In 1918 Helen Salz and Flora Arnstein opened the Presidio Open Air School to San Francisco children and families tired of the rote learning and boring, factory-model pedagogy of the time.

The progressive ideas of John Dewey and others were gaining ground at this time as children in progressive schools were offered the opportunity to "learn by doing" and to express themselves creatively. Presidio Open Air School was the first such school in California.

The original 15 students have given way to our current 200 or so, but the seminal ideas on which the children's education was founded have remained. Now, however, these progressive ideals are supported by modern brain research that helps us to understand how children learn best. There remains an emphasis on the written and spoken word. Problem solving and conceptual understanding are at the heart of the math curriculum. The arts are valued and given prominence.  All are woven into an integrated, project-based curriculum that engages young learners.

Dewey's ideas went beyond the pedagogy of the classroom and Presidio Hill School, as it was eventually renamed, took its responsibilities in the larger community seriously. Dewey believed schools should be incubators of democracy and that children learn to be citizens of a democratic society by taking an active part in the social milieu of the school. Presidio Hill became a community where social justice was important, where diversity was consciously embraced and fostered. During the 1930's the school became a place where European refugees could get help in their transition to American life. Later the school invited well-known and often blacklisted performers such as Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger to sing for the children and the public. In the 1940's the school was the first in San Francisco to open its doors to African-American students.

Now some 90 years after its founding, Presidio Hill remains a leader in the independent school community. With its focus on the developmental needs of its youngest kindergarten students as well as its oldest middle schoolers, its emphasis on the whole child, its commitment to authentic styles of assessment, its environmental education programs, and its commitment to the arts as a central focus, Presidio Hill continues to offer challenges to the prevailing educational paradigms of our time. It has remained remarkably true to its founding principles and continues to be a school in which children love to learn.