That shouldn't be how this works.

Let's start with the obvious: San Francisco is a city where a huge chunk of families with young kids are dual-income tech households pulling in $400K+ combined. At that income level, private school tuition is painful but doable, especially if you're only having one or two children — which, in SF, is basically the municipal birth rate plan. So when you're surrounded by those families at a $2,300/month preschool, yeah, the private school pipeline is going to feel like the default.

But here's what nobody at drop-off wants to say out loud: San Francisco spends roughly $16,000 per pupil in its public school system annually. That's not nothing. That's actually above the national average. The question isn't whether the city is spending money on education — it absolutely is — but whether parents trust the system to spend it well.

And that's the real issue. Years of enrollment decline, school closures, and a district that sometimes seems more focused on renaming buildings than improving reading scores have eroded confidence. When the public system fails to sell itself, private schools don't even have to try very hard.

For parents choosing public schools, there's no reason to feel awkward. You're making a fiscally rational decision and, frankly, exercising the kind of faith in public institutions that should be rewarded with better outcomes. The real question isn't "why aren't you going private?" — it's "why has SFUSD made so many families feel like they have to?"

Fix the product, and you won't need to fix the marketing.