San Diego Unified School District

Typically come here for the livescan and the occasional visit to the finance office. For the finance office, they don’t take card here and I have had to go to the chevron across the street to get some cash.
As for the Livescan Office, come as early as possible for their walk-​in hours. I have been turned away near the tail end of their walk ins (10am) bc they had enough walk ins to accompany before their appointment hours come. It’s in a bungalow so it’s kind of ironic having taken a class in a bungalow for K-​12 and then going to a bungalow for non-​teaching purposes at a school district. My experiences with this office have been good. The women I’ve met who work here are nice and quick. When I came here when the line was long, they churned people out.
Visitor parking is limited and since the livescan office is packed in the mornings you might have to park on the streets but so you know, Birney elementary is next door so depending on the time you’ll come across school traffic.

Be prepared to advocate and fight to get what your child needs if they are in Special Education. A LOT of bureaceacy and frustration. Only so much teachers can do.
Typical daughter’s experience has been good.
Can’t compare a typical child’s experience with that of a child with autism. Advise– parents, you know your child the best, just stay educated and informed as much as possible for your children and don’t hesititate to ask for what your child needs from school, don’t give up trying to do what’s best for your child.

If you’re planning to volunteer at a San Diego school, chances are you’ll be coming here to get fingerprinted!
After wandering into the building, a nice lady told me where to go to get to the fingerprinting office.
The ladies working in the fingerprinting office are helpful. They take you through the procedure pretty quickly once you’re in the office, so you’ll be out in no time.
There’s a row of chairs right out front so that you can rest your feet awhile until your appointment time. Kick ‘em up and get ready to have your fingerprints taken!

Both my kids and all my brothers and I made the journey through the San Diego Unified School District, with the exception being my daughter who attended elementary school in Imperial Beach.
The School District is a faceless bureaucracy like all the others but it seems to have some good redeeming qualities to it. I feel that they do a fairly good job of educating the kids here in San Diego. I like that they allow parents to transfer their kids to other schools within the local cluster and have an excellent special education department that really works hard to stay in touch and does lots of outreach to struggling students.
Now that the School District has threatened to close schools due to budgetary constraints, the rage has started against the machine. Even though some of the schools targeted really should be closed due to low attendance, (Cabrillo Elementary & Crown Point Elementary in Pacific Beach come to mind) still locals put up a big stink anytime the subject is broached. Therefore, SDUSD must look for budget cuts in other ways, such as negotiating labor agreements (90% of the School budget goes to paying the teachers and employees) and perhaps whittling away some of the over-​lapping layers of bureaucracy that surely exists.
It would be a terrible thing for San Diego Unified to tumble into bankruptcy or some kind of public insolvency. I hope that everyone will keep an open mind and work hard to come together to solve the problems that obviously exist in regard to the financial health of the San Diego public school system. Our children deserve nothing less that the best that we can offer them for education.