Alta Vista School: Inquiry-Based Learning with Customized Rigor

Alta Vista: Hands on Learning with Rigor

Alta Vista specializes in inquiry-based and hands-on learning with customized rigor. Founded in 2010, Alta Vista School (AVS) fosters a love of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) while ensuring students develop a strong foundation in social emotional learning, including mindfulness. The curriculum balances content and flexibility based on students’ interests. AVS also prioritizes public speaking and presentations, collaboration, community service, and social and emotional learning. AVS currently teaches 300 students in junior kindergarten (similar to TK) through 8th grade on two campuses with a shuttle in between.

AVS Lower School (JK through 5th grade) is in the Portola District of San Francisco, near McLaren Park. The lower school campus contains two floors of classrooms, a large multipurpose room with a stage, a fully equipped kitchen, dedicated music and arts classrooms, a science lab, a large garden, play structures, an outdoor cafeteria, and a climbing wall. AVS Middle School is in the heart of the Mission District of San Francisco. The middle school contains a theater space, a maker and visual arts lab, several classrooms, multi purpose gym, and a large community space with flexible seating for collaboration and group work. Students in the middle school frequent the local playgrounds during their lunch and breaks.

Academics 

Alta Vista uses a project and inquiry based curriculum where students learn with hands-on methodologies. The school has always prioritized science and math, while continuing to offer engaging humanities and arts programming. A topic is considered through multiple lenses and across disciplines to reflect real-world experiences and challenges. This approach promotes critical thinking, taking multiple perspectives, and solving problems creatively. The core program is enriched with classes in Spanish, gardening and sustainability, visual arts, tinkering, drama, music, and physical education.

In the Lower School, each grade has two sections of 15-18 students, each with two lead teachers. One is a humanities expert, and the other is math and science. The two teacher model allows for personalized attention and differentiation within the grade level curriculum.  The school prides itself on adapting to each child’s academic strengths and style. A typical lower school engineering class is showcased in this video, and more detailed descriptions of the lower school curriculum is here.

In middle school, the teacher to student ratio is 1:14, and the students are divided into three sections. All middle schoolers take five core courses year-round in math, science, language arts, social studies, and Spanish. The middle school meets in a daily advisory to learn executive function and social emotional skills. Sixth graders rotate each trimester through visual art, drama and music. . Seventh and eighth graders choose between two science classes, two English classes, and an arts or computer science elective. Eighth may also choose a math elective in data science. Detailed curriculum maps for sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade are linked.

In math class, AVS teaches students to explore possible solutions to meaty problems and discover for themselves alternative problem solving techniques. Students might be presented real world mathematical challenges or word problems and asked how they might explore solutions. The program builds mathematical savvy by teaching to think through problems on their own and test out potential solutions. By 8th grade graduation, AVS students complete Algebra I and typically test into Geometry or Integrated Math II for 9th grade. 

Enrichment

AVS offers Lower School before care from 7:30am and aftercare until 6:30pm, as well as enrichment classes and full day camps during most of the school vacations. Enrichment options range from arts to exercise to coding and vary throughout the year. (Fun fact, I used to run these camps in a contract for the school and got to know the over several years.) Middle Schoolers are welcome to stay after school for study hall, homework help, and clubs until 5:30pm.

Types of Students Served

Alta Vista is a great fit for curious students. While many know AVS for its gifted-friendly reputation, the school does not select for intellectual giftedness. Rather, the school matches well with students who enjoy learning by doing, building, presenting, and working with their peers. The school attracts a mix of learning styles, interests, personalities, and backgrounds.

For gifted students, AVS encourages deeper thinking with more challenging problems that grow their ability to think creatively. Rather than acceleration, AVS encourages students to think beyond the surface. For example, students explore math through hands-on projects, like designing animal play areas or building place value factories. They learn to recognize patterns, choose effective strategies, and work collaboratively to explain and refine their reasoning. Students might study topics for a math competition, focus on real-world word problems that take time to solve, or experiment with alternative problem-solving techniques. 

AVS welcomes students with mild to moderate neurodiversity, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, autism, or ADHD. Alta Vista’s social emotional and executive function learning can be a great fit to bolster communication, organization, and self-regulation skills. When a student needs additional support, the AVS team works with families and teachers through personalized interventions that can include AVS specialists or outside specialists recommended for the parent to hire, depending on the needs of the child. For example, some parents may organize tutoring or therapy outside of the school day.

AVS has learning specialists and a school counselor who support students, teachers, and parents. Like many private schools, the learning specialists create an accommodation plan, recommend learning resources for learning, and problem solve when issues arise. 

Tuition and Financial Aid

Tuition for the 2024-25 school year runs $42,000 per year, with extended day, camps, and enrichment classes an additional fee at the Lower School. The Middle School tuition includes all after school programs and trips.  The school offers need based financial aid and operates need blind admissions. Approximately 25% of students currently receive assistance ranging from $1,000 to full tuition.

Role of a K-12 Consultant 

A consultant can help you craft your school list to be sure of a balanced list offering a match of services with the student and parent’s interests. A consultant can also review all admissions materials, in particular student and parent essays, to help focus them to each school’s admissions goals. A consultant can directly work with your child to brainstorm, draft, and edit their own essays. The consultant can provide feedback on whether the essays read as genuine and how to shine during the application process. 

Want more input on K-12 schools?

Vicky consults with families to help select, apply to, and communicate with public and private schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Vicky maintains a principle of non-judgment. Hourly, VIP, and Season packages include a discussion to review school options, applications, essays, and key decisions. Vicky offers a limited number of packages each year to assure her availability. 

Vicky’s own children have attended both public and private schools, and have received both accommodations and curriculum changes; her elder is in high school, and her younger in middle school. New clients can email to learn more about her services, or see her website to learn about her packages.