About Us

The Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA) is a public, tuition-free, visual and performing arts high school dedicated to providing students with an alternative educational program that fosters artistic development and creativity.

Since the founding of the school in 1982, SOTA has admitted students selected by audition from all over San Francisco and the Bay Area. 

With a population of approximately 600 students, SOTA’s pre-professional programs engage students in a curriculum that combines academics with art instruction.  The instructors at SOTA, who are gifted arts teachers, dedicated academic teachers, and artists-in-residence, work together to maintain a top-notch educational program and share common goals:

1. Provide San Francisco Bay Area students with a specialized visual and performing arts high school of the highest quality.

2. Seek and recruit talented and gifted students representative of our diverse San Francisco population.

3. Provide instruction to the SOTA students by highly qualified educators and artists in the school and in community settings.

4. Provide a program of instruction in which content from the arts is integrated into traditional non-arts subject areas and includes attention to multi-cultural arts.

5. Provide a balance between process and product and between discipline and creativity.

Successful SOTA students are committed to their chosen field of study. Academic classes are held in the morning and afternoons are dedicated to art classes.  Many SOTA students take classes outside of school to hone their abilities and all of our students benefit from access to an onsite Wellness Center,counselors at each grade level, and a college counselor

Our expected school-wide learning results envision SOTA graduates as …

 Communicators who:

• express ideas effectively and appropriately when speaking and writing

• receive and interpret the messages of others without distortion

Thinkers who:

• utilize critical thinking skills in solving problems and applying knowledge in real-world contexts

• distinguish between facts, opinions, and assumptions when forming conclusions

• use arts and ideas to represent significant concepts

• analyze current issues from a variety of perspectives

 Developing Artists who:

• create and produce new work reflecting originality and high standards

• demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate artistic products

• have knowledge of the historical/cultural context of the arts

• use the language of the arts for expressing aesthetic concepts

• understand the interrelationships of the arts to each other and to academic subjects

 Community Contributors who:

• demonstrate and exercise productive citizenship

• make positive contributions to the community both at school and in a larger context

• demonstrate knowledge and appreciation for the global environment and its resources

 Collaborative Workers who:

• demonstrate effective leadership skills in various settings

• show respect for diverse opinions, feelings, and beliefs

• interact effectively in intercultural/interpersonal relationships

 Learners who:

• develop and use effective learning and planning strategies such as time management, self-evaluation and goal-setting

• use technology to access information analyze and solve problems and communicate ideas

• communicate effectively, at a survival level, in a second language

• demonstrate achievement of academic and artistic standards through a variety of performance tasks