At Vista Innovation & Design Academy, students get to explore their strengths and interests while building confidence in who they are. For example, Jordan, a 6th grader, starts the morning in Connection Time, where classmates set goals, share wins, and engage in various activities to support their learning and social emotional needs. In the first block, Jordan has STEM, where the class is designing models to show how renewable energy could power their community. Later, in Humanities, the teacher connects what they learned in their daily reading and incorporates the RIASEC, helping students see themselves and how subjects connect to the world of work.

After lunch, all 6th graders head to their choice of Design Lab. Jordan chose “Creative Making” for her Design lab this semester because it connects directly to her interests. This week her class is attending Public Speaking, one of three rotation classes that all students attend each quarter in VIDA’s Central Design Hub. Her last class of the day is an elective where she is working with a team of students to create a small business following the Design Thinking process which is utilized across all disciplines at VIDA. At the end of the class, the teacher gives students space to reflect, ask questions, and get feedback for next steps for their project. Before going home, Jordan joins the Art Club to prepare for an upcoming showcase that highlights student creativity.

By the time the day ends, Jordan has solved real-world problems, collaborated with classmates, connected ideas across subjects, and worked on projects that matter to her, all while discovering her unique strengths and what makes her shine at VIDA.

Listen to the Founding Principal, Eric Chagala, tell the story of VIDA:

VIDA’s mission is: We dare to ignite the creative genius of each student as they discover their unique strengths, hone their interests, and understand their value. We utilize the Design Thinking process as a common framework to solve problems across all disciplines. 

Core Values

The Core Values of VIDA are referred to by the acronym, GILLS. This is important because it follows the narrative around “life” at VIDA. Sharks are the mascot at VIDA and the way that sharks breath is through their GILLS. Without a sharks gills, they do not have life – just like at VIDA, there is no VIDA without our GILLS:

• G: Grit & Gratitude: We never give up

• I:  Integrity & Responsibility: We take pride in doing the right thing

• L:  Love & Understanding: We connect and accept

• L:  Leave it better than you found it: We respect ourselves, others, and our community

• S:  Sparking Creativity: We inspire innovation

As a Design Thinking focused school, students become familiar with the Design Thinking process and use it in all of their classes to solve real-world problems. 

Daily Connection Time ensures all learners have the space to connect with peers and a teacher regularly outside of academics. In addition, students are part of a House system that creates community and supports positive behavior across the school. 

Design Thinking is a creative framework for solving problems on campus that is taught explicitly both in parts and as a whole across the campus. One of the central ways this happens is through school-wide and Grade-Level Design Challenges that take place throughout the school year. Design Thinking is also built into aspects of core content instruction, and is a central component of Design Labs and Rotations. 

As a response to engagement being VIDA’s first intervention, a structural component of the school had to be designed to protect students in ELD and with IEP’s who typically lose a traditional elective class in most schools. VIDA educators were committed to ensuring that every single student had a kick ass experience to look forward to every single day at school. Design Labs are the only class that students attend 5 days a week. It is part of a 90 minute Block Period that is split with their Lunch. Because the Design Labs are connected to Lunch, no student can ever lose their Design Lab because then they would also be losing their Lunch Period based on VIDA’s innovative rotating, hybrid Block Schedule. 

These Design Labs are unique in nature. The founding faculty knew that it was not just students who needed to be engaged, but that a highly functioning school also has a culture of highly engaged adults. So the following proposition was given to teachers: What have you always wanted to be able to do for students in school, but haven’t been able to? Let’s do that. The guardrails for these classes are threefold: They need to intentionally foster the creativity of students, they need to provide students  technical skills so that they can actually innovate, and it needs to dig into the Design Thinking process. 

Teachers get to share their passions with students and students select their electives based on interests. For example, students in the Design Lab, Curiosity Hacked, will invent awesome gadgets and gizmos using Arduino microcontrollers, Micro Bits, and components like LED lights, motors, buzzers, and sensors. You'll learn how to code in C++ and Code Blocks to program everything from simple robots to your very own video games.  Other Design Labs include Creative Making and Automation and Robotics.

A core component of Design Labs is Rotations.

Every Quarter students attend a rotation in:

• Public Speaking - Where they learn how to speak to groups of varying sizes, navigate social situations like conferences, and manage a job interview with confidence.

• Branding - Where they build entrepreneurship and   learn to make deliberate, professional choices in how they communicate. They craft websites, presentations, and advertising campaigns. 

• Design Studio - Where students learn to construct with cardboard in 6th grade, integrate technology into designs in 7th, then add digital fabrication and entrepreneurship in 8th.

Learn more about Rotations:

Students participate in yearly Celebrations of Learning (COL’s) where they present their learning for 5-7 minutes to their family and invited friends, a teacher, and three other families. This more public version of a student-led conference gives students a public audience to share their learning and reflect on their strengths, how they have grown and how they want to continue to grow. Students talk about their academic progress as well as their relationship to the GILLS, the core values of the school.  Learn more about how teachers also participate in this core part of a being at VIDA. 

At the end of each school year students participate in a Design Expo, which becomes a community event and a showcase of student creativity and entrepreneurship. Students showcase live performances of dance, music and theater as well as products they have created for sale. 

Teachers have dedicated time to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects every week during late start. 

The video clip is from Learner-Centered Collaborative’s and the Learning Policy Institute’s School Design for Learner-Centered Ecosystems Webinar Series

Leadership at VIDA is not centralized in just the principal. There are several leadership bodies creating what they call a “flattened hierarchy”: Curricular Leads team, Magnet Steering Committee, Equity Council, and School Site Council. The Magnet Steering Committee is charged with developing school-wide Design Challenges and managing the Celebrations of Learning and Design Expo at the end of the year. Learn more here.