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Welcome to ATI San Francisco

I'm thrilled to welcome you to ATI San Francisco. 

We're a unique school in this remarkable city. We combine the best of a rigorous, intellectually demanding liberal arts education with the best of a progressive orientation to cultivating student independence, agency and responsibility. We help each student become a great thinker and a great doer in a way that corresponds to their gifts, interests and passions.  

Our learning community is intentionally small so we're able to deeply know each student, help them thrive emotionally and socially, and support their individual path to excellence. We're proud of our orientation to a set of values that guide us as a community, and I'd love to discuss how ATI might align with your vision of an extraordinary high school education.

I'm honored to lead this school and to partner with our exceptional educators and our remarkable students and families to co-create a challenging, supportive, deeply caring, and inspiring learning community.  

I hope you'll explore our website to learn more about ATI and then come see us for yourself.  I'd love to meet you.  

Warm regards, 

Denis Hill

Head of School, ATI San Francisco

Our Vision

In 1907, in San Lorenzo, Italy, Dr. Maria Montessori had a radical idea. What if we “follow the child” and let their interests, curiosity and engagement with their environment drive their learning? What if we create an approach to education that systematizes the inputs that a student needs to follow her curiosity, independently work with her mind and her hands, and realize her inner potential?

Today, ATI San Francisco is proud to build on this educational tradition by bringing to life a Montessori-inspired high school for engaged adolescents. Our vision is rooted in a deep belief that teenagers — in the context of a supportive, challenging and enriching community — are capable of extraordinary learning and extraordinary work. We aspire to be a community where students thrive intellectually, emotionally, and relationally and leave ATI prepared and capable of creating lives of purpose, value, and joy.

Our vision for adapting Montessori principles to the adolescent context isn’t fanciful. It requires coordinating and aligning principles and practice. It requires thoughtful and deliberate attention to balancing structure and flexibility. It requires maintaining expectations of excellence with adaptability for how to achieve it. It requires a commitment to learning ideas, skills and practices that are foundational to navigating our world while also providing students with the space and support to pursue excellence in their unique interests and passions.

Our vision is bold and aspirational; it is our life's work. We feel lucky to do this deeply meaningful work each day alongside our students. We hope you might be as inspired as we are to pursue this vision and to join us in re-imagining what a middle school can be.

Our Team

  • Denis Hill

    Head of School

    Denis Hill is driven by an urgency to develop learning experiences for young people that are meaningful, relevant, and transformative. He has been...

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    Denis Hill is driven by an urgency to develop learning experiences for young people that are meaningful, relevant, and transformative. He has been an instructional coach, dean of culture, director of professional development, and director of global programming. He brings experience designing experiential learning, building community and culture, and coaching and mentoring students and teachers to ATI.

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  • Alex Gilman

    Humanities Guide

    Alex Gilman graduated summa cum laude from Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy. He then pursued contemporary...

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    Alex Gilman graduated summa cum laude from Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in history and philosophy. He then pursued contemporary phenomenology at the graduate level at DePaul University. He is an award-winning writer, having published and presented papers at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

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  • Peter Wallis

    Lead Art and Maker Guide

    Peter is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Integrating his interests in illustration and printmaking, he teaches trends in new media...

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    Peter is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Integrating his interests in illustration and printmaking, he teaches trends in new media grounded in an appreciation of traditional art techniques and practices. He holds a BFA in illustration with a double minor in art history and drawing from the Maine College of Art and a MFA from Goddard College with a focus in printmaking, graphic novels, and peace studies.

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  • Katie Lee

    Director of Admissions

    Katie Lee graduated with a degree in biology from Grinnell College, where she assistant-taught biology, chemistry, and neuroscience. She then...

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    Katie Lee graduated with a degree in biology from Grinnell College, where she assistant-taught biology, chemistry, and neuroscience. She then moved to Nanjing, China, where she taught AP biology and English courses. She has worked in college counseling and helped to open AP and IB centers in Chinese high schools.

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  • Kelsey Holtzinger

    Lead STEM Guide

    Kelsey is a Bay Area native and has her M.A.T from Concordia and Santa Clara University. Before teaching Analysis and Science at ATI, Kelsey...

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    Kelsey is a Bay Area native and has her M.A.T from Concordia and Santa Clara University. Before teaching Analysis and Science at ATI, Kelsey taught middle school and high school math for five years. Kelsey is a former college athlete, an avid traveler and backpacker, and does an annual trek along the Pacific Crest Trail.

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  • Kiana Saniee

    Lead Science Guide

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Gifted, passionate, and committed, our staff at ATI San Francisco are remarkable individuals both inside and outside our classroom.

Learn more about the ATI community.

Our Values

Our ATI values align our staff, students and families to a set of ideas and practices that inform and enliven how we collaborate, communicate and support each other. We aspire to bring these values to life each day in our work together.

  • The Pursuit of Wisdom

    “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” –Socrates

    We approach learning as the ongoing pursuit of wisdom. We explore, interrogate and debate the big ideas that have shaped our world and connect those ideas to our own lives and context. We pursue wisdom not as an academic exercise, but to improve our judgment and actions in the world. 

  • The Development of Virtue

    “Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.” –Marcus Aurelius

    We know the word “virtue” may seem old fashioned. Yet the cultivation of our ethics, our integrity, and our habits shapes the quality of our lives. We are committed to exploring the connection between our deeply held values and our behaviors so that our inner character shows up in the world.

  • The Dignity of Work

    “The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” –Steve Jobs

    Work is central to our lives. It lets us direct our energies purposefully, enabling us to structure our time and action to reshape our world. Through cultivating our capacity for work, we develop an appreciation of genuine effort and a careful attention to quality.

  • The Power of Individual Agency

    “The only true freedom for an individual is to have the opportunity to act independently... There is no such thing as an individual until a person can act by himself.” –Maria Montessori

    We believe in independence and free choice. We seek to develop the courage of our convictions and the capacity for each of us to act with purpose, to overcome barriers and to pursue our individual aspirations.

  • The Responsibility and Joyfulness of Community

    “The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.” –Dean Ornish

    We recognize the tremendous personal value of the communities to which we belong. And so we assume responsibility for the health and vitality of those communities, share in the joy of belonging and have pride for what we create together.

The ATI Network

ATI San Francisco is a part of a network of ATI schools, with campuses in Austin, San Francisco, New York and St. Louis. Collectively, we are creating the future of middle and high schools in collaboration with Higher Ground Education, the leading global organization committed to modernizing and mainstreaming the Montessori movement.

The ATI program was founded by Michael Strong, one of the most experienced designers of innovative school programs in the U.S. His past projects include Montessori secondary school program design at The Judson Montessori School (San Antonio), The Emerson School (Palo Alto), and Hacienda School (Pleasanton). Michael has authored two books including The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice.

If you are interested in bringing ATI to your city, please contact Scott Taylor, Executive Director of ATI Schools.

Careers at ATI

If you're interested in a career in administration or teaching at ATI, we'd love to talk further with you. We currently have the following openings at our schools.

Director of Admissions and Operations

San Francisco, California |  Learn More 

Director of Admissions and Operations

East Village, New York |  Learn More 

Director (Teaching Head of School)

New York, New York |  Learn More 

English, Literature, Writing and Humanities Teacher

St. Louis, Missouri |  Learn More 

Latin Teacher with Fluency in French or Spanish

St. Louis, Missouri |  Learn More 

Middle & High School Science, MakerSpace, and Design Technology Teacher

St. Louis, Missouri |  Learn More 

Name Your Own Job!

Austin, St. Louis, San Francisco, East Village |  Learn More 

Unique Middle School Humanities Teacher

New York, New York |  Learn More 

Unique Middle School STEM Teacher

New York, New York |  Learn More 

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