A Year of Firsts in WDV Performing Arts, Athletics & Community Connections
This school year we had many firsts in our Wiseburn Da Vinci community. As we close out this school year, we wanted to shout loud and proud about some of these “firsts” so that we can honor the achievements and give a big THANK YOU to the people who made it all possible.
WDV Performing Arts
This year, we significantly expanded the WDV Performing Arts program to serve more students and families across our schools. The expansion included the addition of two full-time Performing Arts teachers, nine industry professionals to teach seminar classes, $40,000 in new orchestra instruments, four upright pianos, 100 licenses for music production software, and so much more.
We also had our first-ever theater performance and our first musical, The Addams Family, which had a 6-show run (with two sold-out shows and four that were nearly sold out).
We had roughly 4,200 audience members attend WDV performances during the school year; 400 high school students took part in the expanded WDV program; and for the first time, our elementary and middle school students from Connect TK-8 had the opportunity to participate in school-sponsored theater and choir classes and performances (and 150 students did!) ensuring that all of our kids have access to a high quality performing arts program.
As if that wasn’t enough for firsts, we also aligned seminar schedules between schools so that students from all five of our high schools could come together and participate in a music ensemble of either studio orchestra or percussion, and that students from all five high schools could come together and participate in theater and choir after school.
We held our first “Band Bash”, a student-organized, student-led rock concert in Black Box that featured four student bands, student hosts, and students running sound/lights. And we started a quarterly Open Mic Night.
We also partnered with Wiseburn USD and Wiseburn Education Foundation (WEF) to create a shared vision for the WDV Performing Arts program, share updates on the expansion, build out the 2024-25 school year’s programming based on student data and survey results, and discuss ways to continue building a program that reflects the vision, and honors all students TK-12.
We want to give a huge THANK YOU to the Da Vinci Schools Board of Trustees for directing and authorizing the increased investment to expand the WDV Performing Arts program. We also want to thank Alexi Parachos, our WDV Performing Arts Coordinator, for his incredible ideas, strategic guidance, and his ability to get things done. We’d like to thank all the teachers, staff, and industry professionals who supported our students throughout the year. We’d also like to thank Wiseburn USD and WEF for their partnership and support as we navigated this expansion together. And we’d like to thank OUR STUDENTS!! We are so proud of each and every one of you! We can create programs, but their success depends on your participation and enthusiasm. Thank you for showing up for our school community. We are amazed by you!
WDV Athletics
For the first time, we hit 600 student-athletes participating in our WDV Athletics program with 16 sports and 29 teams.There were so many wonderful student-athletes and standout performances from Boys Volleyball, to Boys Basketball, Track, Swim, Archery, and more.
Our WDV Boys Varsity Basketball and WDV Boys Junior Varsity Basketball team were, for the first time, both crowned, in the same year, as Pioneer League Champions. Our Boys Basketball Varsity team will be moving up into the Bay League next year due to the success they earned this year.
Our Boys Volleyball Varsity team was moved into a more competitive division this year (Division 5) and won the CIF-SS Division 5 Championship and earned third place at the CIF State Division 3 level.
One of our Boys Varsity Volleyball players was selected as one of 20 boys volleyball standouts to join the 2024 U.S. Boys U19 National Team, and helped the US team win GOLD at the World Championships earlier this month in Puerto Rico.
We can’t wait to share more with you in upcoming newsletters.
And for the first-time ever, Da Vinci Schools, Da Vinci Schools Fund (DVSF), Wiseburn USD, and Wiseburn Education Foundation (WEF) all came together to build the first-ever WDV Summer Athletics Youth Camp (grades 4-8) and the WDV Summer Athletics Training and Development Program for high school students.
The camps will start June 17, 2024 and run through July 25. You can learn more about the camps and register online at www.summerinwiseburn.org. Hurry, enrollment ends on June 10th. All camps are open to the general public.
We want to give a huge thank you to all of our student-athletes who work so hard to give their best, to all of our coaches who tirelessly lead our students and our teams, and to all the teachers and leaders who work in front of and behind the scenes to ensure our WDV Athletics program is robust and that student learning is not diminished.
We also want to give a huge thank you to Wiseburn USD, the Da Vinci Schools Fund (DVSF), and Wiseburn Education Foundation (WEF) for their partnership in athletics and their partnership in co-creating the 2024 WDV Summer Athletics Camps; we look forward to many more years of partnering.
WDV Community Connection
This school year we had more high school students than we’ve ever had volunteering at events within the Wiseburn community. Nearly 500 high school students volunteered at various Wiseburn schools or Wiseburn community events throughout the school year, including PTA events at each of the elementary schools and two events at the middle school. Our high school volunteers helped with running games, face painting, robotics events, gift wrapping, craft making, story time, and so much more.
We also had hundreds of new families visit our 201 N. Douglas St. campus for our new regularly scheduled campus tours and WDV community events, such as our first-ever Community Aviation Day, which welcomed over 400 people despite the rain.
None of these events would be possible without the incredible support of our students, their parents, and their caregivers. Thank you to all of our students who took the time to volunteer at events within Wiseburn schools and the Wiseburn community. We also want to thank the parents and caregivers who help to transport the kids to and from volunteer events; many of these PTA fundraising events wouldn’t have been able to happen without you. And we’d like to thank all the school leaders, PTA leaders, educational leaders, and families who welcomed our students in and supported all the efforts to make these events special. We are so grateful to all of you.
And finally, thank you to everyone who supported our new initiatives and efforts, and for all those who will in the future. We are definitely, without question, better together.
