San Francisco

History, Art, Culture, and Stewardship of the Non-Touristy San Francisco

April 3, 4, 5, and 6, 2018

The shortcut to this page is www.tinyurl.com/dcs8sf

Overview

Room 25: April 3 to 6, 2018

Map

Itinerary

Student Docents

Room 25 (for the SF and Marin portion, 2014):

1. Chinatown & North Beach: Tuisku, Kinsey, Audrey (3)

2. Cable Cars: History (Avi, Rara); Trolleys (Hunter, Addie, Luka); Underground (Russell)

3. Coit Tower: Naya, Theodor, Lesley, Liam, Nate (5)

4. Embarcadero & Fisherman's Wharf: Elise, Gabi, Katy, Alec (5)

5. Presidio & Palace of Fine Arts: Prerna, RyanS, Oscar (3)

6. Coastal Trail: Ali, Devan, RyanC, Lukas (5)

7. North Point (Maya), Hyde Street Pier, Ghiradelli

8. Russian Hill and Lombard Street

Transportation

Packing List

Information & Permission Letter

Room Assignments

Parent Help

Parent Schedule

Monday:

Thomas comes to DCS anytime and kids load gear into his van.

Tuesday:

Marie & Bruce drives Thomas' house and leaves her car there.

Thomas drives Marie, Bruce, and Betina to Winchester.

Marie and Chris and the kids do train to SF.

Thomas drives to SF Tuesday, leave car at hostel and join us on our route (bus or Uber).

Wednesday:

Thomas and Marie stay through the day.

Sherri and Pooja arrive Wednesday night in Pooja's car.

Marie drives Thomas' van back on Wednesday night.

Thomas stays or returns (his choice).

Thursday:

Pooja and Sherri (and Thomas?) chaperone Thursday

Friday.

Pooja drives the gear back (anytime), meeting at Winchester at 5:30.

Sherri (and Thomas?) chaperone Friday and take train back.

(from 2016) Luggage Drivers:

1. Arrive at Winchester Transit Center in Campbell at 7:10 on Tuesday, parking close to the train as possible.

2. I will load a cooler and a box or two of food into your car

3. When cars arrive I'll ask the kids to bring their luggage to you and keep their day packs

4. Parents who have food will also load it into your car

5. Our LightRail train departs at 7:43

6. You don't have to be at the hostel in Fort Mason until 5:30

7. IF any kid misses our departure, would you be willing to bring them up to SF with you?

SF to SJ

1. Arrive at hostel in Fort Mason at about 8:30 on Friday morning.

2. Kids will bring their luggage out to your van and I'll bring leftover food

3. You're free for the day

4. Arrive at the Safeway parking lot across from Winchester Transit Center at 5:15ish

5. Unload luggage if you like (maybe in a free spot next to your car)

6. Parents can get the kids luggage while they are waiting

7. When we arrive via LightRail at 5:25, we'll cross the street and kids find parents

Directions to Hostel

2. After the tunnel take the exit (101 south) towards the marina

3. 101 becomes Lombard (or you can take Marina Blvd to Laguna, to Bay)

4. Left at Franklin which goes through the gate and becomes Fort Mason.

5. Left on Funston Road puts you right in front of the hostel (by the big grass field)

Letter to Parent Chaperones

Instructions for luggage drivers:

280 north to SF, taking 19th Avenue & Park Presidio drive & Veteran's Boulevard towards Golden Gate Bridge (those 3 streets are all "the same", sequential route through SF)

Hello Moira and Greg,

First of all, thank you very much for being willing to spend a week with us in San Francisco. Unlike most DCS trips, this one has only 2 chaperones per class, so your involvement and interactions might be more frequent, demanding, and necessary than normal.

Structure of the Trip:

Each day we will cover a different region of SF, getting from place to place by walking or public transit. I have been learning a whole bunch of new things about SF this past week and am eager to share that with the kids, but I'm also depending on them to explain the parts that they researched.

Chaperone Responsibilities:

1. On Tour: Please help us keep the group together, counted, attentive, and engaged. Round up stragglers, shush talkers (during instruction), and engage the disengaged if possible. Help us to keep the kids environmentally-appropriate (ha, my term). In other words, quiet in museums, courteous on buses, and playful/active during games and park time.

2. Around Hostel: The 8th grade beast (and group) is an unpredictable entity. We don’t know if and when they will be totally mellow and need no external control, and when they will be hyper, irresponsible, and/or needy and thus need our intervention. Our default should be to let the students be independent and worthy of trust and autonomy. When the class gets back from their day’s activities they will have free time and run of the hostel and grass area out front. Please monitor your room (see website for room list), but you don’t need to stay there the whole time. The kids have to be in their own rooms by 9:30 and lights out at 10.

3. Meals & Clean Up: The hostel provides a free but small breakfast upstairs in “Cafe Franco”. We will be making a supplemental breakfast downstairs each day. On Wednesday and Thursday and Friday I will also be setting up a “sandwich bar” for the kids to make a bag lunches. I'm going to get groups of kids to help for each of the dinners, and this will include food prep, serve-line prep, and clean up.

4. General: You all know all of these kids very well, so we are counting on you to be assertive, proactive, and take positive action whenever you see fit. I trust your judgement so there is no need to get approval (or whatever) from me before you step in with a common-sense action that you see necessary.​

Here are some chaperone responsibilities that I wrote for the Walkabout that seemed to work well and apply:

Help assure student safety and accountability. Keeping the kids aware of their surroundings as well as responsive to instructions.

Constant head-counter and kid-herder. We need to always know where every kid is and they need to know where you are.

Selective student engagement and separation. Knowing when to step in and engage kids with their env't, and when to leave them alone.

To know the route, to assemble groups, and to keep in touch with us and each other via cell phone.

Meals

Budget

To Do Lists

Resources/ToDo (this list is outdated; see discussion document)

1. call SF Muni about bus 10, 8x, 22, 28, 30, 47, and 49 for school groups

2. call Marina Safeway about meat pre-orders for lunches for 3 days

3. try to get a printed verson of the SF Muni system map

Photos & Article

Photos from April, 2018

CalTrain wrote an article about our trip: https://peninsulamoves.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/taking-caltrain-an-integral-part-of-field-trip-to-sf-for-campbell-charter-school/