Welcome to Rosa Parks
If you’ve been reading here for a while, you may already have read one of my many paeans to my son’s school, which will also be my daughter’s school next year. Rosa Parks Elementary School and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are two of my favorite institutions in the city. I realized when we went to pick up a kindergarten application form today that I hadn’t mentioned that it is currently school tour season. If you are a parent facing down the school lottery in San Francisco, I hope you’ll consider coming to visit our son’s centrally-located program in Japantown. There are two more tours before kindergarten applications are due at SFUSD on January 21, 2014.
- Thursday, December 5, 2013
- Wednesday, January 15, 2014
The school is on a cul de sac at 1501 O’Farrell Street, and you can schedule a visit by calling Nanayo in the front office at (415) 749-3519. Parents meet on the lower yard during morning assembly at 7:50am.
The bike parade whizzes by, and Rosa Parks smiles above it all.
For a somewhat out-of-date and incomplete list of reasons we are so happy with the Rosa Parks Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program, you can read a very long summary here. Rosa Parks JBBP is a citywide language program so there is no neighborhood preference. Historically the school was laughably easy to get into—in the year we applied there were about as many applicants as kindergarten spots available—although applications increase each year. Back in 2009, it was a completely undiscovered gem of a public school.
Family bikes rolling in.
I’ve had child care issues that kept me from attending earlier school tours, but I plan to attend the final two tours (if I really get my act together I may even manage to bring some bike-related swag for visitors). So if you’ve always wanted to check out the Bullitt or the mamachari, this is a good chance. If you are already a biking family, you may catch us and other families coming up Webster the morning of the tour itself. Racks are available in front of the school and in the central courtyard in front of Raphaell Weill Child Development Center. If you’re a bike-curious family, feel free to check out the assortment of family bikes out on the yard.
Front racks
San Francisco’s lottery system, whatever the stresses it places on families, offers a unique opportunity for people to find a school that fits their personality. Families at Rosa Parks tend to be friendly, easygoing and very involved with their kids’ education. And of course, a lot of us ride bikes. If that sounds like your kind of place, we’d love to meet you!
Hum of the city 