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  • Accolade

    After visiting Adda Clevenger we were impressed with not only the educators and curriculum but also with the students. The students we met were very well educated, polite and yet still happy children. Our daughter's favorite things to do are school, music (she plays guitar and ukulele), reading, and painting. She is a very creative and inquisitive child who is never without a book in her hands. We feel Adda Clevenger would support her love for the arts along with providing a challenging learning experience which will prepare her for the next level of her education. What we also found impressive was the length of the school day. Our daughter loves school. She is actually quite sad when there is a week-long break or when the school day ends early, therefore, a longer school day would be perfect. During the Open House we attended, our daughter was allowed to spend two hours with the fifth-grade class. She loved it. Because her first step is to always observe, that is what she did. On the way home, she explained in detail about her experience. How friendly the students were to her, how versatile their day seems to be. She noted some of the books the fifth graders were reading and ordered them through the library (Einstein's Dreams is her favorite so far!). Adda Clevenger left a lasting impact. We have visited many schools in San Francisco, but nothing compares to Adda Clevenger for children who love to learn and love the arts.

  • Accolade

    Adda Clevenger's focus on the mind-body-spirit connection that comes from balancing Academics, Athletics, and the Arts is a perfect fit for our son. We have not found a school that better articulates this. We would like him to remain happy and well balanced. We would like him to be comfortable with who he is, understand how to be successful and independent in life, and value his family and community. It is essential to have a strong background in STEAM and to use those developed skills to grow and give back to his community. We were excited to learn of Adda Clevenger's strong academic performance, as well as your focus on the Arts. We would like our son to continue to develop his skills in conflict resolution and in spiritual well-being. It is vital for him to manage his own conflicts and seek help when he feels he needs it. As he continues to grow, mindfulness will help him continue to be successful in all avenues of his life and we hope, together with Adda Clevenger, we will aid his continued balance of his academic, artistic, athletic, emotional, and spiritual needs.

  • Accolade

    We are very keen for our daughter to attend Adda Clevenger for the 2019/20 school year. We are strong believers in the ethos that physical activity supports academic learning and think this most aligns with what she needs to thrive and fulfill her academic potential. Our daughter is a very active, athletic child who spends a large part of her downtime participating in sport, ballet and gymnastics. We feel that as a school, the emphasis you have on creativity, will help develop this further and we are excited to see that this is encouraged alongside rigorous academics. We were both impressed with the students that we met during the tour and Open Door Fridays. They were all bright, engaging, well rounded and knowledgeable. One particular student explained how their time at Adda Clevenger has helped to bring her out of her shell and develop her confidence and ability to communicate with peers and adults. Our daughter can be perceived as being shy and can be slow to warm up in a new situation or with new people. Whilst she does come out of her shell when she feels secure and the situation and/or people are more familiar, we can relate to what your student was telling us and feel that in an environment that builds her communication skills and confidence will serve our daughter well in the future. She is very articulate and is able to vocally express her ideas, thoughts and opinions well and we are keen to see her in a school that will foster this further.  

  • Accolade

    We were initially interested in Adda Clevenger for its inclusion of the Arts. Having been a trumpet performance major myself and given the impact that the arts had in my life, it was important to us to visit a school with similar values. But it was when we were able to visit Adda Clevenger that it became abundantly clear how great of a fit it could be for our son and daughter. I really liked hearing about the school’s focus on communication of ideas and building confidence. Perhaps even more important, it was fantastic to see the children in the classrooms excited to learn and how the teachers engaged with them in a personal way. Not only are the students having fun, but it was also impressive to see the level of work they were engaging in for each grade.

  • Accolade

    We had the opportunity to come in for a tour and attend an Open Door Friday in the same week in November—being in the school and witnessing the Adda Clevenger approach first-hand in such a concentrated way really solidified our view that this would be a great program for our family. We believe in strong academics and think the way the small class size at Adda Clevenger allows the teachers to adapt the curriculum to the needs and interests of each student is tremendously valuable. We also really appreciate the way the arts, communication, and character skills are embedded in the school day. While many schools offer these as after school enrichment, the fact that Adda Clevenger includes offerings such as ballet and debate within its core school hours make it clear to students that these are a critical part of their learning and their options for self-expression.

    Being a part of a community is important to us and something we want to continue instilling in our daughter. The relatively small size of the school is attractive to us because we know it provides the opportunity for each teacher to know each student on a personal level and for the school to feel like a family. One of our daughter’s favorite parts of being in a mixed-age Montessori classroom currently is the interaction with older and younger kids, so seeing the younger and older children come together daily at Adda Clevenger resonated with us. Adda Clevenger’s strong emphasis on character and its civility program—especially the in-depth foundational work on communication and conflict resolution skills in the kindergarten year—are unique and compelling to us. Our daughter has a strong sense of justice. We think that continuing to help her develop the vocabulary to express her feelings and the toolkit to navigate conflict are critical pieces of her development.

  • Accolade

    We have toured a lot of schools and come to a very clear decision that Adda Clevenger will be a great fit for our kids. The school’s philosophy, the teachers, the facility, and the curriculum deeply resonate with us and we feel it will enable our kids to learn in an engaging, inspiring and effective way. We attended the open house as well as the school tour and both times we loved what we saw. We thoroughly enjoyed talking with the teachers, the kids and their parents. We were really impressed with the confidence and enthusiasm of the kids as they guided us through the school and so patiently and thoroughly answered all our questions. We love how the school incorporates a full day of learning into the curriculum which allows for significantly more depth and breadth of topics to be taught without having to compromise between STEM and Arts for example.

    We find Adda Clevenger to be the most comprehensive education we can provide our son and daughter. We also heard great things about Adda Clevenger through neighbors and friends. We really liked what we heard from them about the school having a fantastic well rounded education and how well their kids are doing. We feel lucky to have parents who valued education and hard work and want to instill those qualities in our children and provide them with the best environment for great learning and a lifetime of opportunities. We both feel Adda Clevenger is the best school for us with its academic rigor, learning through creativity, developing confident speakers, and a caring environment of teachers and parents.

  • Accolade

    Living on Fair Oaks Street since 2010, our family has passed by Adda Clevenger countless times, occasionally seeing/hearing performances in the schoolyard. As neighbors & performing musicians ourselves, we knew we would be checking out the school for our daughter when the time came. Even before visiting, we were interested in the school for several reasons. From firsthand experience, we believe that a curriculum balancing core academics with the arts offers a distinct advantage to students. We were drawn to the school's well thought-out curriculum and focus on accelerated learning, as well as its small class sizes, which we feel allows for a more individualized approach to each student's needs. We were intrigued to read more about John Dewey's ideas and feel that experiential education and "learning through doing" make terrific sense. Logistically, as two full-time working parents we were also attracted to the extended school day, and we like the idea of spreading learning across a full day while interspersing academics with kinetic play and performance.

    Our visits to the school confirmed and built upon these impressions. The school leadership seems to have a clear focus and drive, giving the school a strong sense of identity, direction and purpose. The students appeared happy and genuinely connected-- to the class instruction, in various performance practices we saw, and especially to one another. We were impressed that the students were entrusted to lead the tours, and then even more impressed at the poise, confidence, and competence with which our student tour-guide delivered-- it was a compelling demonstration of the social strengths developed through activities like theatre, dance, singing & oration. Every student/teacher/parent seemed to know each other, giving a very strong sense of community, which we could see ourselves fitting into. Our daughter enjoyed attending a recent outdoor performance at the school (when the tune from Moana started, she seemed to want to be up there singing too!). As a naturally creative, warm, and empathetic child, with an early predilection towards music, dance, and visual art, we feel that Adda Clevenger could be a great fit for her.

  • Accolade

    Adda Clevenger is the type of environment we believe our son would thrive in. He is bursting with positive energy, he is in his element working with his friends, and he has an emotional intelligence beyond his years. My wife and I are both industrial designers. We have remarked to each other on multiple occasions what a boon to our creative development a place like Adda Clevenger would have been for us growing up. We were both very industrious and creative children, yet we did not have these tendencies nurtured. Needless to say, finding our professional footing was more painful than it needed to be. Our son appears to have a lot of the same tendencies already, and Adda Clevenger seems like the best place to draw these out and make the most of his potential. We are attracted to the performing arts emphasis less from the point of view of each individual performance discipline and more from the point of view of the public performing/speaking experience he will have. From the discipline required to prepare, to the confidence needed to perform, we value this skill set and see it as sorely overlooked in education curricula today. While I believe this is something my son might struggle with, I think he will be better for the effort.

  • Accolade

    We were referred to Adda Clevenger by a colleague and were immediately intrigued by a school that would place the performing arts front and center in their academic curriculum. Once we visited the school, it became clear that it had a small, tight-knit community that as first-generation immigrants we find extremely attractive. The way parents look after each other during drop-off and how students excitedly start the day have been heartwarming to witness and a truly unique quality of the Adda Clevenger community. As we got to know the school, its history, and program, it made a lot of sense to us to combine all the extracurricular activities you would need to supplement beyond the school with the academic curriculum in the classroom.

    We’re excited to find a school that is applying what research has shown around the effectiveness of learning when combined with physical activity, while at the same time simplifying parents’ lives and offering consistency to the students. This is especially impactful for us since music, dance, and creating art are a huge part of our family activities at home. Both our children love doing impromptu dance shows, singing, and taking turns playing their favorite songs on dad’s electric drum set (while the rest dance or play other instruments). We are therefore very excited about an academic program where our children can fully explore a multitude of performing arts.

    Another quality that stood out about Adda Clevenger was the way students interact not only within their own age group but also with the younger ones and adults alike. There clearly is an environment that fosters empathy and respect, while ensuring children grow confident and comfortable in their own skin. Given the 2-year age gap between our children, we are excited about the prospect of them having many opportunities to interact during their school day, as well as cross-pollinating their social groups.

    Overall, we feel Adda Clevenger would clearly offer a very distinct beginning to our children’s academic career, one where they’ll learn how to make friends and care for their peers across age groups, explore the varied world of performing arts, and get to know themselves and their passions before they face the more constrained realities of the world beyond.

  • Accolade

    We have chosen the Adda Clevenger School for our daughter because we believe she would thrive in and contribute to its creative, intellectual, and collaborative environment. As parents, we would enjoy being an active part of the ACS parent community. We invest in deep, long term relationships and value the opportunity to develop relationships with teachers, administrators, and parents from Kindergarten through 8th grade rather than having to start from scratch after 5th grade. Our daughter is thoughtful, curious, creative and energetic. She is thriving in her preschool and enjoys being in the school environment fulltime. We appreciate how ACS’s curriculum utilizes a full nine-hour day rather than a shorter school day coupled with ‘after care’ activities.

    Further, we love the fact that one third of the day involves physical activity including dance and music and believe this will enhance focus and creativity in addition to health and well-being. We believe an environment like ACS that cultivates and utilizes the arts and athletics, areas our daughter has demonstrated passion for, could bring out the best in our daughter during important years of her development and build strong foundations for success in academic learning. The Adda Clevenger School’s pillars of academics, arts, athletics, and character resonate strongly as they have similarities to the educational approach of the school I attended, which was foundational for my successes in life. In partnership with my husband, we intend to provide the same enriching environment, opportunity, and learning community for our children.

  • Accolade

    There are so many aspects about Adda Clevenger that we find appealing. Though our daughter’s current school has an excellent holistic approach to encouraging well-rounded growth and compassionate principles, it has never seemed as fully integrated as Adda Clevenger. Certainly having challenging academics is a core value to our family. But we are aware that in these times of increasingly rapid change that we need to raise children who are capable of interpreting complexity, independent thinking and communicating with nuance. When viewing the studies which expand one’s ability to imagine solutions and engage communities, you arrive at the same focus that ACS has: Emphasis on language arts, social development, abstraction of the physical world in math and science, and plenty of performing arts. The stories of how ACS students have responded are diverse and fundamental. They tell of confidence borne out years of mutual support, of striving, failing, persistence and success. We see images of young people who have ideas and are prepared to express them. We have chosen ACS because it represents so much of what we value in community, leadership, academic excellence and commitment to putting its students first.

  • Accolade

    We believe that education in language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies is essential for any child to succeed. Like many other private educational institutions in San Francisco, Adda Clevenger provides a robust foundation in these academic areas. Where Adda Clevenger goes above and beyond peer schools is in supplementing these core subjects with education in music, dance, and art. There is no other school in San Francisco that excels in teaching of the arts without compromising education in core subjects. We also appreciate that Adda Clevenger nurtures both academic talents and artistic abilities, and that excellence in both of these areas is equally applauded and recognized. We are lifelong learners, with collective degrees in law, engineering, business, and culinary arts, and we wish to instill a similar love of learning in our son. We also appreciate that Adda Clevenger includes character building in its four tenets of education. We agree with Adda Clevenger that a child’s transition between outside life and school should be seamless. Thus, we appreciate that Adda Clevenger’s program has carefully considered the child’s perceptions, and understands the importance of keeping a developing child engaged both mentally and physically. In this regard, we like that Adda Clevenger particularizes teaching to a given group of students based on their interests and personalities, thereby making the educational experience natural and organic.

    Adda Clevenger also offers a number of practical advantages in comparison to other schools. Although all San Francisco private schools are expensive, the tuition at Adda Clevenger includes a component that would typically be separately billed as an after school program, and thus Adda Clevenger is a cost-effective choice for private education. We also appreciate that Adda Clevenger is relatively diverse in comparison to competing private schools. Our son is half-Hispanic, and is exposed to both English and Spanish at home. We travel regularly to South America, where he is exposed to Colombian culture and heritage. We believe our son’s cultural differences would be accepted at Adda Clevenger, which is an inclusive community that accepts a range of backgrounds and cultures. In sum, we believe Adda Clevenger is the right match for providing a balanced education that teaches traditional subjects while also developing our son as a whole.

  • Accolade

    When I look back on my own education, I often wish I'd studied more statistics. When I think about the skills I'm glad I learned, writing, communication, critical thinking, and collaboration top the list. I credit them with much of the good I've been able to do as an adult. More than anything else, we believe living in the world is about other people. We want our daughter to grow up to have a positive impact on her family, friends, community, and the world at large, and interacting and communicating with other people may be the single most important skill she can apply. That includes conversation (and listening!) with empathy, presenting to groups with confidence, and reading and writing, especially now with the internet and in knowledge work.

    We were also extremely impressed by your 8th grade student guides at Open Doors Friday. Young people now sometimes say they feel more comfortable talking to each other over text messages than in person, and even to adults when they can get away with it. Your students bucked that trend. They were confident, made strong eye contact, spoke clearly and effectively, and led a natural conversation with comfortable give and take. Not to mention that they remembered an impressive amount of information! They also conveyed the real sense of warmth, community, and belonging they felt at Adda Clevenger. We're very familiar with the education research related to a Maslow-style hierarchy of needs, particularly the developmental effect of security and safety on children’s ability to learn. We know that all kinds of threats and discomforts can crop up in learning environments, some obvious, some not so obvious, that can make kids withdraw and close their minds to learning and growth. AC clearly puts a priority on social and emotional security and wellbeing, for all the right reasons, and it shows.

    Longitudinal studies have shown that people who went to preschool often do better in life than people who didn't, in all sorts of ways. Researchers are still working on identifying why, but it's not a stretch to think that learning to play well with others can benefit people throughout their lives. We've already seen how Adda Clevenger students learn to talk, write, perform, and collaborate with a wide range of students and teachers, in ways that prepare them to do the same in the real world. We hope our daughter can join their ranks!

  • Accolade

    We like the tailored approach to teaching that Adda Clevenger supports. We like the autonomy given to teachers to creatively plan their curricula with each student in mind. We like the focus on the arts and the community we felt when we visited. We liked the fun the children were having and the vibe of the school and classroom environment we observed. We like the focus on experiential learning and the approach to conflict resolution that equips each student with fundamental life skills. Based on our recent conversations and school visit, these are a few of the top of mind reasons we’re applying to Adda Clevenger School for our son.

  • Accolade

    I truly believe Adda Clevenger is the best fit for our daughter and our family. I enjoyed the process of learning about the school and I would be thrilled if she would grow up at Adda Clevenger to be as mature, kind, and well-spoken as the students I met throughout the process. I felt comfortable and at home during my visits. We are particularly attracted to the academic and arts focus. We love that Adda Clevenger would expose our daughter to all academic areas that would continue to develop her into a well-rounded individual. We love that Adda Clevenger provides a focus on language arts as well as civility to help the children communicate and problem solve together. The small class sizes encourage team work and bonding among peers and teachers. We have chosen Adda Clevenger because we believe the curriculum will develop our daughter into a strong and empathetic individual who can think creatively, and problem solve among her peers.

  • Accolade

    There are many reasons we have chosen Adda Clevenger School. My wife and I each grew up with heavy training in various performing arts. We have seen firsthand the myriad benefits that can have in shaping a child’s personality, instilling confidence, creativity, and enhancing social skills . . . we would like our son to have a foundational education which includes the performing arts. We are a scientific family (his mother, both grandmothers, three uncles, and two aunts are all doctors!) so we would not be surprised if he pursues STEM fields in high school and beyond. That makes it even more important to us that in his formative years he gets to enjoy a more balanced exposure including performing arts.

    Beyond the performing arts, there are many things we like about the school. Small class size is hugely important to us. The opportunity for more student-teacher interaction seems ideal for early childhood development. Additionally, the emphasis on collaboration from such an early age, and learning to work with one’s peers in a cooperative and mutually helpful way, is very appealing. It was helpful to visit the school and see that in practice in the classroom. The emphasis on athletic development is also nice. Overall the idea that a more fun environment leads to more engaged students just makes sense to us. It seems like an environment very conducive to character building. Students can be themselves and develop their personalities in an enjoyable environment.