Da Vinci Communications

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.

Presentations of Learning (known as POLs) are a signature practice of DVC. At the end of each semester, students complete a Presentation of Learning (POL) in which they demonstrate their growth over time and mastery of academic content in a formal presentation before their teachers and classmates. At the conclusion of the student’s presentation, their teachers ask questions and offer feedback and support for the next steps. Click here for slides containing basic information and example videos of a POL.

One of the expectations for a Presentation of Learning (POL) is that students come in professional dress. At DVC, professional dress is defined as including the following:

• HEAD: Hair should not cover the face; no hats
• SHOULDERS: Button-down dress shirt (shirt must be tucked in) or or non-revealing blouse (must cover shoulders); Suit jacket (optional)
• KNEES: Khaki pants or dress pants (no jeans); Dress or skirt that touches tops of knees when standing up straight
• TOES: Closed-toe dress shoes (no sneakers or excessively high heels)

We will be setting up a small “professional dress thrift shop” for any students who may have difficulty securing these items prior to their presentation. We will let you know when the thrift shop is ready for students to browse! If you have professional dress items you’d like to donate, please deliver them to our 3rd floor front office.

POLs begin on Thursday, 12/14 and continue through Thursday, 12/21. School dismissal for POL days is 2:00pm. 

New POL Schedule for December 2023: We have made some changes to the way that we schedule POLs this year. As a result, students will have 4 separate presentations to individual teachers. The reasons for this change include allowing for more in-depth POLs, eliminating scheduling confusion, and maximizing instructional time on POL days. We want to get feedback from students and parents/guardians about the pros and cons of scheduling this way –  please be on the lookout for a request to provide your thoughts after POLs have concluded!

The two most important things you can do to help your student prepare for their POL is (1) assure them that it is ok to make mistakes and (2) have them practice their POL many times to as many people in your household as possible. POLs help students improve their communication and public speaking skills and empower students to take ownership of their learning. We are excited for our students to take advantage of this opportunity to showcase what they’ve learned this semester!