SFCAC encourages creativity and connection throughout the Bay Area community through a variety of partnerships.
Along with reaching hundreds of children every year in PreK through 5th grade classrooms, our teaching artists also provide in-service training to preschool teachers, sharing best practices, strategies, and skills in leading art-related activities.
San Francisco Unified School District
SFCAC provides visual arts residencies to PreK and TK classrooms at SFUSD elementary schools and early childhood development centers. In spring of 2021, we supported our young artists in transitioning back to the classroom, pivoting from distance learning to facilitating our art activities streaming into classrooms via Zoom. Our teaching artists worked with students at Bessie Carmichael, Junipero Serra, Alvarado, and Rooftop Schools.
Office of Early Care and Education Preschool For All (PFA)
From 2009-2020, SFCAC provided weekly visual arts residencies in preschools throughout the city as part of San Francisco’s First 5 preschool initiative, severing nearly 5,000 students over the decade. Although the Office of Early Care and Education, was forced to suspend this program due to the budget crisis created by the pandemic, SFCAC has continued our partnership with many of the school sites that we previously served through his program, including Potrero Kids Preschool and Mission Neighborhood Center. Both of these Spanish bilingual preschool programs serve culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse families of the Mission, Potrero Hill, and Dogpatch neighborhoods. These programs are now supported in part by a grant from the California Arts Council’s Artists in Schools program.
Kids Club @ SF Community Elementary School
Since 2016, SFCAC has provided after-school and summer program residencies in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco at this diverse SFUSD school site. Funding for this program has been supported in part by a grant from the California Arts Council’s Youth Arts Action program.
La Scuola International School
Since 2016, SFCAC has provided after-school enrichment for preschool-age children in partnership with this Reggio Emilia-inspired school site.
Other Community Partnerships:
- Enrish. Play. Learn. Partnership with this unique Marina District program that provides enrichment activities for young people.
- Excelsior Family Connections – Visiting artists workshops for preschool age children at the Ocean Avenue neighborhood family center
- Daniel Webster Elementary School – School-day residency for 3rd grade students, focusing on sculpture
- Richmond Village Beacon – Art classes at a community-based after-school program
- Museum of Craft and Folk Art – Collaborative family workshops
- Alt School, Fort Mason – Year-long, weekly visual arts engagement for all TK through 4th grade students
- Off the Grid, Fort Mason – Monthly community family art activities at OTG’s Friday nights at Fort Mason
- Art Span Youth Open Studios – participation in Open Studio / Open House each November
- Raphael House, Clara House, and Holy Family Day Home – After school art classes at shelter for homeless families and children in transition in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. Classes were offered for children ages 3 to 11.
- Schulte Grants for the Arts and Crafts – Year-long art educations lecture series about the role of art-making in child development through grant funding as part of a program of the Fort Mason Foundation
- The San Francisco Children’s Art Center is a member of the National Guild for Community Arts Education.