Board reviews hybrid student‑assignment plan: CTIP priorities, new algorithm and fast implementation timeline

San Francisco — The Board of Education on Tuesday heard detailed staff and consultant briefings on a proposed overhaul of the district’s student‑assignment system that would redraw attendance boundaries, add a neighborhood‑level socioeconomic preference called Census Tract Integration Preference (CTIP), and use a single-step assignment algorithm designed to be nonwasteful and strategically simple.

Ms. O'Keefe, presenting the superintendent’s recommendations, said the policy would create three kinds of school catchments: contiguous attendance‑area (local) boundaries for most elementary schools, service‑area boundaries tied to specialized programs, and a set of citywide schools with no local preference. The policy would also formalize five ranked preferences — including siblings and SFUSD pre‑K — and explicitly incorporate CTIP 1 and CTIP 2 categories, which consultants told the board represent roughly 40% and 60% of the district’s census‑tract population in their analysis.

"Zones haven't worked in the city to diversify schools," Jean Gobelay, the demographic consultant, told the board as she explained why combined census tracts were chosen rather than ZIP codes or block groups. Gobelay said the…