| Mountain Vista Governor's School for Science, Math & Technology | |
|---|---|
| Mountain Vista Governor's School Logo | |
| Location | |
| 6480 College Street Warrenton, Virginia, 20187 United States |
|
| Coordinates | Warrenton Campus: Middleton Campus: |
| Information | |
| School type | Magnet governor's school |
| Established | 2006 |
| Director | Dr. Rosanne Williamson |
| Grades | 11th-12th |
| Years Offered | 2 |
| Enrollment | 108 (as of 2008-09) |
| Color(s) | Navy and teal |
| Feeder schools | |
| Information | 540-347-6237 |
| Website | http://www.mvgshome.org/ |
Mountain Vista Governor's School for Science, Math & Technology (commonly Mountain Vista or MVGS) is one of Virginia's 18 state-initiated governor's schools,[1] serving primarily 11th and 12th graders. The school is composed of two campuses, one each in Middletown, Virginia, USA and Warrenton, Virginia, USA. Admission is determined via an application process.[2]
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Planning for Mountain Vista began in 2003; its participating counties were the last in the state not covered by an existing academic-year governor's school. The participating school systems surveyed parents and students within their respective counties to gauge interest. A plan for implementation was created and put into motion; A committee was formed, and approval was sought from the Virginia Department of Education.[3] A first review of the plan was presented to the Virginia Department of Education at their January 11, 2006 meeting.[4] The funding for MVGS (a total of $190,544) was first approved in the 2006-2008 Biennial Budget passed by the Virginia House of Delegates.[5]
On January 11, the estimated portion of the school budget that the participating counties had to pay was approximately $216,527; it was divided among each of the counties.[6] Each county's school board was responsible for approving both the funding and a 3 year commitment in order for the project to continue.[7][8] Each jurisdiction was made responsible for the funding for each slot at the governor's school allocated to them.
In May 2006, Dr. Rosanne Williamson, principal of Brumfield Elementary School in Fauquier County, was named director of Mountain Vista. She assumed the post on July 1.
On January 15, 2011, students from both campuses travelled with their teachers to Richmond, where they participated in the 2011 Volvo Construction Challenge. The Middletown team of four students placed second in the Transportation Infrastructure challenge.
Each participating county has a local committee that decides who attends from that county. Students interested must complete an application and submit transcripts and two written essays.[9] The applications along with teacher recommendations are reviewed by the local committee and admission decisions are made.
The number of slots at the governor's school allocated to each jurisdiction, as of September 14, 2006:
Currently Fauquier County Students also have the ability to apply for one of 2 slots to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. They will retain that right until the Fauquier County School board decides to relinquish those slots.[10]
The Mountain Vista Governor's School program does not have a classroom facility of its own. Instead, students travel to Lord Fairfax Community College to take courses offered by the program, then the students return to their home schools and maintain eligibility for sports and extracurricular activities there. The area served by Mountain Vista is too large for a single location to which busing all students would be practical; LFCC was chosen because it has a campus on each end of the area covered by Mountain Vista.[11] The two sites are connected via videoconferencing that allow them to interact with each other.[12]
In addition, all Mountain Vista students are given laptops by their respective county for use year round.[3] During the 06-07 and 07-08 school years, the school used the Blackboard Academic Suite of e-Education software designed to allow the students to submit and retrieve notes and assignments on snow days or other missed days of school, and to provide virtual office hours for instructors. Frederick County Public Schools provided the means of sharing their purchased BAS with MVGS. However, during the 2008-09 school year, Frederick County switched to the ANGEL Learning Management System, causing Mountain Vista to change to ANGEL along with it. MVGS also used a private discussion board for communication between staff and students. Then, in the 2011-2012 school year, MVGS decided to change from ANGEL to Google sites due to technical issues with ANGEL. Google groups were created as classes and Google mail sent out homework quickly and efficiently.
The Mountain Vista curriculum was designed to be a college level mathematics and science program providing a solid basis for doing research and making connections between disciplines.[13] The classes are connected in a way that when a topic is being taught in physics, a similar concept is being taught in math and humanities is discussing social applications and ramifications of the subject. Most of the courses have homework assignments assigned during the summer and due on the first day of class making learning a year round activity.[14] A number of MVGS classes are Dual Enrollment, AP, or both, giving the students the ability to earn college credits while still in high school.
Mrs. Amanda Harrington was born and raised here in the United States. She is the Humanities/English teacher at MVGS and has a Master's Degree in Blowing your Mind from Longwords University. Mrs. Harrington's Humanities students learn about basic philosophy as well as stamina for writing marathons of essays. The word "I" is not tolerated, nor ever will be tolerated, in her class. Her second-year class, Humanities II, mostly focuses on keeping their government grade 60-70% above water so that it does not destroy their humanities grade (35% of the humanities grade is students' government grade).
Mr. Allen Burton was also born and raised here in the United States. The exact location is believed to be somewhere near the town of Nedsville, Virginia. He has a masters degree in Epic Demonstrations from both Ultimate and Frisbee Universities. Mr. Burton teaches the Physics 1 and 2 classes at MVGS as well as a Research 1 class, which he taught in the 2009-2010 school year and is now teaching again. In Physics I class, students are repeatedly beat into submission with horrific test grades, than slowly revived with test corrections. In between tests, students are enlightened with amazing demonstrations and projects that no other teacher could rival.
Mr. John Dietrich was born and raised in the Milky Way. Although Mr. Dietrich claims he is only around 35–40 years old, he has been in the Navy, been a doctor and a veterinarian, earned a teaching degree, taught at two different schools (including MVGS) for approximately ten years each, and supposedly owns a grenade launcher. Mr. Dietrich's hobbies include discussing conspiracies (his favorite topic is chemtrails), shooting his M14 at his other home, and injuring the former math teacher at MVGS. Mr. Dietrich teaches Research 1 and 2 at MVGS as well as Environmental Science. Mr. Dietrich has a minor degree in Everything.
Mrs. Anca Schmittou was born and raised in Romania. She has a several degrees from several different colleges in Europe and is an undercover Famous Artist. Not much information is known about Mrs. Schmittou, but what is confirmed is that she appeared at MVGS after the strange disappearance of Benjamin Hess (former preacher at MVGS).
Mrs. Lewis is from Heaven. Period.
The courses offered are:
The school once offered Precalculus, but this course was discontinued as participating school divisions elected to require all first year MVGS students to be prepared to enter Calculus as originally intended by the designers of MVGS.
Along with in class work, classes include projects that allow for hands on problem solving and collaboration with other students like a water balloon launch competition.[15]
Recently in the 2008-09 school year, Mountain Vista teachers and staff have implemented the National Justice League (NJL). NJL is a friendly competition among students, along with teamwork between the Middletown and Warrenton campuses. Students are put in groups and as a group they were assigned to come up with a country name and what type of government they would use to govern. Student earn "WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction" for successes in classes and as rewards from teachers. Those WMDs can then be converted to MARs which effects the value of their nation. Students have many chances to compete with other nations to win WMDs and be wealthy. Names of the countries of NJL for the 08-09 year are as follows:
Middletown/Warrenton (Sister Countries)
Kraü/Rep. of Domination
Fortisian Union/The C.S.A.
Aeridis/L.E.G.S.
Dystopia/Silvizandrew
Holy A. Technös Empire/The Abyss
Xlutbas/McOwzier
Jeet/Northern Coalition of Doom
Harlem/West Korea
Aureus/Shangrila
Kandistan/Procrastinatia
Scandium: Non-student-lead country . Compensation for their victory was as follows:
The first class graduated in 2007. Almost half of the students will attend Virginia's top 3 schools (University of Virginia, College of William and Mary, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute) according to US News and World Report with one-third of students attending UVA.[16] At the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia, Mountain Vista Governor's School has had success with students becoming Monroe and Echols scholars respectively. Other notable colleges that alumni have attended include Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, University of Notre Dame, United States Air Force Academy, United States Coast Guard Academy, and the United States Naval Academy. Top Liberal arts colleges[17] are also represented with students going to Pomona College and Harvey Mudd College. Top acceptances for the Class of 2011 have included Johns Hopkins University, Washington University in St. Louis, Vanderbilt University, University of California, Berkeley, Tufts University, and Purdue University.
Most of the remainder are going to other local universities like Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Mary Washington, and George Mason University
As of 2011, the first alumni of Mountain Vista Governor's School will be matriculating to Graduate and Professional schools in the fall.
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