Student Assignment Policy

1. Families apply. After researching schools, families list their school choices in order of preference and submit an application. There is no limit to the number of choices that can be listed, but the order does matter.
2. All school choices are matched based on available seats. Each school, grade, and program has a set number of seats. If the number of applications is more than the number of seats, then tiebreakers and random numbers are used to make offers.
3. “Tiebreakers” are used when the number of requests are greater than the number of available seats. Random numbers will be used for school assignments if tiebreakers do not resolve ties, or if there are no tiebreakers.
4. Non-choice assignments. Due to space limitations, not all students will be assigned to one of their choices. Those students will be assigned to a school with available seats closest to the student’s home.

Students who cannot be assigned to one of their choices because of a lack of space will be
assigned to a school that was not listed as a choice. These are the SFUSD policy guidelines that
determine non-choice assignments:

• Students who attend an SFUSD school will receive an offer to their current school, as long as their current school extends to the application grade. (e.g. a 1st grader applying for 2nd grade can stay at their elementary school for 2nd grade if they do not get into one of their choices. But a 5th grader applying for 6th grade cannot be assigned back to their current elementary school, if it ends at 5th grade.)
• Students applying to grades K-5 will receive an offer to their attendance area school if space is available, or to the nearest school with openings.
• Students applying to 6th grade will receive an offer to their feeder middle school if space is available, or to the school closest to their home with openings.
• Students in grades 7-12 will receive an offer to the school closest to their home with openings if space is not available at their current school.
• Students applying for a SFUSD language program can request to be assigned to the closest language program with openings (on the application), instead of the closest school with openings.
• Students who only requested Ruth Asawa School of the Arts high school, but did not get assigned to those school, must contact the Enrollment Center (EC) to request other SFUSD high schools.

To drastically reduce your chances of receiving a non-choice assignment, we recommend kindergarten applicants to list their attendance area school, 6th grade applicants to list their feeder middle school, and 9th grade applicants to list at least five high schools.