Resource Alignment Initiative Weekly Updates

Community Survey #2 analysis and data posted

The second community survey collected input on how the criteria that will be used for school closures, mergers, and co-locations will be weighed when creating composite scores for each school. The Analysis of survey results by Stanford University, Research Report for Survey II by Stanford University, and RAI Survey #2 Results (raw data) are now available on the Community Feedback page of the Resource Alignment Initiative website.

District recommendations for school closure criteria posted to BoardDocs

A detailed slide deck outlining the District’s recommendations for how school closure criteria and equity audit metrics will be calculated and an overview of the Resource Alignment Process to date was posted to BoarDocs for the June 25th Board of Education meeting agenda (See below). The slides include the following information: 

• Part 1: Recommendations for Composite Score Calculation and Equity Audit Metrics 
• Part 2: Our Commitment to Creating Equitable and Excellent Schools for Every Student
• Part 3: What is the Resource Alignment Initiative?
• Part 4: Why is the Resource Alignment Needed Now?
• Part 5: The process to create a new portfolio of schools was designed for transparency, community engagement, and an equitable outcome
• Part 6: School Portfolio Design Process & Timeline

The Superintendent and Commissioners will discuss the recommendations for composite score calculation and equity audit metrics at the June 25th Board of Education meeting. 

📅 Upcoming Events 📅

June 25th Board of Education Meeting

At the SF Board of Education regular meeting on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, Superintendent Wayne will 1) present highlights of the first phase of community engagement that took place in March through May 2024; 2) review the school portfolio design process and timeline; and 3) share SFUSD’s recommendations for composite score criteria, metrics, and category weight, as well as metrics for an upcoming third-party Equity Audit, that will help inform a new school portfolio. The Board of Education will discuss the Resource Alignment Initiative at the meeting. Here you can find the agenda and link to attend the meeting.

There are no updates this week

📅 Upcoming Events 📅

June 25th Board of Education Meeting

At the SF Board of Education regular meeting on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, Superintendent Wayne will 1) present highlights of the first phase of community engagement that took place in March through May 2024; 2) review the school portfolio design process and timeline; and 3) share SFUSD’s recommendations for composite score criteria, metrics, and category weight, as well as metrics for an upcoming third-party Equity Audit, that will help inform a new school portfolio. The Board of Education will discuss the Resource Alignment Initiative at the meeting. You can find that agenda and link to attend the meeting here. 

Language pathways sessions complete

Over 150 people attended three Community Information Sessions to learn how school closures, mergers, and co-locations in 2025-26 might impact SFUSD language programs. The first session was on Thursday, May 16 at Mission High School, with a presentation in Spanish with interpretation into English. The second session was on Tuesday, May 21, at Gordon J. Lau Elementary School, with a presentation in Cantonese with interpretation into English. The third session was on Thursday, May 30, at the SFUSD Board Room and on Zoom. You can access the agendas, slides, notes, and recordings here (click on the “Community Sessions” drop-down menu.)

District team prepares for June 25 Board Meeting

District leaders are actively analyzing input from the community and the District Advisory Committee on criteria for school co-locations, mergers, and closures for the 2025-26 school year. Dr. Wayne will present the final recommendations on the criteria, categories, weights, and metrics to create composite scores for each school. These scores will be one of multiple factors in the district's recommendations for changes to SFUSD’s school portfolio for the 2025-26 school year. You can learn more about the Resource Alignment Initiative at https://www.sfusd.edu/RAI 

Note: Over the summer, There will be fewer RAI-related events and weekly updates for the Resource Alignment Initiative as the district team analyzes scenarios for SFUSD’s future school portfolio.

📅 Upcoming Events 📅

There are no upcoming Resource Alignment-related events

District team prepares for June 25 Board Meeting

District leaders are actively analyzing input from the community and the District Advisory Committee on criteria for school co-locations, mergers, and closures for the 2025-26 school year. Dr. Wayne will present the final recommendations on the criteria, categories, weights, and metrics to create composite scores for each school. These scores will be one of multiple factors in the district's recommendations for changes to SFUSD’s school portfolio for the 2025-26 school year. You can learn more about the Resource Alignment Initiative at https://www.sfusd.edu/RAI 

Raw data for Community Survey #1 posted

The raw data for the first communitywide survey is now available on the Community Feedback page SFUSD’s RAI website (Click on “Community Surveys.”) Between March 28 and April 7, community members gave input on the importance of draft criteria in determining school closures, mergers, and co-locations. This was a high-level values-based question, asking if any proposed criteria should be used to determine school consolidations. The data from the second community survey will be posted after it is analyzed and anonymized. You can access the analysis of the second community survey results here. 

Note - There will be fewer RAI-related events and weekly updates for the Resource Alignment Initiative over the summer as the district team analyzes scenarios for SFUSD’s future school portfolio.

DAC members finalize recommendations at May 20 meeting 

On Monday, May 20, the District Advisory Council met in person at the SFUSD central office to finalize the recommendation for criteria to be used to determine school mergers, closures, and co-locations. They also heard from Dr. Francis Pearman from Stanford’s Center on Education Policy Analysis about the results of the second public survey. The key conclusions included:

1. Survey II had a high completion rate that included a diverse sample of community partners.
2. The district now understands the relative importance that community members place on each metric.
3. There is surprising consistency across racial groups in terms of the metrics that should matter most in the reorganization decision.
4. Weighted estimates suggest results are unlikely to be biased by over- or under-representation of certain racial groups.
5. Results will be used to compute a composite score for each school in the district.

Visit here to learn more about the DAC, including the Agenda, Slides, and Stanford Presentation from the May 20th meeting.

Language pathways sessions

Over 70 people attended two Community Information Sessions to learn how school closures, mergers, and co-locations in 2025-26 might impact SFUSD language programs. The first session was on Thursday, May 16th at Mission High School, with a presentation in Spanish with interpretation into English. The second session was on Tuesday, May 21st, at Gordon J. Lau Elementary School, with a presentation in Cantonese with interpretation into English.

📅 Upcoming Events 📅

SFUSD Families are invited to attend a Community Information Session to learn more about how school closures, mergers, and co-locations in 2025-26 might impact SFUSD language programs.

Thursday, May 30, 2024

5:30-7:30 pm 

In-Person: SFUSD Board Room (555 Franklin St.)

Virtual: Zoom Link: bit.ly/Langpath5-30 

All families (presentation in English, interpretation offered in Spanish & Cantonese, other languages available upon request)

Please register here to reserve your spot for childcare and food: bit.ly/SFUSDLangpath. Click here for a flyer with more information. If you have additional questions, contact Eric Cuentos at cuentose@sfusd.edu.

DAC members discuss criteria and category weighting 

On the evening of May 13, the District Advisory Council met virtually for their regularly scheduled meeting. The discussion focused on proposed criteria for mergers, closures, and co-locations for the 2025-26 school year. Here are the agenda, slides, notes, and video from the meeting. During the discussion, members discussed criteria metrics and weights, the survey process, and the implications of survey scores in the portfolio creation process. You can learn more about the District Advisory Council and see materials from its meetings on our website.

Community Engagement data collection and analysis

This week, District staff continued to analyze input, data, and artifacts from Phase 1 of the community engagement process, which will be shared on SFUSD’s RAI website and with the Board of Education.

Survey data analysis

SFUSD’s research partner, Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis, began analyzing the results from the first and second community surveys. The analysis will result in composite scores for each school. Composite scores will be one factor District staff will use to determine school mergers, closures, and co-locations for the 2025-26 school year. 

📅 Upcoming Events 📅

SFUSD Families are invited to attend one of the following Community Information Sessions to learn more about how school closures, mergers, and co-locations in 2025-26 might impact SFUSD language programs.

Thursday, May 16, 2024

5:30-7:30 pm 

In-Person: Mission High School Cafeteria (3750 18th St.)

Spanish-speaking families (co-hosted with SFUSD’s Latinx Parent Advisory Committee). Presentation in Spanish with interpretation into English

Tuesday, May 21, 2024 

5:30-7:30 pm

In-Person: Gordon J. Lau Elementary School Auditorium (950 Clay St.)

Chinese-speaking families (co-hosted with SFUSD’s Asian American Parent Advisory Committee). Presentation in Cantonese with interpretation into English

Thursday, May 30, 2024

5:30-7:30 pm 

In-Person: SFUSD Board Room (555 Franklin St.)

Virtual: Zoom Link: bit.ly/Langpath5-30 

All families (presentation in English, interpretation offered in Spanish & Cantonese, other languages available upon request)

Please register here to reserve your spot for childcare and food: bit.ly/SFUSDLangpath. Click here for a flyer with more information. If you have additional questions, contact Eric Cuentos at cuentose@sfusd.edu.

Weekly Update: May 3-9

Nearly 10,000 community surveys completed! The second community survey, which gathered input from community members, families, staff, and students on draft criteria for co-locations, mergers, and closures for the 2025-26 school year, closed on Wednesday, May 8, with 9,979 responses. The first community survey collected 10,135 responses. SFUSD’s research partners at Stanford will begin analyzing the responses, and the results will be shared in the coming weeks.

Two-hundred-sixty-one community members attend in-person community sessions! The SFUSD team hosted in-person community sessions at eight schools across the city between April 25 and May 4. At the sessions, 261 community members learned about the results of the Cycle 1 survey about the criteria for school co-locations, mergers, and closures, received an overview of Cycle 2 of community engagement, and were provided with instructions to complete the Cycle 2 online survey. Notes from all the sessions will be posted here. 

📅 Upcoming Events 📅

Please mark your calendars for the following important events, organized by date:

May 13, 2024 - District Advisory Council Meeting - The District Advisory Council (DAC) will hold its regular meeting to discuss the proposed criteria to determine school co-locations, mergers, and closures. NOTE: This meeting will be held virtually. Please click here to join the Zoom webinar. For more information about the DAC, see the agenda here and this webpage.

There are concerns about impacts on popular offerings like small class sizes, K-8 programs, and bilingual programs.

Many of these offerings are what make SFUSD’s schools special. Having fully enrolled and resourced schools will create rich learning environments for every student in every school.

There’s skepticism about the data being used, a feeling that data is being withheld, desire to understand underlying causes of low enrollment.

Facts about our current school portfolio have been presented to the District Advisory Committee and are available on the Resource Alignment Initiative website. Information about our decision-making process including meeting materials and the results of the first survey are on our website. We are always open to making corrections and additions where needed. 

There are concerns that the root of the budget problems will not be addressed by school closures. 

School closures will not save enough money to address the district’s financial deficit, that’s why the Resource Alignment Initiative has five focus areas to address the issue in multiple ways. The goal of Focus Area 5: Creating a new portfolio of schools  will create strong and supportive learning environments for our students.

Using criteria like school discipline, attendance, academic performance, facility condition, and cost per pupil are in opposition to the goal of Equity.

Some criteria were not rated highly by the community and will not be included. For the ones that are (academic performance and building condition), the equity audit will weigh criteria in such a way that will allow SFUSD to mitigate harm.

The consolidation criteria in the first survey were too vague or could be interpreted in multiple ways.

We added more detail to the criteria and directions to complete the survey. SFUSD staff are available to assist with survey completion at in-person events and Family Liaisons at schools sites are also trained to assist those who need help.

The Spanish translation of the survey was unclear.

We revised the Spanish translation in 24 hours and added quality assurance measures to prevent unclear translations.

How will impacted families, students, teachers, and staff will be supported through the changes?

We are creating a One Team transition plan to support affected school students, parents, and staff.