I have 5 kids who have all been attending this school since the year it opened, which has given our…read morefamily the unique perspective of developing relationships with 5 different teams of teachers/grade spans each school year. And our kids have now gone through every grade, K-8 at D39C. We have been very pleased with our experience at Design39.
After our children previously attended a number of different elementary schools (both within Poway Unified School District and in other states), we have found that the principals & staff at this school are relatively quick to respond to parent concerns and quick to actually make real changes when they recognize a need. That hasn't always been our experience at previous schools.
One of the things we like the most about this school is that the kids are allowed to make choices about the elective classes they take, even down to the youngest students. And when kids have a choice in their classes, they are often more passionate & excited about what they are learning. And this is a public school, so the kids are also learning all the standard topics, language arts, math, social studies, science, etc. and are still getting the common core curriculum like all the other schools in the district, they just get to choose electives in addition to their other classes. Our kids have been able to take such a variety of elective classes so far over the last few years, including sign language, sewing, coding, cooking, genealogy, Spanish, Russian, French, Korean, Project Lead the Way (STEM), Music Composition, Drama, Kite Design, Lead39 (school leadership), Writing Workshop, Advanced Math, Biztown, Ceramics, Ukelele, Maker39 (kids design their own products and get to sell them and learn about businesses), Oceanography, Mosaics, Food Science, Photography, Community Service, Robotics, Chess, 3D Art, Gardening, Painting, etc. My husband and I often think we would love to have gone to a school that offered so many choices, especially in the younger grades. And I don't know how they do it, but my kids usually get their 1st or 2nd choice of classes.
Another thing we have been pleased with is that there is less homework at this school than others in the district. Many people have the wrong idea and think that D39C has no homework, but that isn't the case. Many students in the younger elementary grades have little homework other than reading, practicing math, and an occasional group project outside of school. And as they get older, especially in grades 6-8, the homework load & expectations for student responsibility for assignments gradually increases as they approach high school. I believe that my D39 students likely have fewer hours of homework per day than their peers at the local middle school, but they definitely have homework (and, as at any school, it depends a lot on each individual student's time management whether they may be able to get a lot of their assignments done during the school day, or if they may leave more to be completed later at home). [Although the PUSD school board has recently changed it's district homework policy -- see this article: goo.gl/QTZPZS. They now recognize the studies showing that reading for enjoyment is much more beneficial for students than excessive homework, especially in the younger grades. So hopefully more of the other schools will start to move toward this model too over time].
Another myth about D39C is that the kids never use pencil & paper and are always on their devices. Yes, each student at the school uses a device (tablet or laptop), and they do use them for creating presentations, turning in assignments online (in grades 6-8), sometimes reading books online, working on group projects. But they also use paper and other supplies in their learning -- daily journals, bring home art work that they have created or prototypes that they have designed, reading from paper books, etc. It's a mix of both.
Overall we've been pleased with the school. There will always be room for improvement at a brand new school, especially one that tries to do things a little different, but they have promptly made changes as needed and we haven't run in to any major issues over the last few years. We also haven't run into any problems with any of our kids' teachers, (which is saying a lot, since our kids have been with 20 homeroom teachers and numerous other teachers for different classes, electives, PE, etc. so far since we started at the school). Surely this school has had to deal with it's share of behavior issues from students, just like at any other school, but in our family's personal experience our kids haven't had any issues with bullying or bad behavior from other students. Another positive thing about this school is that the kids generally seem to still be excited about school, even by the time they reach the end of their middle school years, instead of being burnt out. My kids look forward to going to school each day.
