Leonardo da Vinci High School
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Leonardo Da Vinci High School (DVHS) has been located in Davis, California at 1602 Oak Avenue since fall of 2004, which is part of the Davis Senior High School Campus. DVHS has about 250 students, and is expected to grow to 350 students. This school is a member of the New Tech Foundation, an organization that promotes the integration of technology and high school education by establishing schools modeled after the Napa's New Technology High School, a project-based small learning community with a technology focus.
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[edit] Philosophy
The main goal of DVHS's philosophy is to engender responsibility and competence in students, and to prepare them for the workplace. They use many unorthodox methods to achieve this goal. For example, there is no punishment system at DVHS; students are expected to do what is right. If there are problems, consequences such as a loss of privileges are instated on a case by case basis. There is no "detention room"; instead, the student must do odd jobs around the school to make up for their bad behavior, for example fixing a vending machine or scraping gum off the bottom of tables. Another feature is that passes are not required. The idea is to simulate a workplace environment. This is also why the school has chosen to work so much with computers; in a work environment such as the ones students are likely to encounter after graduating from school, they are likely to be using computers daily. A higher level of computer use will prepare DVHS students for the workplace, and they will be more competent than graduates from a regular high school.
[edit] Application and Selection
Students at Da Vinci go through an application process including an essay. Applications are evaluated to find students who will work better in a problem-based environment than in a regular high school, and students who have something to contribute to the community and learning environment.
However, DVHS is not classified as a "magnet school" because there are no academic criteria for entering the school. The school has no technical programs, and does not focus on any academic areas, so DVHS is not classified as a "technical school" either, despite the high level of computer use.
[edit] Environment
Students sit in table groups, usually chosen by the teacher. They are allowed to listen to music during worktimes, and many often do.[citation needed] CD players and digital audio players are commonly used during class time at DVHS. This is intended to create a more relaxed work environment, and to allow students to feel more in control and exercise responsibility more often. The eight classrooms are arranged in a ring, with a courtyard in the middle. The floor of the courtyard is painted blue, and it has several tables. All of the doors in the classrooms have been designed and painted by students, with whimsical colors and shapes on several of them. When the school first started, one classroom was a lounge. But in the year of 06-07 the lounge was transferred into a classroom and the Senior class kept the couches and foosball table, while the vending machine went to another classroom. However, the food vending machines where removed due to lack of space, but drink vending machines still remain on campus.
[edit] Sports
DVHS does not compete in any sports leagues except Ultimate Frisbee, which is growing in popularity as a sport among schools in the New Tech Foundation. The league consists of a team from Napa New Tech, the Penguins, and the Knights (unofficially the Fighting Lasagnas) from DVHS. The DVHS frisbee team has recently begun playing intermural games with UC Davis students. This team is co-ed and serves to foster community within students and teachers from schools.
Da Vinci students also participate is several non-school-sponsored sports at lunch or after school. These include hackeysack(played as a large group) and hacking(played in a team of 3-7 students)
DVHS students are also permitted to participate in sports through Davis Senior High School.
[edit] Opportunities
DVHS offers its students many opportunities. In the 2008-2009 year, Da Vinci will be offering at least 10 Community College courses for its students to take. These will give them college credit and are taken during a period as opposed to after school. There is a wide variety of clubs at Da Vinci. Most of them are formed by the students themselves. They vary between Hackey-Sack, Meditation, Random Acts of Kindness, and many more. Unofficially, students are offered Leadership opportunities. When the students are put into groups to collaborate on a project, they are given the chance to step up and take a leadership role.
[edit] Student-Made Multimedia
DVHS students are supplied with access to video cameras and other tools that they can use for educational or personal (appropriate) use. Many student-recorded videos are circulated throughout their school e-mail accounts. A popular example from the 2007 school year included a recording of a teacher dancing to a popular pop song, "Sweet Escape", by Gwen Stefani. There is also a video of a male student cross-dressing as the prostitute from "Catcher in the Rye", in order to act out a scene from the novel. Another video that was made popular was created by a group of four sophomores who dressed up as newscast reporters from the 18th century with French accents and reported news from the 1700s, complete with sound effects and voice overs. Other examples of student generated multimedia include music, powerpoints, computer generated drawings and flash animations.
[edit] Course Offerings
There are many courses offered at DVHS, and all of them are tailored to fit the school’s environment. All of these courses are problem oriented, and centered around presentations. These presentations are meant to simulate presentations in the workplace, and students are required to wear formal attire. The presentation projects are structured around having the students research to complete more open-ended assignments, as opposed to having students listen to lectures and complete narrowly defined projects.
Not only are English, Math, and Social Studies offered at DVHS, but also more specialized courses such as Research and Communication or Graphic Arts. Research and Communication is a mandatory course which teaches the students how to use the applications loaded on their computers, including the full Adobe suite, Macromedia tools, Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Office.
Some required courses for graduation, like science, are not offered at DVHS. These are taken at Davis High School, which is next door. DVHS is expected to move to its own building in the Education Center that is to be built at UC Davis.[1]
As of spring 2007, DVHS has a partnership with Sacramento City College's extension program to offer community college courses for free to DVHS students.
[edit] Funding and Partnerships
The school is funded in part by a grant to the New Tech Foundation from the Gates Foundation. Bill Gates was interested in the program because he wanted a larger pool of technologically literate workers that required less training after employment. The New Tech Foundation runs schools around the country with a similar focus on problem-based learning.
Although DVHS is located on the Davis High School campus, in 2007 it will move to a new area on the UC Davis campus. This will allow the students to take community college courses that are not offered at the high school as elective courses, which will count for both high school and college credits.
[edit] Controversy
Due to significant budget cuts to the Davis Joint Unified School District a large portion of the faculty was susceptible to lay-offs. On March 5, 2008 the student body mobilized by raising awareness of the harm that this would cause to the Leonardo Da Vinci student body. Many da Vinci students, past and present,attended the meeting on March 6, to try and prevent cutting 75% of their teachers. However, the school board was unsympathetic to these efforts and removed da Vinci from the list of district programs exempt from lay-offs based on seniority. As of March 7th, 2008, all but two of the da Vinci teachers' jobs are at risk.
This student effort has received attention from many regional media outlets such as KGO, KALW [2], KXJZ [3], and the Local News10 Television Channel [4].
