Updated 6:20 a.m. PT Wednesday, Oct. 14: The San Francisco Board of Education voted 5–2 Tuesday night, Oct. 13, to replace the city's long-running citywide elementary lottery with Option C — a neighborhood-based system that guarantees each family a seat at the elementary school tied to their home address and limits other applications to citywide specialty programs such as language pathways, newcomer services and K–8 campuses, the San Francisco Chronicle and other outlets reported. Commissioners Alida Fisher and Supryia Ray cast the no votes, preferring the broader-choice Option B that a parent survey had rated more favorably. The new system is aimed at kindergarten and transitional kindergarten admissions for fall 2028.
The vote ends more than a decade of citywide ranking for most elementary seats. Families will still need to watch the next steps: staff must redraw attendance-area maps, set tiebreaker and transfer rules, and bring a formal policy back for board approval, with staff directed toward an April timeline and a November discussion of tiebreakers, according to coverage of the board's direction.
What Option C does
Under Option C, every on-time (and late) applicant is guaranteed the neighborhood elementary school assigned to their address. Families can still apply elsewhere, but only to designated citywide programs — not to any school that happens to have an empty seat. District staff had rated C the easiest model to run. Option B, which the board rejected, would have kept the neighborhood guarantee for on-time applicants while letting families also apply to any other school with space.
KQED reported before the vote that a district engagement survey of more than 2,700 respondents gave Option B about 71% approval and Option C only about 48%, with preferences split by neighborhood. The San Francisco Parent Coalition and other advocates had pushed for Option B's remaining citywide flexibility. Equity groups, including Coleman Advocates, warned that a hard neighborhood mandate could leave families in historically under-resourced southeast neighborhoods with fewer ways to reach better-staffed campuses unless the district funds local schools more aggressively.
What happens next
Attendance boundaries still have to be drawn. The board has also told Superintendent Maria Su to propose possible school closures or mergers by 2030, which raises the stakes for under-enrolled campuses if enrollment concentrates downtown and on the west side. SFUSD says the change applies to children entering kindergarten or TK in fall 2028 or later; current students are not being reassigned by this vote alone.
For the November school board race and other local measures, see our San Francisco school board candidate guide and the Bay Area Brief Nov. 2026 election hub. Families can follow official updates on SFUSD's student assignment page.