Frequently Asked Questions for Educators

Guided tours and self-guided visits are free for K–12 student groups with advance reservations. Guided tours require a deposit of $100 to secure your reservation. The deposit is returned to you on the day of your visit or in the event of a cancellation with advance notice (preferably one month in advance).

Reservations may be made by submitting a reservation request from our website, either through an online form or by downloading a PDF request form. Please view the “Scheduling A Visit” page for more information.

Requests for guided tours must be made with a minimum of 8 weeks’ notice. Reservation requests for self-guided tours must be made with a minimum of 4 weeks’ notice. Requests are processed in the order received.

Reservations for the school year may be submitted beginning August 1. Reservations for fall will be booked beginning August 1 and requests for spring will be confirmed beginning November 1.

Please mail your deposit check to:

School Programs, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118

Make the check out to COFAM. Include the name of the contact cited on the reservation request, your school name, and confirmed date on the memo line.

Guided tours accommodate up to 35 students per reserved time slot. Self-guided groups are scheduled for entry every 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the galleries requested and other reservations on a given day. If your group is larger than 35, you may divide it into two smaller groups with consecutive entry times.

We request a minimum of one adult for every 10 students and a maximum of one adult for every four students. We welcome additional support from one-on-one aides.

Please note that for Get Smart with Art and Learning to Look guided tours a limit of two adults will be invited to attend the studio-art portion of the program, due to limited space in our tower art studios.

Please refer to each museum’s “Getting to the Museum” page:

de Young
Legion of Honor

Buses may drop off and pick up students in the loading zone in front of the museums. At the de Young Museum, first-come-first-serve bus parking is available behind the bandshell in the Music Concourse.

At the de Young, limited free, four-hour parking is available on MLK Drive and JFK Drive. Paid parking is available in the Music Concourse garage ($3.50/hour Mon.–Fri.). The museum cannot validate parking. At the Legion of Honor, free parking is available in front of the museum and on El Camino Del Mar.

Please enter the de Young Museum via the Education Entrance (aka Members’ Entrance) on the tower (eastern) end of the building.

Please enter the Legion of Honor via the main entrance in the Court of Honor.

Backpacks and lunches may not be carried in the museum galleries. Please plan on leaving backpacks and lunches in the bus or car. If you are traveling by public transportation please limit and consolidate student bags.

There are no lunch facilities at either museum for school groups. At the de Young, groups are encouraged to lunch in the park; the Garden of Enchantment and Music Concourse offer seating and trashcans. At the Legion of Honor, groups are encouraged to lunch in the surrounding Lincoln Park. Outside lunches are prohibited in the Museum Café.