Welcome from Jon

Children in the foreground are sitting on a blue tarp on grass, with one girl raising her hand, while in the background, more children are seated under the shade of trees.

Thank you for visiting the website of Presidio Hill School.

Presidio Hill School has been a home for progressive education in San Francisco since 1918, and I am deeply honored to serve as PHS’s Head of School. What drew me to PHS, and what I hope you will feel as you explore this site, is a community whose purpose is clear and whose warmth is tangible. From my earliest conversations with families, faculty, and students, I could tell that PHS is a place where progressive education is not a label but a lived practice, cultivated carefully in classrooms and carried thoughtfully into the world beyond.

Presidio Hill graduates are curious and kind young people who have developed a wide variety of academic interests and skills, know themselves well as learners, understand the need to collaborate with and support others, are responsible and empowered, and nourish a sense of optimism and creativity in themselves and the community. If we work backward from that portrait, it becomes clear how much thought is embedded in the everyday life of the school. The belief that children's voices and ideas matter greatly shapes how our teachers plan, how our students engage, and how our community holds itself accountable to our deeply rooted mission and values.

What has moved me most about PHS is the sincerity of its relationships. There is a real kindness in how people here treat one another, a willingness to know each other, to learn from each other, and to accept each other with all of our strengths and differences. That kindness sits alongside a resolute sense of mission, and together they make Presidio Hill the kind of school where children can imagine, inquire, create, and engage in ways that matter.

I begin my first year at Presidio Hill in the same way our students do: as a curious learner. I have over 25 years of experience in progressive, mission-driven independent schools, including 15 years as a Head of School, and I am eager to put that experience in service to this community. I most look forward to learning alongside the PHS faculty and students who bring our school’s distinctive progressive education methodology to life each day.

A website can only offer so much. I hope this gives you an honest first glimpse of PHS, and I warmly invite you to visit us in person. The best way to know a school is the same way our students come to know the world, by being in it. I look forward to meeting you when you visit Presidio Hill in the near future.

Warmest regards,
Jon

"The true heart of PHS lies in its people and their clear sense of purpose for learning and life....

What inspired me most about PHS was the sincerity of relationships, the resolute mission, and the joyful commitment to helping students imagine, inquire, create, and engage with learning and the world in meaningful ways."
- Jon Fulk, Head of School