The Sunset Connection - Perspectives from SF's Sunset Neighborhood

Inside the SFUSD Lottery: A Parent’s Guide to Surviving the System

• Jessica J. Ho • Season 1 • Episode 9

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What happens when your kid’s school assignment isn’t tied to your address, but to a citywide lottery? In this episode of The Sunset Connection, host Jessica Ho sits down with four Sunset District parents to unpack the complexities of San Francisco’s public school system.

You’ll hear from:

  • Gabi Wu, a real estate agent and bilingual education advocate who started researching kindergarten options when her daughter was three.
  • Alex Wong, chair of SF Parent Action, who walks us through the school assignment process, from values to waitlists.
  • Lucy Wang, a PTA leader and longtime public servant, who shares what it really takes to stay in the system through high school.
  • Patrick Wolff, former U.S. Chess Champion turned education advocate, who pushes for better funding and special ed support.

Plus, we wrap up with a fun trivia round on San Francisco schools!

Whether you’re planning to start a family, already navigating TK applications, or just trying to understand how education shapes our city, this episode is for you.

 🎶 Original music for this episode was licensed via Soundstripe.
 Special thanks to the artists who bring these stories to life. 

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The Sunset Connection — exploring the stories and histories that connect us.

Jessica Ho:

If you've ever wondered how SFUSD or the San Francisco Unified School District decides where your kid goes to school, or why so many families feel stuck between whether they need to go to public or private school, this episode is for you. I sat down with four local Sunset parents to talk about navigating SFUSD, language, immersion, equity advocacy and what it really takes to stay in the city and stick around to the end. There's a trivia round to test it really takes to stay in the city and stick around to the end. There's a trivia round to test your knowledge about local schools in the area.

Jessica Ho:

So I was hosting an open house in the city a few weeks ago when a parent came up to me and asked how is the school system here? Do you know where my kid will go to school if we were to purchase this home? And I did not have a simple answer, for you see, in San Francisco the school system works differently than in many other areas. Whereas I grew up in a place-based school system, meaning I went to whatever school my address dictated, San Francisco uses a complex, arguably confusing lottery system. Sometimes your child may be placed to the school next door, and sometimes they may have to take a bus across the city, and while it's easy to see why this question matters to someone planning to have kids or who already has them, it's actually a question that affects everyone, whether you have school-age kids. Public education shapes neighborhoods, property values and future community outcomes, as one of my guests, Patrick Wolff, puts it.

Patrick Wolff:

The public schools are one of the most truly democratic institutions small d democratic institutions we have. They serve the absolute widest range of families from all different backgrounds and perspectives, with different needs.

Jessica Ho:

I'd argue that the quality of education for our youth affects all of our futures. It's in our collective interest to ensure the public school system works for as many children as possible. To start, I wanted to ask a fellow realtor to see what she would respond to the question that was asked about schools. All right, I'm so excited to welcome Gabi Wu, a dedicated community leader, real estate professional and passionate advocate for bilingual education. Gabi serves as the president of the board of directors at Wah Mei School, San Francisco's first ever Chinese-English bilingual preschool. For listeners of the podcast, you may remember my conversation with Lily Wong, who also works at Wah Mei School, while we talked about the Sunset Chinese Cultural District. So welcome to the show, Gabi.

Gabi Wu:

Thank you, Jessica. It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Jessica Ho:

So let's start with you. Where did you grow up? What brought you to the Sunset District?

Gabi Wu:

Thank you for having me. So I actually grew up in the Sunset, so I went to school at Francis Scott Key, so I moved around in the city, but ultimately I'm back in the Sunset again and I'm really grateful that I can also raise my family and have my kids growing up here in the Sunset can also raise my family and have my kids growing up here in the sunset.

Jessica Ho:

That's great. So, yeah, tell me about your kids. How many kids do you have? I know you have three kids, like how old are they? Yeah, and which schools do they go to? Just so we have it on the record.

Gabi Wu:

Yeah, so I have three kids. I have a 12 year old, a 10 year and then a 3-year-old. So the older two goes to Alice Fong Yu, one's in fifth grade, the other one's a seventh grader, and then we have a toddler, currently a preschooler at Hua Mei. So we are very grateful and fortunate that they really get to be in an immersive bilingual setting.

Jessica Ho:

And I just started this episode because I was doing an open house at Mount Davidson Manor, right next to the school over there, and they're like, hey, like there's a school like next door. If I live here, if I buy this house, will my child go to that school? And I just stared at that lady and I was like I have no idea. I'm so sorry, I have no idea. So how would you answer that question?

Gabi Wu:

First of all, go to the SFUSD website, okay, plug in the address, yeah, and uh, boom, they'll give you the answer right there. So they'll let you know exactly what your attendance area school is website available in languages other than English now? Yes, yes, it is so, which is it's a lot more accessible, that's great.

Gabi Wu:

Yeah, so SFUSD website. They has a wealth of information on there, from TK all the way up until 12th grade and plus. So a lot of information. So I would start definitely start at the SFUSD website.

Jessica Ho:

And didn't you do other things like go on tours and like go to these seminars? Can you tell me more about all the other resources that are available for parents if they want to learn more besides just going to the website, which is important, but what else can they do?

Gabi Wu:

Yeah, that's a great question. So when I was searching for schools for my old days, I feel like I can do a whole episode just talking about how to apply for kindergarten. Wow, Because so myself I think I'm a little bit extensive I actually started looking for kindergarten for her not at four-year-old but at three, so I started two years before her kindergarten starts, her kindergarten starts. So I started looking because I feel like I needed more time to tour the schools, because touring the schools itself, I believe they only offer tours during the fall season, I see.

Gabi Wu:

So you're very limited to like to look at the number of schools that you want to look at. Setting up tours for yourself, your partner, you know, your family, would be very helpful if you have the time. And if you don't have the time, I would also highly recommend going to seminars because SFUSD they have annual resource fair, for example, where all the elementary schools and K-8 schools will come out to this resource fair and they would, you know, showcase their school and you'll get to meet some of their fellow parents and their staff and teachers and things like that, and then you'll kind of get a sense of how the school is like and then more information and what programs they offer. What's you know what curriculums, after-school programs, enrichment programs, things like that so those are very helpful.

Jessica Ho:

After hearing about Gabi personal story, I wanted to zoom out and understand the broader system that shapes where kids go to school and how those decisions are made. Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Alex Wong, a dedicated public policy professional and passionate advocate for families in San Francisco. In addition to working in health care, alex serves as chair of the board of SF Parent Action, the advocacy affiliate of San Francisco Parent Coalition. A broad collective of San Francisco public school parents, teachers and community members advocating on behalf of the city's public schools is advocating on behalf of the city's public schools. He walks us through the school assignment system, its values, its flaws and what families should expect when navigating it for the first time. So welcome to the show, alex.

Alex Wong:

Oh, thank you. This is my first podcast ever.

Jessica Ho:

I feel exciting. I'm so excited for you. It's not as intimidating as you think it would be right.

Alex Wong:

I don't know. It kind of is Now, all of a sudden, I've become very self-conscious of how I sound, but as a big podcast listener myself, I feel like, oh, how could I say no to this?

Jessica Ho:

Speaking of which, where did you grow up and what's your story? Tell us about, kind of, how you ended up being my neighbor in the Sunset District.

Alex Wong:

Yeah, so funny thing is is that I was actually born in San Francisco. My family did live in the sunset, but we moved away when I was about two years old which cross streets I believe it was uh 44th and pacente around there they tell me stories about this all the time, but obviously I don't remember I know I have uh two older siblings do they remember anything?

Alex Wong:

yeah, they talk about how, like what it was like going to like Francis Scott Key Elementary and like getting ice cream from Pollyann's, like the fact that they still go that, the fact that they remember that and that my kids go there.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah.

Alex Wong:

It feels very full circle. Then we moved out to Virginia where my parents opened a Chinese restaurant. So I was that type of kid and yeah, for the most part.

Alex Wong:

That's where I grew up. In, Went to the University of Virginia for my undergrad and then, when I've I like just happened to volunteer at a governor's race then. And then that's when I caught like the politics bug. My first job out of college was working for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. I lived in DC, worked on Capitol Hill. That's where I met my wife and then she got a job out here and that's how we ended up back in San Francisco.

Jessica Ho:

Is your wife also in politics?

Alex Wong:

No, very much, very much not. So she works in tech.

Jessica Ho:

So how did you guys meet?

Alex Wong:

We met online. This is back then.

Jessica Ho:

Top of meat bagel.

Alex Wong:

No older than that. It was OKCupid.

Jessica Ho:

Oh, that's so cute.

Alex Wong:

Yeah, she was actually are a success story then. Yes, it's very funny because she was my first online date, so it's like 100 percent success rate for like online dating for me.

Jessica Ho:

How old are your kids now?

Alex Wong:

My daughter is seven and my son is five.

Jessica Ho:

So are they just about to enter into elementary school? Is that where your journey is right now?

Alex Wong:

Oh, yeah, my daughter is a first grader at Jefferson, and then my son will start kindergarten in the fall.

Jessica Ho:

And where is he going to kindergarten?

Alex Wong:

He'll also be at Jefferson.

Jessica Ho:

Oh, Jefferson has kindergarten.

Alex Wong:

Oh yeah, oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's a K through five. Okay, that's cool.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah, and so what type of research should you have to like do in order to like kind of know what schools are available, how to like begin that process?

Alex Wong:

Yeah, I guess, like like typical Asian millennials, we open so many tabs and spend so much time trying to do, like you know, researching each individual schools, like the ones near us. For sure, like you know, my wife went to public schools, I went to public schools, I went to a public university. So we were very wanting to make sure that our kids kind of grew up with those types of values as well. And then we've definitely made sure, because part of the tricky thing about the school district is it's very difficult to navigate and to kind of figure out For me, you know, we also have different things, Like mine was proximity, my wife's was like academic, so we had to find things that find the schools that sort of align with all of that. But we're also very lucky that the SunSec actually has a lot of really great schools too someone who's now gone through the system, like do you have any advice?

Jessica Ho:

or like how would you explain it to someone?

Alex Wong:

uh, yeah, I would say it's very tricky, uh. So I would ask you know, counsel everyone to be very patient, definitely do your research, but definitely also just ask yourself what is the most important to you? Um, because you know there are over over 100 schools just in our public school system. That doesn't even add in all like the parochial schools, the private schools and all that. First, just be very clear, like what are your values, what do you really care about? And then that will sort of like naturally, sort of like dwindle the list from there. And then also be very flexible too, because you know you may not get your first choice, you may not even get your second choice, but that doesn't mean you won't get a school that you're happy with is what I would tell a lot of people.

Jessica Ho:

So like, how would they even apply? Like, let's say, they dwindled it down to three different choices, like what do they do? How do they like enroll their kid?

Alex Wong:

Once you know what kind of schools you want, you know after you go through the school tours and you find out which ones you that you enjoy um through the sf usd, then you know, you enroll, you put it, you submit in an online application and then you start ranking all of the schools um that you like. I think we put, I think we ranked like eight or nine schools.

Jessica Ho:

How many can you rank?

Alex Wong:

I think it's up to like 15 kind of. It feels like a numbers game. Which is like, which is like what you don't want to do. Uh, when you're deciding your children's education Right, but you know that you start ranking it because you know so many schools are very much in demand.

Jessica Ho:

Right.

Alex Wong:

And so if you don't get into that, you know it's, you know, that's why they call it a lottery, you know. May the odds be in your favor, you know, and eventually you know. So that's why you need to, sort of like, have a good list of schools that you feel good about, and that's why you also want to be flexible too, because you may not get into your first choice the first time, but maybe eventually a slot will open up after the first week.

Jessica Ho:

Oh, like you're put on a wait list. Yeah, you're put on a wait list and then maybe then another slot will open up and then you do get into a school that you do want to go to, but in that case will your child already be going to another school and then you have to pull them out and go, and then they go to that school.

Alex Wong:

Yes, that is true, and you have to kind of be prepared to do that.

Jessica Ho:

It's a lot of extra work.

Alex Wong:

Yeah, it really is, and it's also just based on, like, the type of school as well. So you know there are like K-8 schools like that basically cut out. There is no like the middle school is merged into the elementary school and those are considered like citywide schools, so like anybody from from the city can apply there.

Jessica Ho:

OK.

Alex Wong:

And so that's where you're kind of like like competing with even more families.

Jessica Ho:

Wow.

Alex Wong:

As opposed if you were to go to your like attendance area school, which is like your, your neighborhood school, in which case you have a you know, a really good chance of getting into that school that's closest to you right.

Jessica Ho:

I've heard that like where you live does matter, like it's a factor, but it's only one of many like is there a formula that is out there? Was it kind of like magic?

Alex Wong:

uh, they have things that are like called tie breakers, uh that sort of help determine. It's like you know. They determine like OK, what's the demand for this particular school? Like, let's say, a school has like 400 slots and you have like 900 applicants, so how do you whittle that down? They always give preference to people who already have siblings there. That's like almost like guaranteed, if you have one kid there, you're going to get a spot will be reserved for the sibling. It depends on, like, the census tract that you live in. Then you start going into like where you live.

Jessica Ho:

It starts to fall into that as well is this criteria available publicly, or this is something that you just need to like know?

Alex Wong:

oh no, no, it's, it's all available, like they're not hiding it or anything. But it's also kind of tricky because you know it's not like. The school tells everybody like. We calculated this based on your child.

Lucy Wang:

Right.

Alex Wong:

And, based on all these factors, that's how it worked out. It's more of like well, we did the math. This is the school you've been assigned to, and if you don't like it, you know here's Do you appeal?

Alex Wong:

You go through like different rounds, so like, oh, if you don't get through, if you don't get, if you don't like all the schools in the first round that you like, you can go through a second round and then sort of like you can re-rank your schools from there. But I think they're also also what's frustrating is that, like that used to be the old way. I think they're doing it a completely different way now. Where it used to be like you would go through multiple rounds, now I think it's just like a straight wait list of where you want to be.

Jessica Ho:

It seems really complicated.

Alex Wong:

It is complicated and it changes. The reason I paid attention to this is that I remember when my daughter was born, she was supposed to be in the first class of this, like new system of how they do it where they kind of do away with the lottery. It kind of like swings a little more back towards like the neighborhood type school. So there's a little bit more certainty but they keep delaying it.

Jessica Ho:

Oh, so they haven't implemented it yet. They have not implemented it, so it's still the old system until further notice.

Alex Wong:

Yeah, pretty much yeah.

Jessica Ho:

And while Alex explains processes and formulas, Lucy Wong brings us into the lived experience of navigating it all. Her story helps illuminate why some families stay and how often others are pushed to leave. Today, I'm honored to be joined by Lucy Wong, a dedicated public servant and community advocate. Lucy currently serves as a deputy commissioner and special counsel at the California Department of Insurance, where she provides independent legal advice directly to the insurance commissioner of California, which is an elected position, by the way, and oversees various special projects and initiatives. With over 24 years of legal experience, including nearly 14 years as Deputy Attorney General with the California Attorney General's Office, Lucy has been at the forefront of complex commercial insurance litigation and regulatory matters. Wow, that is a mouthful. Beyond her professional achievements, Lucy is a proud mother of two boys who have navigated the Sandwich School Unified School District. Her active involvement as a PTA parent reflects her commitment to enhancing educational experiences and outcomes for all students. Lucy, welcome to the show.

Lucy Wang:

Thank you so much, Jessica. I am so honored to be here and I'm really excited to work with you on your podcast.

Jessica Ho:

Let's start with you. Where did you grow up and what's your story?

Lucy Wang:

So I grew up in the Bay Area. I was originally born in Taiwan but I emigrated here with my family when I was around three, so in the mid-1970s, let's say, and I grew up mostly in the South Bay, down in San Jose and ultimately always grew up through public schools down in San Jose and ultimately always grew up through public schools. I attended UCLA, so I did do a stint briefly in Southern California again a public university and I returned to the Bay Area for law school and I have, you know, been here ever since.

Jessica Ho:

So, lucy, tell me about your kids.

Lucy Wang:

So I have two boys, jessica. I have one, alexander, who is now a 20-year-old and is a sophomore in college at a public university, at UC, and then I have a Holden, who is a junior at Lowell High School here in San Francisco. I will tell you, as a new parent navigating the system, that it can be stressful because you're not sure whether or not your child will be assigned your local school, if that's your choice, and you're not guaranteed you know whether or not your kid will get into one of your top three choices. So most parents, if you're able to and I did as well I had a backup. We had applied to two different parochial schools in the neighborhood as well you have to think about your own convenience and commitment. You also have to think about the times the school begin and end, simply because does that work with your school schedule? Because San Francisco at the time had three different bell schedules for students in order to accommodate the buses, and I think now it's down to two, but, depending, your child could start at 7.50 am, 8.20 am or 9 am.

Lucy Wang:

Right, the San Francisco public school system is definitely no joke and it's something that is not necessarily intuitive for even parents in the Bay Area, simply because when I went to public school in the Bay Area, you were just assigned the school that was in your neighborhood, so it was based upon just your districts, and it's still like that today, I believe, in large parts of the Bay Area. You were just assigned the school that was in your neighborhood, so it was based upon just your districts, and it's still like that today, I believe, in large parts of the Bay Area. You live in a certain location, you are assigned a certain elementary school, middle school and then high school and this, as you know as a realtor, is very important because parents make choices or move based upon the school that the particular neighborhood feeds into and in San Francisco, recognizing the disparity that may come from living in certain neighborhoods, they have tried to build in equity through this lottery system and I think this has been a hit or miss for them, but regardless, that is the system that we are in. But I do think that San Francisco, unified, has played with the notion of, you know, neighborhood schools or a community factor, because, at the end of the day, when you talk to all parents, they just want their kids to go to a good school in their neighborhood they don't want to change. They don't want to move their kid or have their kid take a bus halfway across San Francisco for a better school. They just want equity and for all schools to be equally good. I tell parents all the time there are definitely going to be trade-offs.

Lucy Wang:

My sons went to AP Janini Middle School, which has 1,200 students. That was larger than the high school I attended when I went to high school. Lowell has 3,000 students. That was larger than the high school I attended when I went to high school. Lowell has 3,000 students.

Lucy Wang:

There's something they're going to learn from navigating such a large school space and there are, of course, things that you give up. Are you going to have school counselors that know what your kid's name is? Probably not. But at the same time, as a parent, if you understand, going in that they're going to gain independence and skills they wouldn't otherwise get, and then you are able to provide them the resources that they need in terms of additional tutoring, guidance or help, then it's a trade-off and some parents think it's worth it. For example, some parents would rather have their kids go through a San Francisco public high school and then pay for extra tutoring or a college counselor, because the tradeoff is paying that on the side versus a $50,000 private high school education, which is the average cost of a private high school in San Francisco, and that's per year. And that's per year.

Jessica Ho:

And then there's the question of funding. How do we ensure that all these schools have the resources they need? Enter Patrick Wolff, a two-time US chess champion, a finance professional and the vice chair of SFUSD's Bond Oversight Committee. He talks about his late entrance into school politics, the Student Success Fund and why he's pushing the city to fund special education more flexibly. Welcome, patrick.

Patrick Wolff:

Thank you, it's good to be here, jessica.

Jessica Ho:

So let's start with you when did you grow up and what's your story?

Patrick Wolff:

Okay, I grew up well. I was born in New York, but when I was three our family moved to Northampton, massachusetts, which is in the western part of the state. Middle school, high school I grew up in Belmont, in the Boston area. I ended up brief stint at Yale, but I ended up living in the Boston area until I was a little over 30 years old, which is when I moved out to San Francisco. I moved out to Menlo Park first One sort of big fact about me, it's a little little unusual I became a chess grandmaster.

Patrick Wolff:

I was the US chess champion twice a champion of the whole United States in 1992, 1995. No-transcript, happily married ever since, met her in San Francisco. We moved to the Sunset in 2008 and have lived in the same house ever since, and so both of our kids, born and raised in San Francisco Our son is now a freshman in college, our daughter is now a junior in high school was 10. My daughter was seven and up until that point it really was my wife who had focused much more on the education side and the child rearing side. I mean, I was involved in the family, of course, but I was very, very focused on my career and it really shifted at that point. So my sense for their education really started in sort of 2015 and much more in earnest in 2017, once I stopped working sort of for anybody else and had much more time on my own and then the pandemic happened in 2020.

Patrick Wolff:

And then the pandemic happened in 2020. As we were, my wife and I were dealing with just the difficulty, the pandemic and just the difficulties our kids were having. I wasissance. That happened as parents were glued to our Zoom screens and we could not believe what we were seeing from our school board. And as we all saw this, we were very motivated and galvanized to get involved. And that continues to stay.

Patrick Wolff:

And I am vice chair of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. So you know, citizens Bond Oversight Committee is a volunteer committee that, as the name suggests, provides oversight for the bonds. There's a billion dollars in bond funding that SFUSD has now and we are the oversight committee. We have no authority, we can't make any decisions, but we do review information and communicate to the public and communicate to the school board and the superintendent. But it's one thing to have kind of an arm's length relationship by raising money and sort of helping organizations, and it's another thing to be sort of down in the weeds and really engage not just in the politics of who gets elected but also in issues like the math curriculum, reading curriculum. I wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Standard like two weeks ago about the Student Success Fund, which is a source of funding that San Francisco provides. There are some problems with it.

Jessica Ho:

Tell us more about the Student Success Fund and your op-ed Sure.

Patrick Wolff:

So the Student Success Fund was created in 2022. It was Supervisor Hillary Ronan, I think very deeply, in partnership with Board of Education Commissioner Matt Alexander, that designed it.

Patrick Wolff:

There are pluses and minuses about it. So the plus is it's wonderful that there's another source of funding from the state to support SFUSD. However, there are, in my opinion, two critical flaws with the way it was designed. The first is the money is allocated in grants that individual schools have to apply for and can only be used for certain kinds of expenditures that are meant to support what's called a community school model. The second problem, which I think is an even bigger problem, is because it's so wedded to the side of this community school model. Before a school can apply for grant money, they have to use the money to hire what's called a community school coordinator.

Jessica Ho:

So, if I understand correctly, your proposal is for the city to fund for special education, allowing the SFUSD unrestricted fund to be used for more urgent things.

Patrick Wolff:

It's specifically to allow the student success fund to be used for what's called SPED special education and simultaneously, in so doing, removing the requirement to hire a community school coordinator before a school can apply for that grant money. I think if you made those two changes, you'd still be able to provide sort of the very the equity focus that the city wanted, which I think is absolutely terrific, and the accountability that the city wanted, which I completely agree with, but to do so in a way that would allow schools to immediately apply funds to make to really improve student outcomes, again with an equity focus.

Jessica Ho:

As Patrick calls for more inclusive budgeting. It circles back to the heart of this episode equity and access. Language immersion programs like the ones Gabi kids are in aren't just a nice to have, they're a form of cultural preservation and educational empowerment. So how did you get involved with WaMe?

Gabi Wu:

Yes, so both my older two children are anonymized at WaMei, and then I have a younger one that currently is enrolled in WaMei in their preschool program. I love that WaMei is a bilingual preschool, providing Chinese, cantonese and Mandarin and English at the same time for the children, because bilingual learning is something that's very important and that's something that my family values a lot heavily, and then we really just hope that our kids and want our kids to be bilingual as well, and just kind of immersing them in that environment I think will help them build that foundation. Whether or not they need to speak the language or not, it's very important to have that cultural identity.

Jessica Ho:

Are they learning Mandarin or Cantonese?

Gabi Wu:

So right now the little one is in a Mandarin bilingual class and their home language. We try to speak Cantonese as much as we can with them, so we expose them to both Cantonese and Mandarin. My older two are also grateful to be in the immersion program at LS1U, and they start them with Cantonese and then they add on Mandarin when they reach sixth grade.

Jessica Ho:

Wow, that's great, and when you were growing up did they have immersion programs like they do now, or when did that start?

Gabi Wu:

I believe Alice Bong Yu was the first full Chinese immersion school, so they started in 1995. Whether or not, if there's immersion programs, being a kid back then, but now looking at information at SFUSD, I believe back in the 90s they did have bilingual programs. So, for example, our current principal, liana Sito, she actually founded Alice Found you and so she was a former teaching staff at West Portal. So West Portal at the time had a language pathway program, which was the first Chinese immersion program that started at West Portal Elementary School and till today West Portal Elementary still has this language pathway program, which was the original start of Alice Wong Yu.

Jessica Ho:

I was curious. So you mentioned you were also looking at private schools. So if you are in the process of applying to public school, do you also have to apply to the private school in parallel? And then at what point do you withdraw your application from private school? How does that?

Gabi Wu:

work. That's a really good question. So I think many parents had shared that dilemma at one point. So you do have to apply to private and public in parallel, and privates, at least at the time when I apply, they usually give you a answer like a decision earlier than the public school systems, so you kind of have a little bit of time to decide. They'll give you a little bit of time before your public school results come in. So ultimately at one point you would have to decide whether or not you want to put down a deposit for private school or you want to wait for public.

Jessica Ho:

After Gabi deep dive in the language access and immersion, I wanted to bring in another parent voice, someone who's experienced SFUSD all the way through high school. Lucy Wong has a son in law, another one that recently graduated. What happens if you get accepted into the parochial school but then you're waitlisted for public school? And then you get into public school, Do they give you a refund? Like, how does that work?

Lucy Wang:

So that is the risk you take, and the private schools know it as well. Private, parochial they know that most parents want their kids to enter into a public elementary school. San Francisco's public elementary schools overall are very strong by and large. If you look at the percentage of kids who enter the elementary schools, it's much higher. And then that starts slowing down and decreasing as you enter middle school and high school. And so for parents, private schools know this, so they want you to pay that deposit hot and heavy and it's non-refundable, and so they will keep that. But at the end of the first semester there was a new admittee by spring who got off the wait list and their parents pulled her from private school and then put her in public school once she got off the wait list and this was halfway through the school year Wow, right. I mean, as a parent you don't really have a lot of input in the office's policies. All we can do is protest and speak up when it impacts the schools, and then we do do that when that happens.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah. So tell me about that. How do you speak out? How do you make your voices heard? Is it through the PTA advocacy, or is it through another For?

Lucy Wang:

example, when my children were students at Jefferson Elementary School, and they wanted to centralize special day programs.

Lucy Wang:

And so what they did was they looked at all schools and they determined how many classrooms were available and if they could utilize more to add two special day classes to Jefferson, converting every available space even though the school was overcrowded.

Lucy Wang:

And they wanted to do this by getting rid of our library. Now, our library and our librarian was, of course, a very important resource, especially for children, you know, in kindergarten through fifth grade. And so what we did as a PTA is we held meetings with the principal to, of course, let it be known that we didn't want to lose it. I mean, of course, it was not the principal's decision and ultimately I, along with two other parents, went before the Board of Education in San Francisco to advocate on behalf of the elementary school. And so, if you elevate your voice enough, you know, at the end of the day we reached a deal where they did take the library and converted it into a classroom for special day programs, but then we were able to carve out room in our cafeteria to convert part of that space into a library space.

Jessica Ho:

Can you please tell us more about how it's like to get involved with the PTA?

Lucy Wang:

So getting involved with the PTA is really simple and it starts at day one when you do your parent tours of an elementary school, middle school, high school usually at schools that have heavily involved PTAs or even ones that are medium involved, usually there's a parent representative to talk about it and principals who have strong PTAs are very savvy about making sure that the PTA has representation and is included, because that kind of is a sign for whether or not you know for prospective parents about their expected level of involvement and principals are very candid about what things the PTA funds and the necessity of that and because a lot of the perks, such as having a librarian, having a school nurse, having extra activities during PE, those are all usually funded by PTA funds, because the school district really only gives you enough money to pay for one principal, the teachers. If there's enough students, maybe you might get an assistant principal and a school secretary and that's it.

Jessica Ho:

To close up the conversation, I turned back to Alex Wong, the chair of SF Parent Action. We talked about advocacy, school board politics and how parents can organize for change in the city. That doesn't always make it easy to raise a family, and so I know you've been really active in the civic space both in your professional life but also in your personal life. Can you tell me how that kind of translates to your work in advocating for better schools for families? Doing an SF Like? What did that? When did that start?

Alex Wong:

Yeah. So I feel like when you're in politics, the main thing you try to understand is who are, like, the influence makers? Like what is, why are things the way that they are and and what kind of prevents that? And so eventually, when we had children, you know we're obviously very, you know, passionate about education. We want the best education for our kids and you start looking at who are the decision makers who are doing that. Like who is this, who serves on the school board?

Alex Wong:

You know how do they approach education issues and and it's something that in San Francisco it's not, it's not, it's sort of like an issue that not everyone has necessarily resonates with. You know, San Francisco has, like the lowest number of children per capita of any major city. It also, like, has the highest public school enrollment of any major city. So the number of, like public school families is actually pretty low compared to a lot of places. So that's why you know, when you have, when you're very passionate about education issues and that and passionate about things that are for issues for families, you realize there's sort of like a niche that I felt like I could fill in advocating for that.

Jessica Ho:

As a chair of the SF Parent Action, what type of things are you advocating for to make it easier for parents to navigate the school system and want to stay in San Francisco?

Alex Wong:

to navigate the school system and want to stay in San Francisco? Oh yeah, so well. We advocate to make sure that for really good school board members, in the sort of like pantheon of elected offices, school board races tend to be pretty much down the ladder so they don't get as much attention, but obviously they really matter. Like the decisions they make are crucial. You know, the essential components of like living anywhere are, like you know, make sure you have housing, good education, a lot of good services around there and everything you need. So those are the ingredients that, like all families need. So that's why we advocate on making sure that student outcomes in the past they would focus on like renaming what a school is rather than putting more attention of like third grade literacy, rather than whether or not you know someone who comes out and graduates is like ready to attend college or further career, because even though they might graduate high school, they might not be prepared for what it's like to like enter the workforce or even to enter college and all the demands that come with that.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah, can you tell me a little bit more about SF Parent Action?

Alex Wong:

Oh yeah, so SF Parent Action is just the affiliate of advocacy affiliate for SF Parent Coalition. You know this came out of the pandemic. You know, at the time they were, the schools were closed, but private schools and charter and other like parochial schools were open, but public schools were still closed. So eventually there was an organization called like Decreasing the Distance that was founded by like Cliff Yee and Yvette Edwards and Meredith Dodson and to really focus on advocating to reopen the schools. And then eventually people found that there was, you know, a need for people to advocate on behalf of public schools. And that's where it became.

Alex Wong:

SF Parent Coalition and so since then you know, we have representatives from all over the school district, across all over like over 100 schools and kind of like what I was saying. It's just like fulfilling the need and I feel like what the different parent groups that we do us is that there aren't too many people that focus specifically on like public schools and really this is like their primary focus. That's why we're able to sort of like fill the vacuum in that regard, and that's the advocacy arm.

Jessica Ho:

But does the parent organization also get pretty involved as well?

Alex Wong:

Yeah, so they actually get involved, like at the individual school level. You know. So if, like I said, we focused on like literacy rates, right, so we would also work with the families at individual schools where we feel like, ok, well, I think we could, we could, this school would benefit from some sort of parent leader that would help increase literacy and how to advocate for that, and so you know they would work with families there. You know we have a read to lead program there to like increase, to become literacy advocates essentially as well. So that's kind of what they do on the individual side.

Jessica Ho:

That's incredible. And if they wanted to get more involved. Let's say there's some parents listening to this that want to, that didn't know about this organization, like, and they want to learn more. They want to go to other meetings. Like, how do they get involved?

Alex Wong:

Okay, yeah, you can find us on sfparentsorg or you can also get involved through sfparentactionorg. And then, yeah, be prepared to. Uh, the elections, or an election has always come around the corner. It feels like. Please sign up and get involved sounds great.

Jessica Ho:

Thank you, alex, really appreciate it no problem, thank you. All right, so I guess we'll just move into trivia. These ones are related to school, since we've been talking about the school system here. So first question is what is the oldest public high school in San Francisco?

Lucy Wang:

Oh my goodness.

Jessica Ho:

A Lincoln High School, b Balboa High School, c Lowell High School or D Mission High School.

Patrick Wolff:

I'd be inclined to think it was an Eastern versus a Western high school. I don't know how long Lowell was in that place, though I'm going to guess Bell Boomer, I want to say D Mission High.

Gabi Wu:

School. Oh my gosh, this is a hard one, really hard. I think I might choose.

Jessica Ho:

Lowell.

Lucy Wang:

Lowell High School.

Jessica Ho:

That is correct. What is a notable environmental improvement project currently planned for APG and E? A? A rooftop farm, b solar panel gymnasium.

Patrick Wolff:

C stormwater school yard redesign or D underground library. It's so embarrassing because I'm on the bond oversight committee and I should know this but say those again.

Jessica Ho:

A a rooftop farm, b solar panel gymnasium, c stormwater, schoolyard redesign or D underground library.

Patrick Wolff:

I'm going to guess C. I want to say C.

Gabi Wu:

C stormwater. I'm like torn between the rooftop and the draining system. Maybe the rain draining system.

Jessica Ho:

Correct. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Oh my gosh. Okay, so this one's for the win. Last question is which San Francisco elementary school was honored with a 2023 National Blue Ribbon School Award for exemplary high performance? A Sunset Elementary School, b Uloa Elementary School, c Lawton Alternative School or D Francis Scott Key.

Patrick Wolff:

The answer is in all of them.

Alex Wong:

I feel like it's either Sunset Elementary or Lawton. I'm going to pick Lawton. Was it Sunset Elementary?

Lucy Wang:

Oh, that's so interesting. Uloa already has one. Jefferson hasn't received one. I'm going to guess Lawton.

Gabi Wu:

I'm going to guess Lawton. I'm going to guess Lawton.

Lucy Wang:

It was Uloa. Ah man, uloa was already a distinguished school. Really, they only got it in 2023? They have a whole painting on the side of their building. They were honored with the 2023 National Blue Ribbon School. Oh, it was already a California distinguished school. Oh 2023.

Jessica Ho:

Okay, I guess it's like a higher oh, that was already a California Distinguished School. Oh, 2023.

Lucy Wang:

I guess it's like a higher. Oh, that's awesome. Well, that's awesome. Yulong was a great elementary school.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah, hopefully, Whether you're a future parent, a current one or just a neighbor trying to understand the community a little better, I hope this episode gave you some insight into the systems that shape our education system in the Sunset District and beyond. As always, thank you for listening to the Sunset Connection. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend, especially someone who's wondering what the SFUSD system is all about. And until next time, take care of each other and yourselves, because if you won't, who will? That's all folks, so Thank you, thank you.

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Jessica J. Ho

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