San Francisco University High School

Established by a youthful board of trustees and community activists in 1973 in response to a deeply felt need for an innovative, co-educational, independent secondary school in the Bay Area, San Francisco University High School officially opened in September 1975. The school was created through funds contributed by individuals and foundations who shared a vision of a school that would be a model of equity and excellence.

University High School has grown and made necessary adjustments over its 40-year history. The focus of these changes and adjustments has always been the school’s small student body, currently numbering 400, in an ongoing effort to best meet their needs and create as open and nurturing an environment for learning as possible.

UHS intends to be at the forefront of changing high school culture, affirming our fundamental commitment to intellectual challenge and vitality while simultaneously responding to the demands and opportunities of today. San Francisco University High School welcomes students of demonstrated motivation and ability to engage in an education that fosters responsibility and the spirited pursuit of knowledge. We are a school where adults believe in the promise of every student, and together we work to build and sustain a community of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and talents. UHS challenges each individual to live a life of integrity, inquiry, and purpose larger than the self.

Our Values:

• Being curious, open-minded, and courageous; seeking out different perspectives and learning from one another; striving to deepen our understanding of the evolving world.
• Investing wholeheartedly in our work and in one another; cultivating empathy, compassion, mindfulness, and resilience; recognizing and seeking to address injustice.
• Being truthful, open, honest, and reflective; honoring the wholeness of each individual; acting to fulfill a purpose larger than the self.
• Taking risks and growing from the experience; pursuing our passions with confidence, creativity, and humility; discovering and making real our own distinctive and evolving expressions of excellence.
• Building and sustaining an intentionally diverse, equitable, and inclusive school; engaging as socially responsible citizens in communities both near and far; recognizing that we form a web through our common humanity: what affects one person affects us all.

We are a courageous community dedicating ourselves to:

• Embracing education as a transformational, rather than a transactional, endeavor.
• Empowering our students to invent and sustain their own vision of success and sense of purpose.
• Establishing a school culture that provides a dynamic and challenging education while simultaneously promoting wellness, care, and wholeness.
• Embodying our fundamental belief that collaboration among people with diverse backgrounds and life experiences is essential to deep learning.
• Ensuring that University High School remains a strategically nimble institution, engaged in learning, reflection, and growth on all levels.

UHS is a community well-known for its challenging academic offerings and intellectual vitality. Our classrooms are full of diverse perspectives and spirited debate; our labs are spaces for collaborative discovery; and our studios, stages, and playing fields are arenas where we create and compete with passion and purpose. We believe that a lively academic culture, while the foundation of our mission, represents only one facet of an extraordinary school. Strong student and faculty relationships (supported by our one-of-a-kind mentoring program), a commitment to equity and inclusion, an intentional culture of peer support, and a history of public purpose (read about our ground-breaking Summerbridge program) are essential aspects of the UHS experience. The standards we set for ourselves are high, but the benefits of those aspirations are limitless in a school that believes in the promise of every student.

Over the past four years, we have been defining and shaping a shared vision and a set of core values that have become a guide to imagining our future. We assumed the bold position that a school with a reputation for excellence has not only the opportunity, but the responsibility, to reimagine what makes an outstanding school, one that emphasizes the transformational—rather than the transactional—power of these critical high school years.

UHS consistently engages in the national dialogue around teaching, learning, and assessment; technology; professional growth and development; diversity and equity; and adolescent development. We have been recognized as a leader by our California and national peers in inventing and designing culture-shifting programs that emanate from the research, experience, and ideas of those closest to it: our faculty. The connecting of our community and designing of programs, spaces, and practices, nurture an environment of inquiry, risk-taking, collaboration, and personal and intellectual growth for both students and teachers. That “catalytic context” was part of the original vision for UHS, and it remains a hallmark of our school today.