Letter From the Head of School
Dear Parents,
It is a pleasure to welcome you to learn more about Quaker education, and the San Francisco Friends School.
Now beginning our ninth year, San Francisco Friends School has grown by leaps and bounds; we have been busy building our talented teaching team, creating a vigorous, beautifully integrated curriculum, balancing 350 years of tradition with up-to-date research and innovation, building a permanent home for our students and teachers, and exploring our Quaker values in the daily lives of children and teachers.
From our beginning, we have been inspired by Friends schools across the country; we share the belief that reflection, service learning, compassion and inter-connectedness fuel the academic program, and that the discipline of simplicity – doing fewer things and doing them well – helps children deepen their curiosity and hunger to learn. The close collaboration of our teachers is vital to the health of the curriculum; we think you’ll see evidence of this teamwork, and thoughtfully sequenced program we have developed.
We welcome you to learn more about our school through our website, our published materials or those of the Friends Council on Education, or, better still, by paying a visit to SFFS. We know that no matter whether you see a joyous music classroom filled with kindergartners, a writing exercise in third grade, a group of fifth graders toiling with a math challenge, or a science lab in the middle school, you will undoubtedly feel the energy and see the focus of our students, and the superb teaching skills of our faculty.
Cathy Hunter Guybe Slangen
Head of School Assistant Head of School
September 2010