SFUSD Engaging With Communities on Plans for School Mergers, Co-Locations, and Closures in 2025-26

Press Release

San Francisco (April 25, 2024) - San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne shared an update today on one of the district’s largest community engagement campaigns in recent memory. This community engagement work is part of the Resource Alignment Initiative, a multi-faceted plan to align the district's resources with its Vision, Values, Goals, and Guardrails with a focus on equitable student experiences by merging, co-locating or closing schools in the 2025-26 school year.

As SFUSD plans for school mergers, co-locations, and closures in the 2025-26 school year, multiple phases of community engagement will take place to ensure the community’s voices are included. Currently, SFUSD is facilitating a second cycle of feedback. The feedback will inform draft criteria for mergers, co-locations, and closures that will be presented to the Board of Education in June 2024. 

SFUSD will host its second Virtual Town Hall from 5 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 25, and kick off another series of in-person community sessions from April 27 to May 4. During these sessions, Superintendent Wayne will discuss results from the first community survey and engagement sessions that took place from March 28 to April 6, during which participants were asked to rate the importance of 16 different criteria to determine school mergers, co-locations, or closures. 

“Our goal through this initiative is to ensure every SFUSD school has high-quality and engaging instruction, nurturing environments, robust and inspiring programs, prepared and collaborative staff, and reliable and predictable resources,” SFUSD Superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne said. “It has been helpful and humbling learning about the many ways our communities are experiencing this process, and gain a better understanding of how it will affect our students, families, staff, and community partners. We appreciate those who are joining us in this work, and I encourage folks to get involved if you aren’t already.”

After extensive outreach in multiple languages, SFUSD collected over 10,000 survey responses from the first survey between March 28 and April 6. Over 650 participants joined the first Virtual Town Hall on March 28, and 700 participants attended in-person community sessions, advisory council meetings, and committee meetings to provide direct feedback on the criteria.

The next cycle of community engagement begins on Thursday, April 25. In this cycle, community members will be asked to complete a second survey to give their input on the importance of each criterion. As with the first cycle, SFUSD will reach out to community members in multiple neighborhoods throughout the city and provide translation and interpretation to ensure an inclusive process. After incorporating the community’s feedback, Superintendent Wayne will present the recommended criteria for mergers, co-locations, or closures to the Board of Education in June 2024.

Timeline

Following the presentation of criteria to consider for a new portfolio of schools to the Board of Education in June 2024, multiple third-party equity checks, including a California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review, will take place during the summer of 2024. In fall 2024, Superintendent Wayne will present to the Board of Education the proposed set of schools affected by mergers, co-locations, and closures. Based on the final criteria, district staff will engage each school community affected by a proposed merger, co-location, or closure. In December 2024, the Board of Education will vote on a final recommended slate of schools to merge, co-locate, or close.

About the Resource Alignment Initiative

SFUSD has experienced a steady decline in enrollment since 1999. Since the 2017-18 school year, SFUSD enrollment has decreased by over 4,000 students. Demographic trends, such as declining birth rates, indicate that SFUSD could lose 4,600 additional students by 2032. This decline has occurred without reducing the number of schools in its portfolio, spreading resources thin across school sites. One symptom of this problem is staffing shortages, which significantly affect the day-to-day operations of public schools. In 2022-23 and at the start of 2023-24, at least 15% of classrooms were staffed by substitute teachers or teachers on special assignment. 

The Resource Alignment Initiative was launched in August 2023 and includes five components: 1) creating a new school staffing model, 2) reorganizing the central office, 3) exploring generating revenue from properties, 4) investing in priority districtwide programs, and 5) creating a new portfolio of schools. The community engagement campaign focuses on the fifth component, creating a new portfolio of schools. There will be no changes to SFUSD’s school portfolio in the 2024-25 school year; adjustments to the school portfolio will go into effect in fall 2025. 

To create a comprehensive process that ensures community engagement and equitable outcomes, SFUSD interviewed leaders in other districts who have had similar challenges to learn from their successes and failures. SFUSD also consulted existing research and legal guidance from the California Department of Education, the California Attorney General, and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) to ensure the Resource Alignment Initiative uses best practices and satisfies legal requirements.

Visit the RAI website for more information.

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