Steel brace is a popular option among seismic rehabilitation methods for school buildings, but it has a weakness in that the section area must be large enough to prevent buckling, so stiffness and strength are highly increased locally, and foundation reinforcing is required. On the contrary, BRB has strength that the steel core may be negligible since buckling is restrained, so the increase of stiffness and strength is insignificant, and foundation reinforcing may not be required. This study compared the effectiveness of both reinforcing methods for the seismic performance of school buildings by conducting both pushover and nonlinear dynamic analyses. Steel brace and BRB reinforcing may not be satisfied by nonlinear dynamic analysis, even by pushover analysis. This result is due to the school buildings' low lateral resistance and high column shear strength ratio. Suppose BRB can be regarded as a general rehabilitation method. In that case, BRB reinforcing is a favorable and economical option for school buildings with low column shear strength ratio since it can better satisfy performance objectives than steel brace by pushover analysis with a small steel core and no foundation reinforcing.