San Francisco school bans border crossers from attending school.

Parents Forum
21

I’m a parent of two SOTA in-district grad’s who gained admission in their respective years by highly competitive audition, but had the added good fortune of ZIP code. Many of their highly talented, highly motivated out-of-district classmates - most from considerably lower socioeconomic strata than their SF peers - commuted tremendous distances to benefit from the arts education. The school would have been poorer without them.

What the article (and the school board) do not really touch on is the inordinately high cost of housing and living in San Francisco and the Bay Area in general. Trust me, it’s truly not for the feint of heart.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/us/high-rents-elbow-latinos-from-san-franciscos-mission-district.html

Talk of surrounding districts creating their own version of an arts high school is naive, considering that the state scrambles to provide minimum support to those schools that already exist. California already trends at the bottom of national per-pupil spending, at #50 for 2014, $3523.00 below the nation-wide per-pupil average. Shocking considering the impressive corporate and individual tax base that we have.
All students in California public schools get a daily stipend paid into their school from the state coffers, based on attendance, so the SFUSD is NOT suffering financially because of the OOD’s.

Remembering that admission is based on audition/talent, they do not say how many SF students are actually displaced by out-of-district students taking their spots. Historically, the percentage of OOD’s has been capped at 10%.

Remember too, that most California K-12 cut out art and music in the schools decades ago.
Emerging talent would have to find a way to be cultivated outside of school hours, making these students as motivated as they come.
Cultural difference are not being respected here either, based on ethnic and racial census data. Added to that statistic is many of the lower income SF parents who are actively involved and pushing for their students to achieve, gravitate toward the more traditional academic excellence of Lowell HS, rather than SOTA, which does require some academic compromise to fulfill the requirements within each specific arts discipline. A SOTA student starts school at 8:00 am and has academic classes (with very limited AP options) only until lunchtime, after which they go directly into the art field for the balance of the day. Many parents - in or out of district - do not want their kids to sacrifice academics.

I think that the SFUSD has made a poor decision, one that doesn’t necessarily help potential in-district students, or current SOTA students who currently thrive surrounded by the excellence of their fellow students. This is not as simple of a NIMBY issue as the school board seems to make it. The prospect of admitting student based solely on ZIP code, as opposed to raw talent, undermines the mission of the school.

(sorry for the rant…)

22

Whoops.
According to this data, as of 2012/13 California is no longer at #50, but was clocked in at #37 nation-wide in per pupil spending.
http://edsource.org/2014/latest-but-outdated-ed-week-survey-ranks-california-50th-in-per-pupil-spending/56196#.VWilc2aJ5el

23

.

My bad, I should have said “the board” feels it’s not getting enough of the “right” kind of student…

24

Based on the article…

So, we could say out-of-town students are displacing 84 SF students? Looks like total enrollment is around 600 (9th thru 12th grade).

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/california/districts/san-francisco-unf/ruth-asawa-san-francisco-school-of-the-arts-3252/student-body

25

Gator, those 84 students (out of a population closer to 700) still doesn’t address how many potential SF students were actually shut-out during the audition process. During the rigorous auditions, the proctors rarely look at the students home address – only the student’s talent potential, emerging or otherwise.

26

If I remember correctly, for theater they took about 25% when my nephew auditioned. It seems like they don’t like to publish number.

27

So that’s the entire funding source for school districts in CA? I thought most states are like mine, a combination of state aid and local school district property tax funds, but maybe not.

28

Obviously, the number of SF students displaced is 84 at the moment.

Unless you are suggesting that the proctors would have actually left places unfilled.

I cannot believe they would do that.

29

http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1001

30

From the public policy institute of california: http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1001

“California’s public schools receive funding from three sources: the state (57%), property taxes and other local sources (29%), and the federal government (14%)”

31

They should not limit acceptances to just SF residents.

They should give everyone the opportunity to dream and to be a part of the school. If they are willing to do the hard work of practicing, applying and crossing the border every day (trust me, commuting to SF is NOT for the faint of heart!), then they should be equally considered without regard to the paternalistic and antiquated attitudes of “you are not one of our community”.

It isn’t about the tax base, since after all, they properly accept students within SF without considering whether their family is a huge contributor to the tax base, or on public assistance, or anywhere in between.

Everyone should be able to live the dream.

Remember: “I dream that one day we will all be treated as one people”

32

And me thinks such talk comes across as selfish even if not intended that way…[“My kid deserves to compete the the best.”…and regardless of the fact (arguably) one of the best academic schools – Lowell – is limited to San Fran residents only.

So, what at the artsy folks are saying is that, it’s ok to limit the more academic school to local kids, but we should be treated differently. (Sorry, but from a public policy standpoint, I don’t get it.)

33

But wouldn’t every student want to go to the ‘best’ school? As I said, my kids lived closer to the best school, in another district, than they did to our district school. Of course they wanted to go to the best school. Many of their friends were going there, friends they’d played club sports with, gone to catholic grade school with. We lived closer to this ‘best’ school than their friends did because of the crazy city borders around here. The ‘best’ school had many more AP classes, several bands and choirs and orchestras, the state championship sports teams, teachers with doctorate degrees and teaching awards, offered about 7 foreign languages. Of course my kids would have added to the overall excellence of this school, been an asset to the education of the other students! Totally unfair, right? No, the school taxes for this district are about 30% higher because of school bonds than in the city district and the fact was we didn’t live in the right district. It got so bad with people using other addresses or renting shell apartments in the district just to get in that the district started doing home checks, requiring utility bills be submitted and show actual utility usage, and the schools would check several times in the year.

I lived just below the border of one county. There would have been 10 high schools closer to my house (no kids at that time) but the high school for my district was 30+ miles away by highway. Often issues getting home because of snow or other weather conditions, but that was the district. The choice was that high school or private.

That’s just how it is. No different than if you live in one state and want to go to the flagship of another. They don’t care if it is closer to your home, offers the special courses you want, if you had to audition to get it; you live in another state, you pay OOS tuition and you are admitted or not based on the rules of that school (North Carolina restricts the % of OOS).

The kids on the Jackie Robinson League team that played in the Little League World Series had to forfeit because some of the kids on the team lived outside the district. Against the rules, even if the kids lived close to the border.

34

The tax argument is a red herring.
There is a wide variation in how much taxes people pay to the district - from zero to “a lot”. They are all treated equally. So a border-crosser who pays zero to that district should be treated the same as a resident who pays zero, who is treated equally as a resident who pays “a lot”.

35

Actually, they don’t see home address at all. The audition process is entirely different from the enrollment process. (unless it has changed in recent years).

After the audition,the student will get a notice as to whether he or she has been accepted, but accepted is not the same as enrollment. The student then has to take the acceptance to enroll with the district. If that student is a SF resident, the student will bring the usual documents to establish residency; a non-resident will fill out appropriate forms for interdistrict transfer. If the total number of out-of-district enrollments exceeds 10%, the district had the ability to preclude enrollment of excess students. (I don’t know if that would have been by a priority process or random – just that an out-of-district student who passed the audition was not guaranteed a spot, though I am not personally aware of any who lost their spots due because of the 10% limit).

I don’t know whether there was ever any sort of waitlist process to fill spots in the event that some admitted student were denied a spot due to the non-resident limit. Just that it was the job of the school to audition, the job of the district to verify residency and process the inter-district paperwork.

I think that the 14% number is probably due to attrition of in-district residents.

36

Not here. Every homeowner in the school district pays 30% more than property taxpayers in the other school district because this school district voted for the school bond. I’d pay 30% less than someone with the identical house across the street because I live in the lesser district and they live in the better district. The districts with large bond amounts build nicer, newer schools. They have school nurses and extra guidance counselors and buses and fancy band uniforms because the school budget is bigger.

Why should a border-crosser be entitled to attend a district he didn’t pay extra for in the form of bonds? Why live within the district borders and pay more if you can get the same benefits living across district border? Why live in PA if you can get the benefits of PA schools if you live in MD or NJ or OH? Why have school districts at all, just let anyone go anywhere? Because then no one would approve the bonds, no one would vote to pay extra for a better library system or trash collection or schools if anyone could just use them without paying the extra.

I don’t agree with magnet schools or charter schools because I think they pull the funds and assets of the regular schools and benefit some kids while leaving the others with a whole lot less. My two kids went to private school for k-5, then one went to a magnet and one to a charter. The magnet was our regular assigned school, but she was in a program that did pull kids from around the city, and those kids got a lot more than those in the half of the school that was just ‘regular.’ The magnet kids got better teachers, smaller class size, better books, more opportunities. The ‘regular’ kids could barely read and write, 6th grade math was what my kids had had in third grade. I didn’t support this inequity, but of course I wanted what was best for my child so she took advantage of the magnet. If we’d lived in the better district, she could have just been in the regular class, which was superior to the magnet.

37

No, that is a disservice to the community.

It is completely unfair that some people can afford the expensive instruments, the money for private lessons, or even the time to practice a lot (the part time job issue you mentioned).

Accepting people like that over others is just a coded way of accepting the rich students.

38

But it’s not just what the student is getting – it is also the quality of the school’s arts programs. Some of the students coming in to the program were already distinguished in their arts, with professional level experience. Sometimes those were SF residents, sometimes not. The faculty who run the departments want the best students-- not just to stroke their egos, but because that also enhances the reputation of the school as a whole, and probably does have an impact on future career placements & college admissions. And of course it provides an opportunity for the SF resident students to study alongside those extremely accomplished students.

Keep in mind that residency is also fluid, especially with the gentrification and high cost of housing in SF. I don’t know what the new policy will be for students who start off as SF residents but whose families move over the course of 4 years. The move might easily be just over the district line, to somewhat less expensive neighborhoods in Daly City.

39

SOTA is an audition based program. A number of years ago, recognizing the economic disparities that prevented many students from having the opportunity to access preparation in their arts, the district set up an Arts Academy high school, for in-district students only, at the same school site as SOTA, geared to any student who wanted to enroll, but particularly meant for those who did not have the good fortune of receiving previous training in their arts.

When the district now looks at setting up summer middle school programs to provide arts-based training – I don’t think they realize how intense the training is for many arts (dance & instrumental music in particular). It’s just not the same.

I could see them closing off some of the disciplines to out-of-county residents-- for example – creative writing or theater tech. But I think the school is going to see a diminution in quality in performing arts - theater, dance, vocal, instrumental music – by shutting the program to those who don’t live within district boundaries. It’s not that SF lacks artistic talent - it’s that the “best of the best” may live elsewhere, may be motivated and willing to come to SF for a high quality education in their chosen art - and it is precisely those students, who also have aspirations toward careers in their chosen art – who are most likely to want to apply to attend a specialized school like SOTA. And again, it is the school that benefits from having those students. Without them the program is going to look a little more like a high school arts program and a little less like the pre-professional program it has historically aspired to be.

40

Again, former SOTA parent here.
Don’t know if it’s different now, but there was previously a wait list.

FYI, school assignments in San Francisco, with a few exceptions, are by lottery.
Neighborhood school enrollment is NOT the norm in San Francisco, unlike other places.
Desirable, high achieving academic schools like Lowell also require ‘audition’ although it’s via GPA, so it’s not as if the local spots are being taken away from SF students.

Students in lower performing schools in less ‘enriched’ neighborhoods have roughly the same chance
of getting accepted into high performing schools as other students.

I agree with Skyoverme about the tax issues being a red herring.
It is no cake walk in any of the SFUSD schools. Funding, whatever the sources, is stretched very thin throughout.
The issue seems to be people worried that something might be taken away from their child. It’s not only about going to ‘the best’ schools, it’s about what’s best for another under significantly served population – the artistic student.

Bluebayou, I didn’t mean to sound selfish or entitled, and I’m sorry if it comes off that way.
I’m just a parent who understands the dearth of schools that meet the needs of the non-athletic, non-academic student. All I know as a parent of kids whose needs would not have been meet at a more traditional school regardless of rank, that being able to develop artistic talent in high school directly led to the financial ability of my kids being to attend college and graduate without debt.

I simply believe that for a school board to change the 10% cap on out-of-district students to 0%, doesn’t serve either the students or the community. How about enforcing the 10% rule first, before taking out-of-districts away entirely?
In my minds eye I can see the SFUSD board sitting in their semi-circle looking at 14% instead of the 10 and saying, “This is why we can’t have nice things…”