Casita Center's Story:

Casita Center for Science/Math/Technology is a public elementary magnet school in the Vista Unified School District (VUSD) located in North County San Diego. In 1971, Casita opened as a neighborhood school. Approximately twenty years later, VUSD converted Casita into a technology, science, and math magnet school in an effort to desegregate Central Vista. In 2013, district magnet schools were repurposed. Casita was designated as a dual magnet school with an International Baccalaureate (IB) and Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) theme. In 2014, Casita applied for IB Candidacy, and in 2017, Casita was authorized as an IB World School featuring the Primary Years Programme (PYP). Today, Casita is home to 660 students with an array of cultural backgrounds that give the school a richness of diversity.

Nestled in a blue collar and predominantly Latino community, Casita’s vision encompasses developing internationally minded stewards of the future who are prepared for higher education opportunities and entry into the 21st century global workforce. One facet of meeting our cultural competence in our community, inside and outside of the classroom, is to focus on being internationally minded. Students are taught the ten attributes of the IB Learner Profile, and teachers create academic and social experiences for students to obtain learner profile proficiency. Also taken into consideration is the context of the surrounding business community. North County San Diego is a hub for biotechnological, biomedical, advanced manufacturing, and craft beverage companies. These companies are finding an advantage to hiring local talent. To mirror the demands of the world of work, Casita’s focus evolved into the STEM and IB PYP dual magnet program.

The foundation for Casita’s academic approach is focused on teaching and learning with IB PYP, an inquiry-led, transdisciplinary framework, that challenges students to think for themselves and take responsibility for their learning as they explore local and global issues and opportunities in real-life contexts. An IB Coordinator facilitates weekly teacher collaboration to design learning experiences for students to gain 21st century skills and content knowledge and to develop the attributes of an internationally minded person.