Da Vinci Communications

USC Pre-College Programs

Application for High School Programs

The online application for the USC Summer 2024 Program is NOW OPEN!

 

USC Summer Programs offers current high school freshmen, sophomore and junior students a preview of “freshmen year” through their college immersion experience. Students explore Los Angeles as a laboratory for cultural learning beyond the traditional classroom. Their programs are designed to combine college level course work, academic field trips, and structured extracurricular activities.

 

USC Summer Programs offers 4-week courses in a variety of subjects from which students choose one course for intense study. Courses are interactive, engaging, and challenging, and students receive 3 units of transferrable USC elective credit upon successful completion. Students can choose from courses in the following subject areas:

• Architecture
• Business
• Engineering & Info Tech
• Global Studies
• Communication & Journalism
• Performing Arts
• Pre-Health/Science
• Pre-Law
• Writing & Critical Thinking.

To find out more about the program, visit the USC Summer Program website HERE.

 

This week is the last full week of school before we begin POLs & Finals! Please see this post for more information about POLs. 

Parent Advisory Committee: We had our first Parent Advisory Committee Meeting of the year on Monday! Thank you to the parents who joined. All are welcome to attend our next meeting, scheduled for Monday, 12/18 at 4:30pm both in-person and on zoom. Committee members are reviewing our School Safety Plan in advance of this meeting, and we will be discussing how POLs are going for students during this meeting. 

Here’s what’s coming up THIS WEEK and beyond:

• • Monday, 12/4 & Tuesday, 12/5: Last Days of Seminar
  • Tuesday, 12/5: WDV Winter Theater Showcase – 6:30pm @ El Segundo Performing Arts Center
  • Thursday, 12/7: POL Prep Begins
  • Friday, 12/8: Final CD of Semester 1
  • Wednesday, 12/13: Last Day to Submit Work for Semester 1
  • Thursday, 12/14 – Thursday, 12/21: POL Schedule (2:00pm dismissal)
  • Monday, 12/18: Parent Advisory Committee Meeting @ 4:30pm @ 201 N. Douglas or via zoom (link here)
  • Thursday, 12/21: Last Day of Semester 1
  • Friday, 12/22 – Friday, 1/12: No School – Winter Break
  • Monday, 1/15: No School – MLK Jr. Holiday
  • Tuesday, 1/16: School Resumes – Semester 2 Begins

Our very own Mr. Christopher Jackson (College & Career Readiness / Financial Literacy Teacher) and Sebastian Torres (DVC Alumnus, Class of 2022) were featured in the New York Times on Friday, 12/1! The article was about financial literacy courses in high school. You can check out the article here: More States Now Require Financial Literacy Classes in High Schools – New York Times and read an excerpt below. We are so proud of both Mr. Jackson and Sebastian!

From the article:

Christopher Jackson, who teaches a personal finance course to seniors at Da Vinci Communications high school, a socioeconomically and racially diverse public charter school in El Segundo, Calif., said he found that students were enthusiastic about saving in Roth individual retirement accounts once they understood the concept of compound interest and how investments grow over time.

He advises them to open Roth I.R.A.s at 18, rather than waiting until they graduate from college and start a career. One of his students has already saved $14,000, he said.

Mr. Jackson uses a curriculum from Next Gen Personal Finance, a nonprofit that pushes for teaching universal personal finance in high school, as a base for his instruction and supplements it with books on relevant topics, he said.

“You can’t play the money game if you don’t know the rules,” Mr. Jackson said. “I teach them the rules of the game.”

Sebastian Torres, 19, a 2022 graduate of Da Vinci Communications, said Mr. Jackson’s class, which includes a unit on the psychology of financial decision-making, helped him plan for both college and retirement.

“I really didn’t know about 401(k)s before Mr. Jackson spoke about it,” he said. “I 100 percent think it was worthwhile,” he said of the high school course.