Last Call: Round 5 Best Bets

The August 8, 2014 wait pool list for SFUSD is out. Here are the schools sorted by the ratio of waitpool applicants to kindergarten seats.  The deadline to change your wait pool school is August 15.

The big news: the Argonne wait pool has cleared.  Clarendon and Miraloma AA residents, have hope! Last year both schools had enough spots for the AA residents left in the waitpool for Round 5, in part because of students not allowed to enroll because of address fraud. At Clarendon, one kindergarten seat didn't fill until January.Correction: Clarendon's AA waitpool did not clear, although there were quite a few AA applicants who were offered spots during the first 10 days of school.  But it did look like Miraloma's AA waitpool cleared. 

2014-15 WAIT POOLS as of 8/8/2014

The number of kindergarten seats per school/program are based on SFUSD's reported number of seats per school for Round 1 and enrollment by grade from DataQuest. For the language programs, I assumed a ratio of 9 English to 13 target language spots.

General Education

No waitpool/possible openings (bold indicates that the waitpool has cleared from Round 1): Argonne,  Bryant, Carver, Chavez, Cleveland, Drew, El Dorado, Flynn, Garfield, Harte, Lau, Malcolm X, McCoppin, Muir, Parker, Redding, Revere, Serra, Sheridan, Spring Valley, Starr King, Tenderloin, Webster, Vis Valley.

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
GUADALUPE	GE	1	66	2%
CARMICHAEL	GE	1	66?	2%
LONGFELLOW	GE	2	44	5%
ALAMO	GE	2	91	2%
PARKS	GE	1	44	2%
LAKESHORE	GE	3	88	3%
STEVENSON	GE	3	88	3%
ORTEGA	GE	2	44	5%
SANCHEZ	GE	1	44	2%
LAFAYETTE	GE	4	88	5%
MILK	GE	3	44	7%
NEW TRADITIONS	GE	3	44	7%
ULLOA	GE	5	66	8%
FEINSTEIN	GE	8	92	9%
SUTRO	GE	2	22	9%
KEY	GE	8	88	9%
SF COMMUNITY	GE	3	33	9%
CHIN	GE	2	22	9%
GLEN PARK	GE	4	44	9%
JEFFERSON	GE	9	90	10%
WEST PORTAL	GE	7	69	10%
HILLCREST	GE	5	40	13%
YICK WO	GE	5	44	11%
LAWTON	GE	9	67	13%
MCKINLEY	GE	11	69	16%
MIRALOMA	GE	10	60	17%
ROOFTOP	GE	12	69	17%
MONROE	GE	4	22	18%
MOSCONE	GE	4	22	18%
PEABODY	GE	8	44	18%
SUNSET	GE	13	67	19%
SLOAT	GE	13	66	20%
SUNNYSIDE	GE	13	66	20%
LILIENTHAL	GE	14	66	21%
SHERMAN	GE	17	67	25%
ALVARADO	GE	12	44	27%
MONTESSORI	GE	6	44	14%
GRATTAN	GE	19	67	28%
TAYLOR	GE	15	44	34%
CLARENDON	GE	21	44	48%

FLES (Foreign Language in Elementary School)

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
LONGFELLOW FB	FB	None	22	-
CARMICHAEL FB	FB	None	22?	-
PARKS JBBP	JB	2	40	5%
CLARENDON JBBP	JB	12	44	27%

FB= Tagalog, JB=Japanese

Cantonese Immersion

English spots

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
GARFIELD	CE	None	9 of 22	-
WEST PORTAL	CE	3	13 of 33	23%
YU	CE - monolingual English*	13	44 of 66?	30%
CIS	CE	9	27 of 66	33%
YU	CT-not monolingual English	14	22 of 66?	64%

* For Alice Fong Yu, CE refers to students who only listed English as a home language on their application. Students who listed any language other than English on the application are considered "CT."

A glowing review of Garfield from an English speaking parent can be found at
http://www.greatschools.org/california/san-francisco/6370-Garfield-Elementary-School/

Cantonese spots

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
GARFIELD	CN	None	13 of 22	-
CIS	CN	None	39 of 66	3%
WEST PORTAL	CN	7	20 of 33?	35%

CN=passed the Cantonese proficiency test.

CIS has no wait pool for Cantonese proficient spots, so more English spots may open up in Round 5.

Mandarin Immersion

English spots

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
STARR KING	ME	None	18 of 44	-%
ORTEGA	ME	8	9 of 22	89%

Mandarin spots

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Spots
STARR KING	MN	None	26 of 44	-
ORTEGA	MN	3	13 of 22	23%

Korean Immersion

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
LILIENTHAL	English (KE)	4	9 of 22	44%
LILIENTHAL	Korean (KN)	None	13 of 22	-

Spanish Immersion

English spots

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
HARTE	SE	None	9 of 22	-
MARSHALL	SE	None	18 of 44	-
REVERE	SE	None	16 of 40	-
FLYNN	SE	3	18 of 44	17%
MONROE	SE	4	18 of 44	22%
FAIRMOUNT	SE	6	27 of 66	22%
BUENA VISTA/MANN	SE	10	24 of 60	42%
ALVARADO	SE	9	18 of 44	50%
WEBSTER	SE	10	18 of 44	56%

Harte, Revere and Webster have no wait pool for Spanish proficient spots, so more English spots may open up. For those considering Harte, a glowing parent review is at: http://phile.com/user/SweetMedicine

Spanish proficient spots

School	Prg	Wait Pool	Kindergarten   Capacity	Waitpool as a %   of K Seats
WEBSTER	SN	-	26 of 44	-
REVERE	SN	-	24 of 40	-
HARTE	SN	-	13 of 22	-
FAIRMOUNT	SN	1	39 of 66	3%
FLYNN	SN	2	26 of 44	8%
MONROE	SN	2	26 of 44	8%
BUENA VISTA	SN	5	36 of 60	14%
ALVARADO	SN	4	26 of 44	15%
MARSHALL	SN	8	26 of 44	31%

Never Say Die Strategies

For Round 5, the percentage of students who register but don't show up on the first 3 days of school varies by race/ethnicity. Of the kindergarteners who registered for a spot and did not show up on the first day of school, 40% were white.  Kindergarteners of "Other" race/ethnicity were the most likely not to show up to their kindergarten assignment (35%),  followed by White kindergarteners (25%), non-Chinese Asians (17%), and Latinos and African Americans  (13%). Chinese applicants are the least likely (11%).

This suggests that if you have the fortitude to hold out until the last day to get in off the wait pool, your chances will be higher at, say, Lilienthal than at Alice Fong Yu.
Source: SFUSD First Annual Report on Student Assignment for the 2011-12 School Year, 3/5/2012