The nation is lamenting the cost of childcare. It could be partially addressed, at least in cities, by expanding the function of underused elementary schools. With funding from the DoEd, Sacramento, and the city, these schools could become a mixture of daycare, pre-K, and K-4. It would require higher teacher pay for the extra days, but it is fruit for the picking. By mixing in fees by ability to pay, the cost should be manageable. What better time to take this on than when we have buildings with excess capacity? For minorities, this could be more effective than reparations.
regarding program capacity at middle schools; specifically Hoover. There used to be portables. Currently there is a wellness center and an after school program in 2 of the rooms. Then there’s the addition of an autism focus program which uses another room.
From the early 2000’s there’s also a bit more attention paid to respecting the class size limits in the contract. Currently in a Gen Ed class it’s supposed to be 35 and if you do hit 35, it’s almost a guarantee you will have kids sitting on the window sill or in some other form of alternative seating because these aren’t universally huge rooms.
In the end, the biggest issue is staffing for 1200-1300 kids. It’s not even staffed well enough for 900 kids. Not even if we were fully staffed. Schools have been reduced to skeleton crews even before the pandemic and empower etc. 4 security for 900 kids? 4 custodians for ALL of Hoover? 4 lunch workers? Lunch time is supervised by maybe 12 people. The cameras are old with lots of blind spots and some don’t work. Half the water faucets are roped off because they have unacceptable levels of lead. The bathroom floor is perpetually covered in piss and the kids track it on their shoes all through the halls into the classrooms. And this is a clean school that’s not doing bad. Staff has been relatively stable. Here when they’re talking about taking away staff and adding students is crazy to anybody who lives it on a day to day whether it’s adults or students.
anyway, I appreciate your work. I just wanted to hopefully add some nuance as to why 990 might be the cap instead of a bigger number.
I wonder if the middle school capacity weirdness has to do with the fact that there is a drop off in enrollment from 5th grade to 6th grade as families move to private for middle school. Perhaps if you looked at current enrollment figures for grades 3/4/5 and based middles school capacity needs (three years out) on those numbers, it would come closer to the claim that middle schools don’t have extra capacity. I think the district could make an argument that even if they don’t genuinely expect to retain all of those kids in middle school, they can’t in good faith plan not to have seats available for anyone who does want to stay. Of course, if this was part of the rationale it would be nice if they said so!
You are right that there is a drop in enrollment from 5th to 6th and that they can project middle school enrollment by looking at current elementary school enrollment and applying a discount. But the capacity figures should have nothing to do with the number of students a school can support at current staffing levels. Capacity is a function of the number of classrooms and the number of children who can be accommodated in those classrooms taking any class size limitations into account. Effectively, if San Francisco suddenly had twice as many students and could hire as many teachers as it wanted, how many students could be accommodated in the school?
I honestly don't understand using a threshold of 260 number for all school with different sizes instead using an enrollment (utilization) rate which is a much realistic number to reflect under enrolled schools. For example, Sutro and Yick Wo both have above 70% enrollment rate whereas other schools that are not on the list are below 50% enrollment rate. This is just targeting naturally smaller size school that are technically not even under-enrolled compared to other schools. Closure of smaller school will harm educational diversity in the long run.
Thanks for the quick analysis after the list came out. I asked a direct question before the Town Hall last Thursday about not meeting their 90-95% utilization goal, which was not answered. And I don't think it has been answered subsequently. I am very much looking forward to what you can find out about their lack of ambition in the closure list, and their justification for still carrying such excess capacity. Also their - what might be considered - fudging of the capacity numbers of HS. It seems highly disingenuous to quote capacity numbers way below previous enrolment figures in schools that have not changed in size. I wonder why?
Both the middle and high school numbers seem to have been fudged. The charitable explanation is that they really do believe that some schools are over capacity now or were over capacity in the recent past. I've never heard anyone make that case but perhaps it's true. If it is, the logical follow-up would be to reduce the size of the incoming class at Lowell, for example, so that it's no longer over capacity.
A cynical explanation is that it was a way to goose the composite score of certain schools by making them seem more full. That was my first instinct but the more I think about it the less I believe it. It seems too convoluted a way to mess with the scores and the effect would probably be too minor to really change the decision about which schools to close.
Now I lean towards the explanation that it's simply a way to justify not closing any middle schools and only a couple of high schools. This explanation is not very satisfying either because the capacities were given to the Stanford folks months ago, at the end of the DAC process. If they had wanted to focus on elementary schools, they could have made that decision right at the beginning of the process. They didn't need to mess with capacities to justify it.
How many of these schools are going to mobilize parents and make a lot of noise so they don’t get closed? Absolutely understand that a school is a community and closing is painful, but I’m worried most parents are not looking at the big picture.
I would be interested in further discussion from you or SFUSD on predicting and modeling trends in total enrollment. Can't they be proactive and not reactive? Maybe this is what happens when a district is crippled by Jo Boaler math.
I did a post on this last year. See https://sfeducation.substack.com/p/enrollment-trends. Since I wrote that, they did commission a new demographic analysis which I believe came to the same conclusion but I haven't seen the actual report.
The nation is lamenting the cost of childcare. It could be partially addressed, at least in cities, by expanding the function of underused elementary schools. With funding from the DoEd, Sacramento, and the city, these schools could become a mixture of daycare, pre-K, and K-4. It would require higher teacher pay for the extra days, but it is fruit for the picking. By mixing in fees by ability to pay, the cost should be manageable. What better time to take this on than when we have buildings with excess capacity? For minorities, this could be more effective than reparations.
regarding program capacity at middle schools; specifically Hoover. There used to be portables. Currently there is a wellness center and an after school program in 2 of the rooms. Then there’s the addition of an autism focus program which uses another room.
From the early 2000’s there’s also a bit more attention paid to respecting the class size limits in the contract. Currently in a Gen Ed class it’s supposed to be 35 and if you do hit 35, it’s almost a guarantee you will have kids sitting on the window sill or in some other form of alternative seating because these aren’t universally huge rooms.
In the end, the biggest issue is staffing for 1200-1300 kids. It’s not even staffed well enough for 900 kids. Not even if we were fully staffed. Schools have been reduced to skeleton crews even before the pandemic and empower etc. 4 security for 900 kids? 4 custodians for ALL of Hoover? 4 lunch workers? Lunch time is supervised by maybe 12 people. The cameras are old with lots of blind spots and some don’t work. Half the water faucets are roped off because they have unacceptable levels of lead. The bathroom floor is perpetually covered in piss and the kids track it on their shoes all through the halls into the classrooms. And this is a clean school that’s not doing bad. Staff has been relatively stable. Here when they’re talking about taking away staff and adding students is crazy to anybody who lives it on a day to day whether it’s adults or students.
anyway, I appreciate your work. I just wanted to hopefully add some nuance as to why 990 might be the cap instead of a bigger number.
I wonder if the middle school capacity weirdness has to do with the fact that there is a drop off in enrollment from 5th grade to 6th grade as families move to private for middle school. Perhaps if you looked at current enrollment figures for grades 3/4/5 and based middles school capacity needs (three years out) on those numbers, it would come closer to the claim that middle schools don’t have extra capacity. I think the district could make an argument that even if they don’t genuinely expect to retain all of those kids in middle school, they can’t in good faith plan not to have seats available for anyone who does want to stay. Of course, if this was part of the rationale it would be nice if they said so!
You are right that there is a drop in enrollment from 5th to 6th and that they can project middle school enrollment by looking at current elementary school enrollment and applying a discount. But the capacity figures should have nothing to do with the number of students a school can support at current staffing levels. Capacity is a function of the number of classrooms and the number of children who can be accommodated in those classrooms taking any class size limitations into account. Effectively, if San Francisco suddenly had twice as many students and could hire as many teachers as it wanted, how many students could be accommodated in the school?
I honestly don't understand using a threshold of 260 number for all school with different sizes instead using an enrollment (utilization) rate which is a much realistic number to reflect under enrolled schools. For example, Sutro and Yick Wo both have above 70% enrollment rate whereas other schools that are not on the list are below 50% enrollment rate. This is just targeting naturally smaller size school that are technically not even under-enrolled compared to other schools. Closure of smaller school will harm educational diversity in the long run.
Thanks for the quick analysis after the list came out. I asked a direct question before the Town Hall last Thursday about not meeting their 90-95% utilization goal, which was not answered. And I don't think it has been answered subsequently. I am very much looking forward to what you can find out about their lack of ambition in the closure list, and their justification for still carrying such excess capacity. Also their - what might be considered - fudging of the capacity numbers of HS. It seems highly disingenuous to quote capacity numbers way below previous enrolment figures in schools that have not changed in size. I wonder why?
Both the middle and high school numbers seem to have been fudged. The charitable explanation is that they really do believe that some schools are over capacity now or were over capacity in the recent past. I've never heard anyone make that case but perhaps it's true. If it is, the logical follow-up would be to reduce the size of the incoming class at Lowell, for example, so that it's no longer over capacity.
A cynical explanation is that it was a way to goose the composite score of certain schools by making them seem more full. That was my first instinct but the more I think about it the less I believe it. It seems too convoluted a way to mess with the scores and the effect would probably be too minor to really change the decision about which schools to close.
Now I lean towards the explanation that it's simply a way to justify not closing any middle schools and only a couple of high schools. This explanation is not very satisfying either because the capacities were given to the Stanford folks months ago, at the end of the DAC process. If they had wanted to focus on elementary schools, they could have made that decision right at the beginning of the process. They didn't need to mess with capacities to justify it.
Yic Wo families are also being offered space at Redding Elementary School which has a newly remodeled campus.
How many of these schools are going to mobilize parents and make a lot of noise so they don’t get closed? Absolutely understand that a school is a community and closing is painful, but I’m worried most parents are not looking at the big picture.
I would be interested in further discussion from you or SFUSD on predicting and modeling trends in total enrollment. Can't they be proactive and not reactive? Maybe this is what happens when a district is crippled by Jo Boaler math.
I did a post on this last year. See https://sfeducation.substack.com/p/enrollment-trends. Since I wrote that, they did commission a new demographic analysis which I believe came to the same conclusion but I haven't seen the actual report.