San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Private schools in S.F. looking at growth
A private school construction boom is underway in San Francisco, with at least nine schools planning, undergoing or recently completing expansions.
While some of the projects are intended to increase the number of students enrolled in the schools, others are renovations or modernizations, and some involve the addition of facilities like gymnasiums or auditoriums that could make the schools more attractive to prospective students and their parents.
It’s unclear whether interest in private schools in San Francisco is increasing. The state Department of Education reported that the city’s 103 private schools had 23,919 students enrolled in the 2022-23 school year, numbers that have remained largely unchanged over the previous three years.
San Francisco’s 132 public schools have 50,103 students enrolled, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.
Here are some of the private schools that are growing and what they’re planning:
La Scuola International School, 3250 18th St. in the Mission District, is proposing to replace three existing portable buildings with a four-story, 20,370square-foot building in the southwest corner of an existing play yard.
The new building would be about 68 feet tall and would include nine classrooms, offices, dining and kitchen areas, as well as a rooftop open space and an open deck. The proposed project would enable the school to increase enrollment from 191 to 475 and would increase the number of teachers and staff from 54 to 96, according to its planning application.
St. Ignatius College Preparatory, 2001 37th Ave. in the Sunset District, plans to demolish five buildings on the school site and build an addition to the existing main academic building. The addition would provide flexible education spaces, a chapel, a dining area and a kitchen. No increase in student enrollment or staff size is planned.
While community gardeners had raised concerns that a shadow from the new building would ruin crops on their plot of land on the north side of the campus, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved the proposed expansion early this month.
Children’s Day
School, 601 Dolores St. in the Mission District, plans to replace three temporary preschool portables on an existing preschool-throughfourth-grade campus with a permanent building.
The replacement structure would involve the construction of a singlestory building with a roof deck on a site where an existing school building would remain. The new building would house 7,995 square feet of classroom and administration space.
University High School,
3150 California St. in Presidio Heights, has conditional approval to build a 46,300-squarefoot, three-story building with a basement for academic, athletic and administration uses. It’s designed to contain a mix of science and general education
classrooms, maker space, a student center, athletic facilities, food service, and faculty and administrative offices.
In conjunction with the project, the school wants to increase enrollment from 410 to 550 students The project will demolish an existing mid-block two-story commercial and office building with a 22-space parking lot. French American International School, 150 Oak St. in Hayes Valley, wants to demolish an existing parking lot and build a 36-story mixeduse building with 345 dwelling units over the secondary school facilities for the International High School of the French American International School, ground floor retail space and an underground parking garage.
The school is proposing to modify the height limit from 365 feet to 400 feet, which would allow it to include 385 dwelling units.
Schools of the Sacred Heart, 2222 Broadway in Pacific Heights, proposes to convert and expand an existing auto parts building to accommodate indoor athletic and exercise facilities for the Schools of the Sacred
Heart.
It would include a swimming pool, a fullsize gymnasium, a weight-training room and a studio for yoga and dance. It could also include housing for teachers and other school employees, and it could be open to the public during non-school hours.
San Francisco Day School, 350 Masonic Ave. in the North of the Panhandle District, wants to make room to increase enrollment from 400 to 480 students by removing a parking lot and existing building.
The project proposes to remove the surface parking lot and existing structure at 2130 Golden Gate, and build a threestory building where a parking lot and storage building now sit. It would keep the existing building at 2120 Golden Gate and add a housing unit for faculty.
Chinese American International School,
3250 19th Ave., Merced Manor, which now operates from three separate campuses, is moving and consolidating the school on a new 19th Avenue campus near San Francisco State University that formerly housed Mercy High School, a
Catholic high school for girls that closed in 2020.
The first Mandarin immersion school in the nation, the Chinese school plans to modernize the 1952 campus. It will have larger classrooms outfitted with age appropriate furnishings, a performing arts center and more indoor and outdoor physical education and recreation space and sports fields than the current campuses offer, according to its website. The school does not plan to add a high school program on the site.
St. Vincent de Paul School, 2350 Green St., Cow Hollow, reportedly plans to seismically upgrade its middle school building and build an expansion that would connect the middle school to the lower school building, according to SF YIMBY, a Bay Area pro-development group, citing public records. The Chronicle was unable to independently confirm the plans last week with the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, which operates the school.
The project would also involve renovation of the lower school and add a play area. The SF YIMBY report said enrollment of the school — about 360 students — would remain unchanged.
Presidio Knolls School, 250 10th St. in South of Market, a Mandarin immersion school that purchased its existing SoMa campus in 2016, has since completed a number of renovation, modernization and expansion projects. According to its website, more such projects are planned.