La Scuola International School

We LOVE La Scuola! I came across La Scuola when searching for Reggio Emilia preschools for my daughter. My husband and I weren’t initially considering an immersion school for her, but as soon as we attended an open house, we fell in love. It was like no other preschool we visited. The teachers are warm, caring, patient, thoughtful, intelligent, and creative. The classrooms are beautiful and well-​equipped to keep kids happy, interested, and engaged. They have a garden, big outdoor play area (so rare in the city), a full atelier (art studio), and even a full kitchen and kitchen staff who make homemade family-​style meals every day. I wish I could go back to preschool! La Scuola is on track to be an IB school next year and it goes through the 8^th grade (no more school hunting for a while)! The school is Italian immersion but one of the many wonderful things about he Reggio approach is diversity — the school is filled with kids of many heritages. It really is an international school. But for us, even though Italian immersion wasn’t a requirement, it is now one of the many things we love about the school. Our daughter had no exposure to Italian before starting here, and after only 3 weeks, she came home singing Italian children’s songs. La Scuola is such a joyful place. We feel luck to have found it for our daughter.

My son started at La Scuola last year in 1^st grade, we couldn’t be happier. The school is a gem, the teachers and staff love their jobs and deeply care about the kids. The integrated curriculum and project based learning approach is great. Kids are learning everywhere, in the garden, classroom, the city on field trips, art room. It is all connected & well planned. We are not Italian, but we wanted a good international education and the IB program really appealed to us. Since this is a startup school, I believe the leadership is a very good predictor of how well the school will continue to do as it grows. The head of the school is a brilliant, dedicated and energetic woman, she really understands kids and cares about what’s best for them. She is very creative and resourceful and always finds solutions to any problem. The staff and the teachers are very competent, energetic, work very well together and engage the parents in meaningful ways. In my kid’s previous school parents were treated as free resources, not at La Scuola. The community is very tight and each of us bring a different expertise. Most importantly my son loves going to school every morning, nothing beats that.

Our daughter is in the Spazio Gioco class at La Scuola and we couldn’t be happier. The school is beautiful and perfectly designed for children to explore and play. This campus will be the location for the preschool, but they’ve also just opened up a new location on Fell Street for the K-​8 expansion planned in the coming years.

«No go home!»
That’s high praise from my 2-​year-​old. Though we’ve just started at La Scuola, my daughter is in love with the school, as am I. The Spazio Gioco program (a parent/​child teacher-​led playgroup) is the perfect introduction to preschool in general, and La Scuola, specifically. We were drawn to the language immersion preschool and Reggio Emilia teaching philosophy, but will stay for the warm environment, patient teachers (I say this as a non-​Italian speaker who benefits from that very patient teacher!), supportive community and even more now for the fact that there is an elementary school to continue her Italian education after preschool.
The fact that the school is an IB-​PYP candidate school (the only one in SF) makes it all the more attractive. We’re so grateful to have La Scuola in our family’s life!

my daughter is a shy one, and i can’t even start to express how much she has blossomed since starting at LPSI. like the previous poster, we are finding the teachers to be fun, loving, and caring (as well as the administrators!). we are there mostly for the reggio teaching philosophy (i’m also a teacher and i’m in love with reggio emilia), but the italian immersion is wonderful (my daughter says «formaggio» and that she wants to eat in «la piazza»). the food is delicious and healthful (my little one always wants seconds, sometimes thirds… and i don’t have to prepare lunches everyday… or any day for that matter!) and she doesn’t want to leave at the end of the day. we are one happy family!

We are SO happy at LPSI! The new Dogpatch location is beautiful, bright, and cheery. The Reggio philosophy, home-​cooked Italian food for lunch, language immersion, warm & loving educators as teachers… what more could you want in a pre-​school. Our daughter is happy and thriving! I can’t say enough positive things!