How did we get here?

SFUSD has consistently worked to create schools that prepare students for success in the future. In 2014, SFUSD partnered with the community to articulate an inspiring vision for our students: We prepare our graduates to live, thrive, and succeed in San Francisco and beyond (Vision 2025, Graduate Profile.) 

To achieve that vision, SFUSD initiated numerous system-wide efforts, including:

• African American Achievement & Leadership Initiative (AAALI)
• Career Technical Education Pathways
• Middle Grades Redesign Initiative, Deeper Learning, 
• High School Task Force 

In 2022, after extensive community engagement, Superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne and the Board of Education established three student outcome goals and five guardrails for the school district, affirming SFUSD’s commitment to equity and excellence. 

Even with these efforts, outcomes have not meaningfully improved, and we have not made sufficient progress toward closing opportunity gaps. [Read our Student Performance Analysis].

Why? While our circumstances have changed, our approach to resourcing schools hasn’t, creating inequities for our students and their families.

SFUSD's enrollment has declined by 4,000 students in the school district since the 2012-2013 school year and will decline by an additional 4,600 students by 2032. Despite this decline, SFUSD has maintained 102 schools since 2017. In our current number of schools, we have the capacity to serve more than 14,000 more students than we have now. Under-enrollment is not concentrated in a small number of schools. Instead, all of SFUSD’s schools are under-enrolled to some extent. 

When student enrollment declines, SFUSD receives less money from the state. The result is fewer resources stretched across too many school sites making it difficult to provide the staffing and materials teachers and students need to succeed. We’ve had persistent problems staffing classrooms and filling vacant positions and many of our facilities are in poor condition. Learn more about SFUSD’s challenge in Superintendent Wayne’s presentation to the Board of Education on June 25, 2024. (Access the translated versions of the presentation here.) 

To adapt to this new reality and create the schools our students deserve and the ones our families expect, we must have fewer schools in our district than we do now.

The Resource Alignment Initiative is our roadmap for the critical work we must do as a school district to move us toward a future where every student attends a strong school, our educators have the resources and support to excel, and our community grows stronger.

Facts about SFUSD's Current School Portfolio Link to this section

We've put together some information to help understand our schools better, including elementary, middle, K-8, and high schools in SFUSD. 

• Elementary Fact Base
• K-8 Fact Base
• Middle School Fact Base
• High School Fact Base

This information covers what families are looking for, what schools offer, and how students are doing. We look at both the whole district and individual schools. The main reasons for sharing this information are to 1) help us make smart plans based on facts and 2) share openly with families and everyone in our community. 

Using this information, SFUSD wants to ensure we have great teachers and staff, safe and friendly places for students to learn, and programs that help students do well and be happy. This information is kept up-to-date to make sure it's always accurate. If you have suggestions or corrections that you'd like us to consider, please use the Student Family Resource Link to submit your comment. There's a section at the end of each fact base called "Error/Update Log" where you can see any changes we've made.