San Francisco's New School Opens! Come See What It Looks Like
On Monday, schools in San Francisco opened, and 38,000 students across the city returned to school. But this day was a bit special because a new school opened its doors for the first time, with nearly 200 students walking into Mission Bay School. This school is completely different from those old, century-old schools—it's new and beautiful.
This year, the school district has a lot going on: implementing a new student assignment system and considering how to close some schools. Also, there's a school board election in November, and no one can predict what the district's future will look like.
But the new school is awesome! The floors are spotless, never stepped on before. No little handprints on the walls. The classroom carpet smells like a showroom, not like one that's been trampled by juice and dirty shoes. Every book is new, and the purple crayons are sharp, waiting for kids to draw with.
The school's interior has an industrial style, with exposed pipes and concrete floors with fine cracks—it looks very modern. The classrooms are large and bright, with interesting furniture.
Next to the school are high-rises, hospitals, and such. The Golden State Warriors also live quite close. It's all about medicine and technology here—it feels impressive.
In fact, the last time the district opened a new school was 20 years ago, and it's likely another 20 years before we see a school this good again. The project took nearly 30 years to complete because the community grew so fast that there were no schools around. There's a large medical center nearby that performs 20,000 surgeries a year, plus nearly 6,000 housing units with over 17,000 residents.
Having a local school means many families don't have to move away, and students living in the southeast part of the city don't have to travel far to school. The district says this school cost about $130 million and is a 21st-century school built from scratch—truly rare.
This year, the school is enrolling children in pre-K, transitional kindergarten, and kindergarten. Other grades will be added gradually, and it won't be fully open until 2032. At that point, there will be 550 students in pre-K through fifth grade.
