About CASA
CASA (Children’s After School Arts) is an independent, nonprofit creative arts after school program dedicated to guiding San Francisco’s youth toward open expression, expansive hearts, and questioning minds. We provide a safe, comfortable, and inspiring environment in which children in Kindergarten through 6th grade receive creative and performing arts instruction.
Our diverse team of artist/educators employ an emphasis on social justice and social/emotional development in order to encourage community-building and positive connections among the students and staff. We encourage effective communication and work daily on peaceful conflict resolution using restorative practices.
CASA takes special pride in outreach to children with challenging social, academic, and family issues; we embrace LGBTQ+ families and children who express gender variance. Our generous scholarship offerings allow CASA to create an especially rich cohort of children from a variety of San Francisco’s demographics.
At CASA, children are free to be themselves within a safe and structured arts curriculum. Our students graduate with a love for the arts, but more importantly, they each leave us with a drive to be a better human being.
Supporting Our Diverse Community
Diversity, access, and inclusion are crucial to CASA’s mission. This is reflected in CASA’s hiring and enrollment policies.
Families who are on the Free & Reduced Lunch Program automatically qualify for financial aid. In addition, CASA serves other families who do not qualify for free lunch but receive needs-based aid from CASA to defray the cost of the program. In total, a third of our CASA families receive some form of tuition assistance.
CASA has expanded our enrollment to include more students every year since its inception.
CASA makes space for all kinds of learners. We work with students with IEPs and 504s, collaborating with families, nurses, teachers, social workers, and others to provide accommodations that help to create a community of safety and inclusion for all students.
CASA programming is based on individualized instruction, which takes into consideration cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The CASA team engages families and caregivers to address students’ needs through in person meetings, emails, and phone calls.
CASA staff trainings focus on diversity and inclusivity. At monthly staff meetings, CASA staff discuss their students’ experiences within the context of their cultural frameworks.
CASA’s arts curriculum embraces diversity, including discussion of heroes from our students’ cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. Recent annual themes, which serve as focal points for kids’ art projects, have included gender identity and immigration status. A study based on CASA’s gender expansive curriculum was published in 2019 suggesting “that gender-focused arts-based curricula may be associated with increased awareness of gender norms, shifts in understandings of gender, and more positive attitudes toward gender-expansive roles, activities, and attire.”
Our Events
Each year CASA produces several festive fundraising events including shopping night at Books Inc. in December, The Winter Art & Music Show in January, Family Music Night in February, and our fabulous end of the year musical in May. These events help raise funds for CASA, showcase our talented tiny divas, and bring our community together for fantastic evenings.
We believe that all children are inherently creative and aim to tap into each child’s inner artist. Some of our students come to us ready for the spotlight, others are more hesitant performers. We work with everyone on this spectrum to find individual comfort levels and discover new skills.
The CASA Musical
CASA’s Spring Musical and Benefit provides a unique opportunity to 300 kindergarten through 5th graders. Working with each individual child, CASA finds a place for everyone to participate in this incredible ensemble production. Each graduating 5th grader creates their own character and then portrays them, in full costume, as leads in an original musical on a professional stage.
Every year, the CASA Annual Spring Musical explores a different theme of interest to our students. In 2015 our theme was San Francisco. The CASA kids dove into San Francisco history while also exploring The City’s rapid change, focusing on issues of gentrification, displacement, and identity. The script was developed through a series of improvisations and writing exercises with the 5th grade leads, and the result, City Not For Sale, was stunning! Check out this beautiful tribute as featured on NPR’s This American Life.
Working side-by-side with professional actors, musicians, technicians and designers, the CASA students produce a truly magnificent theatrical experience that doesn’t shy away from difficult subject matters. CASA musicals take kids on an adventurous journey of self-discovery culminating in a lively celebration of individuality and experiential development.