Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts

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.