New Traditions Elementary School

Posted May 8, 2009

New Traditions Alternative Arts School has been a great school for our daughter and our family. Our daughter is thriving in her education, social skills and artistic expressions. Our family has found the school to be welcoming and appreciative of parent involvement. The teachers and administrators are dedicated to the school and the community. We love that the school is small but rich in socio-economic and racial diversity-- as well as inclusive of children with learning and physical disabilities. All of the children participate in visual and performing arts. There are exciting changes underway as the school is beginning a 'greening' process and turning part of its blacktop playground into garden areas. The school is located in a quiet neighborhood near Golden Gate Park, just north of the panhandle.
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Posted May 7, 2009

NT is a small friendly clean school with a strong arts focus. Everyone in the school knows our kid by name. Our kindergarten teacher is very dedicated. He has a very organized way for parents to volunteer and at least 4 parents volunteer once a week. We ve had many fieldtrips both thru the class and informally afterschool. We really like the art program, you'll notice that the art projects of all the kids are very good. (Which I take to mean they are really teaching) After school my kid is booked up with classes that she loves (Chess, Ceramics, Drama, Piano). Works out well too since I just need to pick her up an hour later. No one group is more than 1/3 of the school, so it has lots of diversity without having a dominate group. Most importantly my kid is excited to go to school every morning.
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Posted August 23, 2008

New Traditions is a special place. Its small size (160 kids) and truly diverse population (one-third caucasion, one-third African-American, one-third Asian/Hispanic) make it unique in San Francisco. We love the late schedule; it starts at 9:30 which makes for relatively mellow mornings. It's full of interesting, artsy, progressive, engaged parents. The teachers are outstanding and because of the small size the teachers know most of the kids, not just the ones in their class. It makes for a very comfortable and warm environment. Art and music education are important to us and New Traditions has really delivered. My child is very happy and is doing great academically. So many places say this, but it truly is ' a hidden gem of a school.'
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Posted October 25, 2007

I really can't say enough great things about this school. My daughter is in 4th grade and we've moved around a lot, so this is her fourth school but she's doing great. She s very bright and creative and is flourishing here much more so than in the strict academic high-test score public school that she attended a couple of years ago. She is in GATE (the gifted program), studies drama, dance, violin and visual art, adores her teacher and her classmates, and is getting a solid academic education. The class sizes are small, the principal and teachers dedicated, and the parental and community involvement is the best I've seen. My only wish is that the school had more funding, but that can be said of any small public school in the city. I'd highly recommend New Traditions to anyone looking for a great community arts school for their child!
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