etienne ta
5/5
Our child has been at SOMACC YBG for years and there is nowhere he and we would rather be. Everyone is just wonderful as they always have been from the start. In many ways its all about the kids, but at the same time, everyone's (Support staff, teachers', substitutes', custodians', community program staff, parents', etc) well being is taken care of because SOMACC cares about the child's relationship to their entire community. There's not room to name everyone, but thank you to Director Jennifer for always responding to parents concerns and leading Friday dance party; Joy, Roxy and Melinda for running administration so well; Simone for caring for our kids safety and individual development; Rod and family center staff for community building and outreach; SOMACC PAC for your dedication to enriching the kids' lives; and of course Teachers Saima, Winnie, Tina, Holly, Jasmine, Jenny, Tuba, and all the teachers for caring so much about all the kids development and well being. At school, when the older kids were graduating to kindergarten we talked to our son about graduating to other schools someday and how one day he might go to schools with names like Oxford and Cambridge. He responded that while he wants to go to kindergarten, he wished he could stay at Somacc forever.
In case it’s helpful for anyone on the fence about starting school at this time, we have been very confident in the schools safety protocols. As a reformed germaphobe, I would not have sent my child back if I did not feel he was safe and it is now coming up on a full year he has been back safely in class. The children are very resilient, adaptable, and able to wear their masks all day. The rooms have extremely high ceilings and full doors allowing plenty of ventilation in addition to the air filters and hvac. Much of the children’s time is spent outdoors since the play yard is enormous and the classrooms each have a large balcony play area. The space is truly amazing and we’d all be lucky to spend all day in such a wide open sky/green grass area in the midst of downtown. Meals are individually sealed and no child ever goes home hungry. While the pandemic has meant that many of the great families moved away, new wonderful families have joined and my child has enjoyed getting to know all the little babies to all the older kids. We miss that the pandemic means we‘ve had to put a hold on the regular multi-age play yard activities, spring and fall festivals, Friday merry go round rides, all students school bus field trips across the Golden Gate Bridge and nighttime pizza parties (a.k.a.: parents group, dads group and parents committee meetings), but new school activities like letter writing to other classrooms, movie night, sing- a-long Saturdays, and planting in the gardens within the enormous play yard and next door at Yerba Buena Gardens took their place over time.
Normal non-pandemic hours at YBG are just incredible for working parents (7:30am-6pm w/ extremely fewer holidays than most schools) though the hours are slightly reduced during the pandemic. I know former Somacc families that still talk about missing Somacc a year after leaving the country due to the pandemic.
