Your comments are correct, the majority of my classmates were (as well as a large portion of Asian American children), but most of the latino and asian kids didn’t even live in the low income housing near the school. They (like myself) were bused in from the Mission District (in the case of the latinos, at least), in SFUSD’s feeble attempt to diversify their schools. I lived less than 3 blocks away from Sanchez Elementary, and my parents wanted me to attend Sanchez so that I would be in walking distance from home, but the school district instead assigned me to Daniel Webster.

But I’m here to tell you that I strongly prefer middle school to K-8, and I’m now in my 5th year as a parent at Aptos Middle School (two kids back to back). My friends with kids in K-8 sacrifice a lot — separate honors classes, band/orchestra/art, a good competitive sports program. Most families with kids in K-8s start to grasp that around 5th grade, though most remain in their K-8s — why disrupt the kids and go through the assignment process again? But there are families in my daughter’s middle school who have transferred there from Rooftop, Alice Fong Yu and by choice from some private K-8s (West Portal Lutheran, Kittridge, Live Oak, Brandeis, Nueva).

I was passionately in favor of K-8s when I had little kids too! But things look very, very different when your children are older.

Good luck! And don’t worry — there are lots of good public schools in SFUSD, and it’ll work out.

Don’t be fooled or jump to conclusions because it is not enrolled to capacity, as history shows that new programs typically do not fill in its first year. Most parents are hesitant to enroll their child in a program without meeting teachers, viewing curriculum and seeing the program in action. None of this was available to me but after touring Starr King I was convinced that it was the right choice for us…..and parents can now meet teachers and see how every student can respond back to the teachers in Mandarin Thursdays at 10am, call 695-5797.

I encourage parents on Potrero Hill to look at the schools in our neighborhood. We are a community that has not supported the schools locally, and that should change.

www.starrkingschool.org

We found San Francisco middle schools to be much more problematic. The good ones are huge, overstuffed with kids, and tense. Our son was at Hoover and it didn’t work. The gifted program was mean spirited and had the atmosphere of a crowded bus terminal. He had a terrific teacher there, but it is not for everyone. Middle school is a difficult time for kids socially anyway. I think the high school selection is much better.

I think I understand your frustration and concern. I also have 2 kids- the oldest will also enroll in public kindergarten in the fall of 2008. My husband and I did pull up our SF stakes last fall and moved to southern Marin- largely out of fear of the SF public schools. We lasted 8 months, and moved back to Glen Park. Although I suppose the schools in our new community were more consistently “better,” we got really turned off by the lack of diversity and the culture of affluence we found ourselves in. We missed the San Francisco values we had here! We decided that our happiness mattered most, and that we would take our chances in finding a good public school in SF- after all, as several posters have mentioned above, there are a number of good to great public schools within a relatively short drive. Sure I’d love to send my kids to the Spanish immersion program in the school down the street from our house, but we have decided to remain open to other options as well.
Good luck!

We have a pre-schooler who we are looking to enroll in Kindergarten next year. We were hoping to go to Daniel Webster, but with all of the doubt on whether it will remain open or not, we are not that convinced that it will be worth it.

What would help is to see if there are a group of us on the hill who would enroll together. Perhaps if we see the numbers up front, we’d be more willing to give it a go. And if we could continue that process through the years to come, maybe there would be a better chance of the school continuing on.

As for now, we are looking for a Public School in S.F. that is within a 15 minute drive. We’ve actually found quite a few that we really like! All hope is not lost– We’ve chosen to stick it out and hope that you do the same.

However, the large majority of potrero hill residents not in public housing is caucasian.

We just need to get those families with pre-schoolers on the hill into those elementary schools.

Starr King is starting to become more diverse because of the newly inaugurated mandarin immersion, but not necessarily integrated. The key is to get parents interested in the general program.

But you can’t get to integrated unless you already have diverse.