>> the you have any announcements?

>> thank you. >> i've been one deals with the enrollment procedures and outreach. i call to this hearing so we could learn and little bit about the program. the school board is spreading the word about enrollment. it is critical that we reach families about power and >> procedures. in >> has serious implications for state and federal funding. i would like to think of the school district staff for coming today to provide an update. -- the enrollment has serious

implications for state and federal funding. >> these have been going on for some time. there has been some new changes to the school enrollment process which i think would be an improvement for many of the parents and the school district to allow for more certainty. this will be the first year that you will be implementing the feeder program. i am anxious to hear what that process is like. >> thank you.

are there any other comments? >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am the executive director of the education center and i am here to give you a very high level overview of our new process as well as talk about some of our outreach efforts and also where the school district now in its development of the student assignment policy. what i'm going to do is walk you through a power point. there are materials i have provided for you and it does include a copy of that power point. i think we can go through this quickly. parts of this are used when we go out to the public. we use this to walk the public through the process and explain what the process is and what they need to do and how they can engage in this process.

i'm going to go through this very quickly. please feel free to interrupt or ask questions as i am moving along. in march of 2010, the board approved a new system replacing students -- for placing students that will be implemented this fall. we have already launched that process with our enrollment cycle that began in november. this is still a choice process. the public has told us that they want choice. we also have the ability to link their addresses closer to this process which is also what we have heard. there is an appetite to have opportunities to go to their

schools as well as exercise choice. we are trying to negotiate both of those priorities in this process. we believe that families want to engage in this and they have been very engaged in doing this. we have a new tagline. we wanted to know -- everyone to know that this is a new process. this needs to be on a lot of art materials. these are the three things they need to remember to do when they apply for school, discover and go out and look at polls and become familiar with schools and see what would be the best match for their children. by next week, they need to submit applications. after they receive an assignment

offer, they need to go to the school. we have a lot of new materials. we have materials that explains the process as well as talk about the school so that they can find out all the different programs that are offered in the school. when they apply, they need to bring certain documents. this is what they need to bring if they are enrolling for the first time, births, address, application form. this is the date of that need to remember. all of the applications can be submitted to -- or you can submit it if you are a sibling, to the school that your sibling attends.

this process is much simpler technically than what used to have which was the lottery which look at many different considerations when placed in the school. this process on it looks at where you live and where your choices are. we strive to give you the highest choice school. you can list as many as you like, we would like families to look at all of their options because there are so many great schools in the san francisco. what do we do her when we are looking -- let's go back here a little bit. we also have a lot of opportunities for families to come into our satellite collection sites which we started yesterday. we will be at certain schools throughout the city so that

parents don't have to come all the way downtown to submit their applications, they can go out to the school cites the week before the deadline and submit applications there. our staff would be available. >> by march 18th, we will be sending notification to all of the families of a placement offer, hopefully to one of the choices that they submitted. they need to enroll by april 15th in order to secure the assignments. what happens if there is more demand than there are seats available for the school? we need a tie-breaker system and this is a new process. this allows us to provide an opportunity for all of the students to have a school of their choice. but one of the main considerations is the average

test score areas. there are certain parts of the city which are included in your packet and you will see attendance area boundaries. in this matter i am showing you, on the shaded area, these are the areas of the city where students who live in these areas are the most underserved and low were performing historically. we want them to have the opportunity to have a chance to enroll into one of their schools of choice. this area is a prominent feature in our tie-breaker system. elementary attendance areas have been redrawn. some were drawn in the 70's and 80's engine not aligned right down to the way our priorities

are and so we have redrawn attendance areas around most of our elementary schools. all students live within an intended area. middle schools and high schools don't have an attendance area at this point. we also have some schools across the city which mean they don't have any attendance areas. this includes all of the high schools and middle schools. this includes our total immersion schools and our newcomer schools and montessori school. the reason is that these schools, there are not as many opportunities to enroll in these programs. our tie-breaker system for the elementary schools will work

this way, if there are many requests, we use the tie breaker process. for example, any younger siblings with -- would be assigned first. any schools that lift in the attendance area and have been part of the pre k, they will have this next tiebreaker. the test score areas, and in that live in that shaded area that we look at, they will have an opportunity to have the next tiebreaker. then at the attendance area, this is if they choose it. if you lived there, you might choose it and you might not have to choose it. this is not a guaranteed assignment, however we have an opportunity for families to attend. then the dense population area means that there are more

students who are applying to the school then there are seats. this would apply to any other choices. we would not know this and are not able to protect this until we know how many applicants they are for a particular school. after all of those tiebreakers, the others will be a random selection. that is an example of how the system works. we are developing patterns, however we are not using this. it is finalized. for now, we have an interim process which includes siblings, test scores, and the random selections of all other aspects.

for high schools, it is much the same, siblings, test scores, and a random selection of all of the other applicants. this is our process. high schools have worked hard to develop unique programs and pathways and we wanted all students to have the schools that will meet their needs and interests. we have started out reach efforts very early on by convening a lot of our community partners into a family network and this is how we are getting information out, we are relying on a lot of information out to understand what our process is. we have received a lot of information and feedback on

families on how to reach them. we work with the parent engagement office which is very involved in all of our work. we have developed on the documents so we want this to have a different look and feel than what we have before. we have included the guides to the schools and the policy guides and the maps and a lot of resources for parents and >> applications and other kinds of materials. we have conducted discovery workshops where we have worked parents through the process and talked to them about how this process works. this has gone everyone very excited. we have an enrollment center and we have gone out and brought our

stuff out to different neighborhoods to collect applications or to get information from the families. these are the areas where we have been turned down -- where we have been. it is in very important to continue the out reach. this allows staff to engage in different placements. we have placements in may and august. we realize that many families are not here or just move into san francisco. with our system, they can engage in choice. the out reach we are planning will continue throughout the month of march, april, may. this week, these are the dates and times and locations of our satellite collection.

we have 10 at saturday dates where families may come in and will have their children assessed. we are helping to identify progress and services that might benefit of them. of course, we are doing our outreach, we work with the housing authority to do mailings. we have been walking the beat, actually. this is another new feature that we have started.

our new web sites are things we have rolled up prior to the district websites. we have rolled these out sooner so that families can use tools that are on here. we have school selectors and information about all of our schools and at the maps are there so that they can't look at areas and tighten it addresses and find out what their schools are. that is just an overview of what our process is. we have some ongoing work which they are continuing to engage in. we will be implementing this in the 2012 school year right now,

the middle school initiative is working to build quality middle schools throughout the district before we can even identify or decide on a middle school feeder pattern. we want to make sure that they all have great opportunities for all of our students and meet their needs there has been a proposal that has come to the board and they are considering and we are now in the public engagement stage of that and going out to the public and working with communities, families, schools to get their input on this process. there is also the work going on in designing our transportation infrastructure. of the next three years, we will be meeting the parties of the district. in your packet, you will see a

map and this is only a partial matt which looks at the language. in your packet, it will show what the proposal is for the middle school feeders. right now, we want people to come and let us know about that and give us input to and there are many opportunities to do that. what the board will be considering is what she -- what approach to use once the feeders are identified. there are several options under consideration. the first is really not to use a pattern but to continue with our choice process and have a process that just uses younger siblings, test scores, and others, which is the interim process we are using for the