San Francisco Public Schools See Surge of Applications, Thanks to Transitional Kindergarten Demand

San Francisco public schools received the largest number of applications in more than a decade thanks to a statewide initiative to offer a free year of prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds this fall.

The district announced Monday first-round school assignments for the 2025–26 school year for nearly 15,500 applicants, a 10% increase in applications compared to last year, said Lauren Koehler, executive director of San Francisco Unified School District’s enrollment center.

It’s a bit of good news for a district facing a major budget shortfall, partly caused by declining enrollment trends.

While applications for kindergarten, 6th grade and 9th grade went up, the biggest surge in applications was for transitional kindergarten, according to district data. SFUSD received nearly 1,990 student applications for TK, which is 673 more than last year.

California started adding TK to its sprawling public school system in 2022 and has been gradually accommodating more 4-year-olds based on their birth dates. Starting this fall, all kids who turn 4 by September will be guaranteed a spot in TK. SFUSD is planning to open 18 more classrooms to meet the demand, Koehler said.

“We’re all really excited about the expansion in TK because it makes [preschool] more affordable for many more families,” she said.

To encourage families to enroll in TK, the district changed its assignment policy so that students can continue into kindergarten at the same school without having to reapply. That way, parents don’t have to contend with the assignment process two years in a row, and school staff can nurture students’ social and academic growth over the course of two years.

Koehler noted that 90% of TK-to-12th-grade applicants were assigned to one of their requested schools, almost 1,000 more students than last year.

“So not only are we having more interest in our schools, we’re also able to assign more kids to schools that they prefer,” she said.

Families must accept or decline their assignments by March 27, and a new waitlist system allows them to get results without reapplying for their preferred school.

Even though some families may decline their assignments, Koehler expects SFUSD’s overall enrollment to be slightly higher for the coming year than the current 50,000 students.

That’s a small bright spot for a district facing enrollment declines in the long term. The city’s public schools lost more than 4,000 students since 2012–13 and are projected to lose 4,600 more students by 2032 due to demographic trends such as declining birth rates, according to district forecasts.

Last week, SFUSD said it would issue about 170 preliminary layoff notices to school counselors and paraeducators as it works to close a $113 million budget deficit by year’s end.