Enrollment and School Tours

Enrollment at Alvarado and all San Francisco public schools is handled by the school district’s Educational Placement Center (EPC). You can read about school placement on the school district’s website. Here is a link to the application on the district’s site.

Please note that Alvarado has two distinct programs, General Education (English-only) and Spanish Immersion. Admission to each program is handled separately by the EPC, meaning that when you apply to Alvarado, you choose to apply to the General Education program, the Spanish Immersion program, or both.

Resources

The nonprofit Parents for Public Schools is an excellent resource for navigating the enrollment process. PPS is a network of public school parents; it is not funded by the school district and so maintains its independence. They host helpful enrollment workshops in all parts of the city. (Scroll down the calendar to “Finding a Public School for Your Child.”) In addition to their own, they run two listservs that may be of interest. The first is a listserv for families interested in public schools. The second is a listserv for families interested or enrolled in immersion programs. The blog SF K Files also provides useful information (and dish!) about various schools from a parent perspective.

To see the breakdown of last year’s applicants to Alvarado (sibling, CTIP, neighborhood, etc.), please visit the district’s student assignment report from last year and scroll to pages 15 and 16. The data can be used to get a sense of the odds of getting into any particular school depending on your circumstances under the tie-breaker system.

Tour Schedule

Our tours have ended for the season. Our PTA tour manager would be happy to answer any questions you still have. (Please do not call the school.)