Da Vinci Science

It’s been another terrific week at DVS, including the rollout of our honors program, our students doing a fantastic job in the critical incident drill, and the student club fair! We are looking forward to next week with our college counseling webinars on Tuesday evening for 12th grade and Thursday evening for 9th grade (10th and 11th grade will be the following week). Zoom links to the college counseling webinars will be published on Monday.

PSAT & SAT Testing for All Students: On Wednesday, October 13, DVS will be administering the PSAT and the SAT on campus for all students (grades 9, 10, 11, and 12). We are happy to be able to provide this opportunity for our students to be college-ready at no cost to our families. Students will learn more information about this upcoming test in their classes.

Makeup Picture Days: You can purchase your student’s school photo by visiting this link and checking in the folder of your student’s advisory teacher. Proceeds from the purchase of your student’s photo support DVS. For students who missed the photo day, makeup photos are scheduled for Thursday, 9/30 and Friday, 10/1.

Emergency Lockdown Drill: Our students did a fantastic job with the emergency lockdown drill we had on Thursday, 9/23. Though it saddens us to have to think about this kind of danger at a school, we are grateful to partner with the El Segundo Police Department to make this the safest environment it can be and to prepare students with important life skills. We continue to urge students who have concerns regarding safety to report these concerns immediately to any DVS staff member or to use the Incident Reporting Form, which is linked on our blog (dvs.davincischools.org) and allows for complete anonymity if desired. 

I hope you have a terrific weekend!

Thank you to all of you who attended the Mastery-Based Grading Webinar earlier this evening! For those who weren’t able to watch, or who had such a great time watching that you want to see it again, here’s the link! https://tinyurl.com/MBGatDVS

This link is also now listed to the right under “Resources”. As always, please feel free to contact me at swallis@davincischools.org if you have any questions!

As previously mentioned, Da Vinci Communications, Da Vinci Design, Da Vinci Science, and Da Vinci Connect High School will be conducting a Critical Incident Drill on Thursday, September 23, 2021. This drill is an important part of our continued efforts each year to maintain a safe and secure school environment. The drill will take place at 10:10 a.m. and will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. Teachers have been working with students during Advisory classes to prepare for this drill.As part of our safety and emergency procedures, Da Vinci Schools has adopted elements of the “Run-Hide-Fight” program designed to provide various options to our students and staff. Our drill will focus on the “HIDE” component which is also referred to as “shelter in place”. Other components will be practiced during our Fire Drills planned for next month. During tomorrow’s drill, students will have a chance to practice the proper response if a critical incident were to occur such as an intruder on campus or any other incident requiring a lockdown of the school. Please help us by reminding students to:

• Listen and Follow the instructions of their teacher or staff member in the room at the time of the drill
• Stay quiet during the duration of the drill
• Silence/turn off their cell phones and stay off their phone during the duration of the drill
• Wait for the “All Clear” announcement to indicate the drill has concluded

Our School Resource Officer, Officer Josh Gilberts will be joined by other officers from the El Segundo Police Department, members of the El Segundo Fire Department, and our site administrators in observing the drill and providing feedback on our emergency processes and procedures. Staff and students will also debrief after the drill to provide additional input and recommendations in order to continue to improve our response efforts. Please keep in mind that in order for our schools to remain informed and responsive, parents/guardians and students are always encouraged to report any concerns or potential threats. If you have any questions regarding this drill or any of our other safety procedures, please reply to this email or contact the administration of your child’s school. Thank you for your continued cooperation and support in maintaining the safety and welfare of our students and staff.Para obtener este anuncio en español por favor mande un correo electrónico con su solicitud a info@davincischools.org. Gracias!

Today at 4:30pm we will hold our regular Wednesday parent office hours at this link ( https://tinyurl.com/SteveGraceOfficeHours ), and then at 5:00pm on that same link we will begin the grading webinar. The webinar will be recorded and made available for future viewing if you are unable to attend at 5:00pm. We hope you can join us!

The California State University (CSU), University of California (UC) and Association of Independent California College and Universities (AICCU) are partnering together to provide seven virtual college fairs this October. All UC and CSU campuses, and a majority of independent colleges and universities from the AICCU, will participate. 

All events are free, and all California students are encouraged to attend!

Students can register by visiting CACollegeFairs.org and creating an account on Visit Days. The fairs are scheduled for:

High School Fairs
Southern California 1: Wednesday, October 6 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. PDT
Southern California 2: Saturday, October 16 from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. PDT

Attendees will be able to join live sessions, watch campus videos and visit campus booths to live chat and/or meet with campus representatives.

Students’ progress reports were mailed home yesterday with their current grades and attendance information, and tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:00pm we will be presenting a Mastery-Based Grading webinar to explain our systems for grading, how to see students’ grades and attendance in Powerschool, and how to read a transcript and calculate a GPA. We will hold our regular Wednesday parent office hours at 4:30pm at this link ( https://tinyurl.com/SteveGraceOfficeHours ), and then at 5:00pm on that same link we will begin the grading webinar.

The webinar will be recorded and made available for future viewing if you are unable to attend at 5:00pm.

We hope you can join us via Zoom tomorrow evening!

You can now view and purchase your child’s school photo! Simply go to this link and look in the folder of your child’s advisory teacher: https://staceelianna.smugmug.com/DaVinciSchools/DVS-Picture-Day-2021

Proceeds from the purchase of your child’s photo support DVS! Thank you for supporting us by purchasing your child’s photo!

For students who missed the photo day, makeup photos are scheduled for this Thursday and Friday morning.

Week 6 will be a busy week at DVS! In addition to four lunchtime college guest speakers, there will be a student club fair during advisory on Monday, an Athletics info Night on campus on Tuesday at 6pm, a Mastery-Based Grading webinar on Wednesday evening, and girls’ volleyball games on Monday and Thursday afternoons!

Progress Reports & Honors: On Monday we will be mailing home student progress reports, which you should receive by Wednesday in time for the grading webinar. In addition, this week teachers will be explaining to students how they can sign up for and earn honors in the classes for which that is an option. We will also be discussing honors in the grading webinar as well as in the college planning information meetings in weeks 7 and 8.

Attendance Notifications: Parents/guardians can expect to receive automated calls/texts/emails if their student is marked absent or tardy in any of their classes that day. If you feel that you receive a message in error, please follow up with our Attendance Manager Brittany Alvarez by calling the DVS front office or sending her an email at balvarez@davincischools.org.

COVID-19 Dashboard: Da Vinci Schools now has a COVID-19 Dashboard so that you are aware of our campus COVID statistics. If you have any questions regarding the management of COVID-19 at DVS, please contact our School Nurse, Dr. Emily Green, at (egreen@davincischools.org)

Incident Reporting Form: All members of the DVS community are encouraged to report anything that would contribute to an unsafe or unhealthy learning environment to a DVS staff member as soon as possible. We also wanted to draw your attention to this DVS Incident Reporting Form so that students can anonymously report anything they’d like to the DVS administrators. We receive an email when the form is completed, and the form is also linked under the “Resources” section at dvs.davincischools.org.

As always, we hope that all of you have a terrific, healthy week!

The Olay Face the STEM gap challenge to encourage more girls to pursue STEM careers is today (September 15th) at 4:00pm PST (7pm Eastern Time)! This is a career-focused online event to introduce some of the STEM women or Olay to high schools girls. Olay will be giving away 200 awards of $500 but are capping the participants at 1000 – you can register here now at https://olay-face-the-stem-gap-role-model-panel.heysummit.com !