SFUSD data shows how families ranked schools

Jill Tucker, Hanna Zakharenko:

San Francisco’s Bret Harte Elementary School offers performing arts, before- and after-school programs, taiko drumming, a principal who’s been there 13 years and a fully staffed wellness center that for years had a therapy dog named Peggy.

What it doesn’t have is a single white or Asian American student.

That’s because the 96 Asian American and four white San Francisco Unified School District students living in the school’s current attendance zone in the Bayview have all enrolled elsewhere.

It’s a pattern replicated at many schools across the city given the district’s current student-assignment system, which lets families apply to any school they want, with assignments based primarily on a lottery system.

Often, that means families choose long commutes over the school down the street. But that system is set to change. After a school board vote last month, the district is on track to overhaul the policy for enrollment in fall 2028, focusing on neighborhood-based assignment instead.

To provide a snapshot of the current enrollment patterns the district hopes to shift — and a preview of what schools might look like in two years when the new student assignment system is in place — the Chronicle obtained never-before-published enrollment data from the district.