In the Medium Term—2025, 2026…
Our new facilities offer programming opportunities that we will not be designing immediately. Part of the reason is bandwidth as we contend with the exciting and massive job of moving all three divisions to a new home. Wisdom is also involved in the decision not to do certain things in the first year. With some spaces, it makes sense to live in them for a while and use them organically before making and implementing plans. The following are medium-term projects that we expect will happen after our first year at 19th Avenue:
Theater Program
We have already begun using the theater (this weekend, for instance, our middle schoolers will put on a student-created production, “Time Warp”). In the future, we will hire a theater director, and we intend for the theater to be primarily (though not exclusively) focused on Mandarin language experiences and Chinese and Chinese-American forms of performing arts.
Maker Space for early childhood and lower school students
The Middle School design lab program at 888 Turk has been very successful. In the future, we will push this curriculum down to the lower grades utilizing a maker or tinker space on the first floor. While building out the space now, we will only develop a program and hire a tinker space teacher after our first year at the campus.
Additional Soccer Field
In addition to the U8 turf soccer field mentioned above, we intend to put in a second U8 turf field that may also be used for soccer. Discussions with the San Francisco Fire Department delayed the installation of the second field, and we cannot consider it for September 2024. However, we intend to do the work in the summer of 2025 or later when finances permit. I envision our campus becoming a hub for soccer and other community activities after school and on the weekends.
Additional Opportunities Underway
In addition, here are some additional opportunities that don’t fit neatly into a short-, medium-, or long-term bucket but that we are working on constantly and that I hope will develop and improve gradually and Incrementally over the short and medium terms. For instance:
- Sports—Given the athletic facilities at 19th Avenue (including the gym and the soccer field(s) mentioned above), we have an opportunity to develop PE and after-school sports at CAIS, and in fact, we have already started working on this. Our new schedule will allow us to do things differently with PE, and a task force of parents and staff have been working on developing a governing philosophy for PE and sports at CAIS. In the coming months and years, we can continually meet the desires and needs of our community with a sports program that will give kids a more well-rounded education, allow kids recognition for their hard work and accomplishments in athletics, and create more opportunities for kids to participate and compete.
- K-5 Bilingual Library Program—We are searching for a Mandarin and English-speaking library and media specialist who can serve our Chinese and English curricula equally.
- Auxiliary—Last fall, we worked with the Summer Program and Auxiliary Revenue Collaborative (SPARC) to evaluate the opportunities for our afterschool, mini-camp, and summer camp programs at the new campus. SPARC produced a 120-page report that we are evaluating now, with an eye toward building programs that take advantage of our new facilities in ways that enrich the student experience, serve families’ needs, and help CAIS attract and retain families in need of high quality, wrap-around care for children outside of school hours and during holidays. This year, we have faced challenges vacating most of our current campus locations, and the new campus has not yet been completed. However, the future holds unlimited possibilities for enrichment programs. Look for more information about the SPARC report in a future 19th Avenue Newsletter.