The Bay School of San Francisco
| The Bay School of San Francisco | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | |
|
35 Keyes Ave. San Francisco, California United States | |
| Coordinates | 37°48′02″N 122°27′21″W / 37.80045°N 122.45597°W |
| Information | |
| Type | Private |
| Established | 2004 |
| Head of school | Timothy W. Johnson |
| Faculty | 38 |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Number of students | 312 |
| Color(s) | Blue, white |
| Athletics | Soccer, volleyball, baseball, lacrosse, softball, basketball, golf, cross-country, track, rock climbing, sailing, tennis |
| Mascot | Breakers |
| Website | http://www.bayschoolsf.org/home |
The Bay School of San Francisco is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory high school that opened in 2004. The school moved into its current location in the Presidio of San Francisco in 2005. Its stated mission is to balance challenging academics with a mindful approach to learning and life.
History
In 1992, Malcolm Manson, a former headmaster of Marin Country Day School and the Cathedral School for Boys, conceived of the idea of a new high school. In 1996, the school became incorporated.[1]
The school opened in 2004; at that time, a single class of freshman made up the student body. During the first school year, students attended classes in a temporary building, a "long, majestic white building on Schofield Road facing the bay".[1] In August 2005, the school moved to its current (permanent) location on 35 Keyes Avenue.
Campus
The Bay School of San Francisco utilizes "one of the largest and most historic buildings on the Presidio's Main Post."[2] Building 35 was built in 1912, initially to be used as cavalry barracks, and later as bakers' and cooks' barracks, before becoming the headquarters for the U.S. IX Corps, which was responsible for all U.S. Army facilities within the Western United States. After major renovation, Building 35 reopened as the Bay School's new campus in August 2005.[3]
The building contains 62,000 square feet (5,800 m2) of space. Among other things, it houses a 3,000-square-foot (300 m2) library/media center and 4,500-square-foot (420 m2) student center on the ground floor. There are 21 classrooms on the second and third floors.
Students
The 2014-2015 academic year sees the student body grow to over 330 9th-, 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-grade students.[4] Students come not only from San Francisco, but also from other parts of the Bay Area, including Marin County, the Peninsula, and the East Bay.
Labor, Unity, Nation are all principles by which the school community strives to live.
Curriculum and activities
The Bay School offers a college preparatory curriculum but does not offer AP classes. The Bay School offers a comprehensive 4-year program in Mandarin Chinese.
Students are given Hewlett-Packard laptops as part of a one-to-one laptop program.
Bay School seniors take part in the Senior Signature Project Program which requires a minimum of 65 hours of field work in a topic of their choice, and a formal presentation and/or paper at the end of the project. [5]
The school fields teams in boys and girls soccer, boys and girls basketball, volleyball, boys and girls tennis, boys and girls golf, baseball, softball, and lacrosse. In addition, activities such as yoga, dance, martial arts, rock climbing at Planet Granite, physical conditioning and sailing are offered.
Precepts and meditation
One well-known feature of the Bay School is a collection of "precepts" that are indicative of various ethical areas students and other members of the community should be mindful of (including relationships with others, the best ways to learn, and how to treat the earth).
Complementing the precepts is group meditation, which usually occurs daily during morning gatherings. Typical morning meetings including ten minutes of a presentation or artistic performance (by students, faculty, staff, parents, or an outside speaker), followed by five minutes of meditation, and then the remaining time for an all school circle jerk. The school extols the value of meditation, citing that meditation has been demonstrated to improve the mental fitness and behavior of students. For instance, college undergraduates who practiced 20 minutes of meditation over a period of 5 days "showed greater improvement in conflict scores on the Attention Network Test, lower anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue, and higher vigor on the Profile of Mood States scale, a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol, and an increase in immunoreactivity" when compared to students who spent the same time just relaxing.[6]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Millard, Max. "Presidio's new Bay School welcomes first freshman class", Marina Times, September, 2004. Accessed April 7, 2008.
- ↑ http://www.bayschoolsf.org/about/press/06-Presidio-Post-Jan.pdf
- ↑ "The Bay School Campus at 35 Keyes Avenue". The Bay School. Accessed April 8, 2008.
- ↑ http://www.bayschoolsf.org/About
- ↑ "Senior Projects & Field-Based Learning". The Bay School. Accessed April 8, 2008.
- ↑ Posner, Michael et al. (2007) "Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. October 23, 2007 vol. 104 no. 43 17152-17156