High anxiety as SF public school assignments run late

School applications for the San Francisco Unified School District are still done on paper. School applications for the San Francisco Unified School District are still done on paper. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 42 Caption Close High anxiety as SF public school assignments run late 1 / 42 Back to Gallery

A school district glitch has parents biting their nails in San Francisco this week.

Thousands of dollars are on the line for families that are prepared to lay out hefty deposits for private schools by this week’s deadlines — but hope they won’t have to if they can get into a public school of their choice.

The trouble is, the San Francisco Unified School District may not be able to tell them about their public school options, from elementary through high school, before private-school down payments are due Wednesday through Friday. The district missed its March 17 deadline for sending out school-assignment letters because of “unforeseen staffing emergencies,” said spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.

“We have people who haven’t slept in days” trying to make sure that 83,000 school options for 14,000 students are all correct, Blythe said, adding that she can’t reveal more about the problem because of employee confidentiality.

Nervous parents were not comforted over the weekend as they studied their bank accounts. The deadline for private high school deposits is Wednesday at noon for parents applying for financial aid and Friday at noon for those paying full price. Private elementary and middle schools have a Thursday deadline. And although most private schools coordinated their deposit due dates with the public school district this year, the district’s glitch has thrown the careful planning into disarray.

“We feel disappointed and frustrated that we won’t be given the opportunity to make an informed decision,” said Heather Kilday, whose son is going into kindergarten. She and her husband applied to 23 public schools. But depending on which ones her son gets into, they could choose the private program that accepted him instead.

“We have a substantial deposit — more than $3,000 — to be put down on Thursday,” Kilday said. “We didn’t anticipate having to do this” without enough information to make the choice.

Frantic messages — from praying-hand emojis to swear words — flew across Facebook Sunday from parents hoping for the best.

“Omg! Get your s — together SFUSD!” wrote one mother. “You put parents through enough with your stupid process! Geesh!”

A father wrote: “SFUSD, you are an embarrassment to education. No kids should have to endure your mistreatment.”

“This is reeeeeally bad,” wrote another mother.

Lowell High, the public school that admits the district’s highest-scoring students, is a natural competitor with private schools. So parents who haven’t heard from Lowell by the private deadlines might be inclined to go private — and bump students off private wait lists who might otherwise have gotten in, said Molly Huffman, head of school at the private Children’s Day School, who is concerned about the situation.

“It’s obviously upsetting to parents who would prefer to send their child to Lowell,” she said.

None of this would be a problem if private schools choose to extend their deposit deadlines to accommodate the district’s delay. But their willingness to do that remained unclear on Sunday.

“We are monitoring the situation closely and await any updates coming from the district office,” said a statement on the website of the Urban School of San Francisco, a private high school.

Spokeswoman Kristen Bailey said Urban was in a “holding pattern” until learning more.

Other private schools did not return calls and emails Sunday.

As for when the district’s glitch might be resolved, Blythe didn’t know. If the computer process is completed Monday, and if the district can get first-class letters into the mail early enough in the day, “we hope people would be able to receive them by Tuesday.”

But, she said, “We’re not able to say for sure.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov