Field Trips
Suggested Locations
Suggested Locations
Organize a field trip to provide meaningful, extended learning opportunities for your students!
- Grades: 5-12
- Hours: Wednesday - Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM
- Location: Mountain View
- Cost: free! (bus scholarships available for Title I schools!)
- Workshops: exploring innovations and programming Raspberry Pis (must be arranged 8+ weeks in advance)
- Grades: PK-8
- Hours: Wednesday - Friday, 10 AM to 4 PM
- Location: Yerba Buena, SoMa
- Cost: $150-350, free for Title I schools!
- Workshops: robot coding (grades 4-8) and innovation/design challenge (grades 3-8)
- Grades: K-12
- Hours: Monday, Wednesday - Friday, 10 AM to 6 PM
- Location: Presidio
- Cost: $10 per student, free for Title I schools! (bus scholarships also available for Title I schools!)
- Workshops: STEAM (grades 1-12), Audio-Animatronics and robotics (grades 6-8), creative problem solving (grades 6-12), technological innovation: animation (grades 4-12)
- Grades: 4-12
- Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM
- Location: One Market, Embarcadero
- Cost: free!
- Workshops: none; audio tours available
- Grades: PK-5 (target: PK-3)
- Hours: Tuesday - Friday, 9 AM to 4 PM
- Location: Sausalito
- Cost: varies based on program, free for schools serving 40% students who receive free/reduced lunch
- Workshops: variety of STEM workshops, plus self-discovery
- Grades: K-12
- Hours: Wednesday - Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM
- Location: San Jose
- Cost: free for Title I schools! ($5 per student for non-Title I schools). IMAX films are additional.
- Workshops: social robots innovation lab, tech for global good innovation lab, IMAX films
- Grades: K-12
- Hours: Tuesday - Friday, 10 AM to 5 PM
- Location: Pier 15, Embarcadero
- Cost: $7.50 per student, free for Title I schools!
- Workshops: none offered
Planning Information
Planning Information
The CS team has limited funding to support CS-related student field trips and other engagement / extension opportunities, particularly those targeting underrepresented groups. Please ask us for more information.
Here are a few tips for planning field trips:
- Start planning early! This saves time, money, and frustration! See this checklist for help.
- Substitutes can only be arranged on Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Thursdays. Requests must be submitted 15 business days beforehand.
- Transportation methods can include walking, buses, Muni, and BART.
- Buses can generally accommodate up to ~60 students.
- Free buses are available for trips within San Francisco between hours of 9:30 AM and 1:00 PM.
- Buses become significantly more expensive if not arranged 6+ weeks ahead of time.
- Lyft and Uber are also permitted if there is a chaperone in each vehicle and the method is specified in the permission form.
- Chaperones: Most places recommend 1+ chaperones for every 10-15 students. Ask other teachers, paras, APs, and parents.
- Permission Forms: Every student must have a guardian-signed permission form in order to attend. Secondary students also need to have all of their teachers sign the forms beforehand.
- Summary Form: The site must also submit a summary form to LEAD 10+ days beforehand.
Bus Forms (must be submitted 4 weeks in advance)
- paid bus requisition (see tips & directions) -- send to CS team to submit
- free bus form (only within SF, between hours of 9:30 AM to 1:30 PM) -- please have your school secretary submit
Other
- CS substitute request form
- Field trip summary form (for principal to sign and submit to LEAD)
- SFUSD field trip procedures and guidelines
How to Follow Up on a Substitute Request
How to Follow Up on a Substitute Request
- Log to see the status of your request on the eSchool Solutions system.
- Contact the DoT HelpDesk to reset your username and password if you don’t know it.
- If you see a job # for the PD or field trip:
- and a substitute has not been assigned: it can take up to the day before to assign a substitute. On the day of absence, if one is still not assigned due to limited substitutes, you are required to report to your school site.
- and you need to update a CONFIRMED substitute (the substitute has verbally or electronically agreed to take your class), please contact your site secretary.
- and you need to update a NON-CONFIRMED substitute, please contact the Substitute department at (415) 241-6101. You will have to provide the job # that you will get when you sign into your eSchool Solution account.
- and you would like to cancel your request, please log into the eSchool Solutions OR contact your site secretary to cancel, and notify the CS team by email that you will not be attending.
- If you DO NOT see a job #...
- please note that it may take until the day prior to the absence for the Substitute department to submit this request into the system.
- and to follow up when a job # will be available, email the CS team to obtain a request #, you will then call the substitute department to clarify on status.
- on the day of the PD, if one is still not assigned, you are required to report to your school site.