there are more applicants than seats available, a diversity lottery assigns students to one of their choices.

Students who do not get one of their choices get offered the school closest to where they live with space.

Other features: waiting pools, open enrollment, appeals.

Why Redesign Student Assignment?

The current student assignment plan has not met SFUSD’s longtime desegregation goals of reducing racial isolation and improving educational opportunities and outcomes for all students.

• A quarter of our schools have more than 60% of a single racial/ethnic group.

• The achievement gap (the discrepancy between the academic proficiency of students) has persisted for African American, Latino, and Samoan students.

Why Redesign Student Assignment?

Boundaries have not been revised since the early 1980s; since then SFUSD has closed, opened, merged, and redesigned schools.

Some schools are under-enrolled while others are over-enrolled.

The current assignment process has different rates of participation by racial/ethnic group, and many families report finding the current system time consuming, unpredictable, and difficult to understand.

Steps in Developing a New System

1. Analyze current conditions.

2. Develop priorities.

3. Design and analyze different options.

3. Approve a new student assignment system.

4. Build the infrastructure to support the new system.

5. Rollout the new student assignment system.

Board’s Priorities for Student Assignment

1. Provide equitable access to the range of opportunities offered to students.

2. Reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school.

3. Provide transparency at every stage of the assignment process.

Complex: No Simple Solution

Diversity patterns vary throughout the City (academic; linguistic; race/ethnicity; socio-economic).

Applicant pools are not diverse, and all families do not participate in the current system.

There is a non-uniform distribution of programs throughout the city.

Priorities require a multidimensional approach; student assignment is one part.


Student assignment has to be supported by:

Strategic placement of programs and services that attract and support diverse learning environments and provide PreK-12 instructional coherence.

Targeted outreach and recruitment designed to create diverse learning environments.

Strategic transportation policy and infrastructure.


The focus tonight is on the student assignment system!






Potential Options.



Our Approach

Lapkoff & Gobalet Demographic Research, Inc.

• Completed a demographic study of school age children in San Francisco (Census data and SFUSD student data).

• Detailed maps and data available on the web.• http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?

page=policy.placement.assignment.

• Explored different boundary scenarios.

Our ApproachWorking with a group of researchers who helped Boston

public schools and NYC public schools develop student assignment systems, we used historical data about parents’ choices to start exploring student assignment systems.

Tonight’s feedback will enable the exploration to continue.

Clayton Featherstone Stanford

Muriel Niederle Stanford

Atila Abdulkadiroğlu Duke

Parag Pathak MIT

Alvin E. Roth Harvard




• Creating boundary options;• Exploring student assignment systems.

Potential Options.



Jeanne Gobalet, Ph.D., Lapkoff & Gobalet Demographic Research,

Inc.

Explored

Boundaries surrounding individual schools:

1. Attendance Areas.

Boundaries surrounding multiple schools:

2. Small Zones.

3. Large Zones.

Guidelines for Drawing Attendance Areas

• School capacities and locations.

• Fall 2008 student residence patterns.

• Students from new housing.

• Geographic barriers (highways, busy thoroughfares, mountains).

• Academic/linguistic/racial/socioeconomic diversity.

• Contiguity (avoid satellites/islands).

K-12 SFUSD Students, Fall 2008

K-5 Enrolled Outside SF City Planning Neighborhood

Elementary Resident Counts & Capacity

Based on home addresses, not enrollment.

Currently there are surplus seats in the southeast, but there would not be enough space if all students who live there attended a school in the southeast.

Enrollment Projections: New Housing Looked at currently-planned new housing to be built

over the next several decades. Bayview Hunters Point

o 3,700 units o 1,188 K-12 students expectedo Expected completion 2024

Mission Bayo 1,100 more housing unitso 66 more K-12 students expectedo Under construction

Treasure/Yerba Buena Islando 7,700 housing units o 1,400 K-12 students expectedo Expected completion 2034

Visitacion Valleyo 1,600 housing unitso 880 K-12 students expectedo Expected completion by 2030

Transbayo 2,600 housing units o 640 K-12 studentso Expected completion 2025

Market Octaviao 2,200 new units by 2035o 297 K-12 students in 2035o Expected completion after 2035

Hunters Point Shipyardo 11,500 units o 5,200 K-12 students in 2035o Expected completion after 2035

Enrollment Projections: New Housing

K-12 student projections based on SFUSD student yields from comparable housing, by type of unit and market rate/BMR.

Key FindingsDistrict-wide, school capacity exceeds enrollment at

the elementary and middle school levels.

• 2,300 more seats than elementary students.

• 1,800 more seats than middle school students.

There is a geographic mismatch between where students live and where schools are located.• Southeast is the most densely populated part of City

(more students than seats).• The north and west is not as densely populated (fewer

students than seats).

Key Findings

The majority of students go to a school outside their San Francisco City Planning neighborhood.

• 36% attend a school in their SF City Planning Neighborhood.

• 68% attend a school in their SF City Planning Neighborhood or an adjacent area.

Little enrollment growth forecasted in next 3-4 years from new housing.

Diversity: Socioeconomic

Diversity: Linguistic

Diversity: Academic

Based on SFUSD students’ home addresses, not school enrollment.

Diversity: Race/Ethnicity

Based on SFUSD students’ home addresses, not school enrollment.

Key Findings: Attendance Areas

Diversity patterns vary throughout the city (academic; linguistic; racial/ethnic; socioeconomic).

Attendance areas may reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school in some areas, but not city-wide.

Guidelines for Drawing Zones• Assume the current configuration of programs could

change to ensure equitable access and instructional coherence.

• Make sure there is enough capacity to accommodate all K-12 students living in the zone (sufficient # of elementary, middle, and high school seats).

• Avoid geographic barriers (highways, mountains).

• Maximize academic/linguistic/racial/socioeconomic diversity.

• Contiguity (avoid satellites/islands).

Challenges Drawing Zones

Diversity patterns vary across the City.

Highways 101 and 280 are barriers in the southeast.

Mountains form a geographic barrier in the center of the city.

There are few direct routes between the east and the west.

The distribution of K-12 schools constrains the number and shape of feasible zones.

Key Findings: Large Zones

Large zones present significant access problems given the terrain and lack of direct routes in the City.

The larger the zone, the greater the opportunity to create diverse zones. However, student choices within zones may not reverse racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students.

Assigning students without a choice system may reverse racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students, but:

• would create uncertainty regarding which school a student would get assigned;

• some students in the zone would have to travel further to school than others; and

• would require significant investment in infrastructure (e.g., transportation, moving programs, etc.)

Key Findings: Smaller Zones

Small zones may reverse the trend of racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school in some areas but not city-wide.

The more zones there are the more difficult it is:

• to ensure sufficient seats for all elementary, middle, and high school students in the zone; and

• to replicate program offerings and PreK-12 instructional coherence in each zone.

The smaller the zones, the closer they become to attendance areas.

Feedback During Discussion

Tonight’s Objectives

1. Narrow number of student assignment boundary options for deeper exploration.

• Focus on attendance areas or zones?







Approach to developing potential options:• Creating boundary options;


Potential Options.



Exploring Assignment SystemsExplored draft attendance area boundaries.

Boundaries not finalized: draft provides preliminary insights into potential implications.

• Required program needs for Special Education and English Learner students.

• Younger siblings.

• Biliteracy and immersion programs.

• Attendance area assignments.

Exploring Assignment SystemsRedrawing the attendance areas and assigning students to

their attendance area school could decrease racial isolation and the concentration of underserved students in the same school.

# Schools with more than 60% of a single racial/ethnic group

# Schools with API State Rank of 1 and more than 60% of a single racial/ethnic group





Actual Round 1 2008-09 SY

15 6





Actual Round 1 2008-09 SY

15 6

Draft attendance area assignments

11 3

Exploring Assignment SystemsUsing historical data about choices people have made, and

information from the boundary simulations, researchers have begun exploring different choice systems designed to control for different things, such as:

• Achievement diversity• Proximity• Achievement diversity and proximity

Limitations of using historical choice data:

• Choice patterns are a product of our current system and would change with a new system.

• Current participation patterns vary by racial/ethnic group.

Exploring Assignment Systems

The exploration…

• is not complete.

• Tonight’s feedback will allow us to focus our exploration.




One or multiple diversity characteristics?

• Too many characteristics in the system can hurt how well the system performs.

• For example, our current system has five characteristics and for each characteristic there is a positive and negative value.

• This creates 32 possible profiles, and the system works to assign a balance of these profiles.

• We think this is one of the reasons the current system does not perform well.


One or multiple diversity characteristics?

• Exploring the possibility of using achievement diversity instead of multiple diversity characteristics.

• One possible approach: use multiple years of achievement data to calculate an achievement value for geographic areas (e.g., census tracts).


Maximize diversity, proximity, choice?

Our current system:

• includes a priority for attendance area students until the assignment of students from attendance areas stops contributing to diversity;

• assigns students to their highest ranked choice, not the choice that would maximize diversity;

• includes waiting pools, appeals, and open enrollment processes designed to maximize choice.

Feedback During Discussion













Potential Options.



We know that…It is not possible to create a single student assignment system

that will satisfy everyone.

Student assignment has to be supported by:• Strategic placement of programs and services.• Targeted outreach and recruitment.• Strategic transportation policy and infrastructure.

Any new student assignment system will need to be monitored closely each year, and fine-tuned as the outcomes become clearer with each new entering grade.

The options we describe could be modified in different ways, and additional options could be proposed by the Board.

For All Options

The required program needs of Special Education and English Learner students will always be met.

1. Current students would be ‘grandfathered’ into their current school.

2. Younger siblings would continue to get priority to attend the same school as an older sibling.

3. The District will provide language pathways for those students in bilingual or immersion programs.

For All Options5. Schools with criteria for admission, newcomer

schools, and language immersion schools would draw city-wide so would not have a boundary.

• The work of the Program Placement Committee may result in additional programs or schools being identified for city-wide attendance.

• Those decisions could be incorporated into any of the options.

For All OptionsIn the meantime, the Student Assignment

Subcommittee will continue to use the provisional recommendations described above.

Criteria for Admission1. Lowell High School2. SOTA High SchoolNewcomer Schools3. Chinese Education Center (K5)4. Mission Education Center (K5)5. Newcomer High School 6. International High SchoolLanguage Immersion Schools7. Alice Fong Yu K8 (Cantonese)8. Buena Vista Elementary (Spanish)9. DeAvila Elementary (Cantonese)10. Fairmont Elementary (Spanish)11. Marshall ES Elementary (Spanish)

For All Options

6. Services and supports would be adjusted to ensure equitable access.

• Ensure the services and supports essential for student success are available at every school.

• Evaluate the need to change the location of special education programs and language programs.

• Revise the transportation policy.

• Strengthen the address verification procedures.

Potential OptionsOption 1: Attendance Area Assignment System. • Students get assigned to their attendance area school.• Language programs and schools with criteria for

admission are available for choice assignments.• Feeder patterns from elementary to middle to high.• Special Education and English Learner programs not

available at every school get grouped geographically.

Variations— Expand the list of programs and schools available for choice

assignments (Program Placement Committee).— Instead of designating high school students to their attendance area

school, allow them to submit choices.

Potential Options

Option 2: Controlled Choice Assignment System.

• Similar to Option 1, but instead of assigning all students to their attendance area school, families could submit choices.

• A controlled choice assignment system could be designed to:• Give priority to attendance area students;• Maximize diversity;• Maximize choice assignments;• Any combination of the above.

• Students who do not get one of their choices get assigned to their attendance area school.

Potential Options

Option 3: Zone Assignment System.

• Instead of individual attendance areas, draw boundaries around a series of schools.

• Use an assignment system designed to maximize diversity to assign students to a school in the zone.

Variation

— Allow families to submit choices for any school in the zone, and use a controlled choice system designed to maximize diversity.

Feedback and DiscussionThe options we described could be modified in different ways,

and additional options could be proposed by the Board.

Tonight’s objectives:











Potential Options.



TimelineThe Board of Education plans to have a new student

assignment system in place for students who will start kindergarten, 6th grade, and 9th grade in August 2011.

The enrollment process for students entering K/6/9 in August 2011 will kick-off in November 2010.

The Board will approve a new student assignment system during the 2009-10 school year.

In the meantime, SFUSD will continue to use the current student assignment process.

Immediate Next StepsDesign & Analyze Develop & Approve

Sep 14 2009

Identify options

for deeper

exploration

Identify options

for deeper

exploration

Immediate Next Steps

Oct 19 2009

Dec 7 2009

Design & Analyze Develop & Approve

Nov 16 2009

Community Conversations

Sep 14 2009

Identify options

for deeper

exploration

Identify options

for deeper

exploration


Review Findings

Review Findings

Oct 19 2009

Dec 7 2009

SecondReading

and Approval

SecondReading

and Approval

Mid Jan 2010


Nov 16 2009

Feb 9 2010

Mar 9 2010

First Reading

First Reading Committees


Sep 14 2009

Identify options

for deeper

exploration

Identify options

for deeper

exploration


Review Findings

Review Findings

Oct 19 2009

Dec 7 2009

SecondReading

and Approval

SecondReading

and Approval

Mid Jan 2010


Nov 16 2009

Feb 9 2010

Mar 9 2010

First Reading

First Reading Committees


Sep 14 2009

Identify options

for deeper

exploration

Identify options

for deeper

exploration






Potential Options.



Goals

Deepen understanding of the priorities and the options being considered by the Board of Education.

Provide opportunities for meaningful discussion with diverse community and district stakeholders.

Structures

Invite school communities, parent organizations, and community groups to convene community conversations. • Each convener will invite participants.

• Each conversation will use the same information and guiding questions.

• SFUSD will provide materials and a facilitator (multilingual).

• Conversation notes will be shared with the participants, the Board, and staff.

Hold three Ad Hoc committee meetings. • October 19, November 16, and December 7.








Documents

Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment