Back to School Message

From Spirals to Zspace:  a Year of Discovery at La Vida

La Vida Charter School is excited to be embarking on another year with a wonderful faculty and staff who are all working hard to create engaging and fulfilling learning experiences for students and families. All Kindergarten through twelfth grade students at La Vida are in an independent study program that is crafted by highly qualified teachers to be a personal learning pathway.  In addition the majority of the students benefit from the culturally rich onsite program two days per week:  Monday, Tuesday for Elementary and Wednesday, Thursday for High School.  La Vida provides comprehensive curriculum and the majority of core subjects are done at home with parents playing a critical role in their child’s education. Once a month Morning Institutes help provide parents with professional development and the support what they need to do the job as parent educators.

‘Academics through Social Engagement’ is the motto of the onsite program which is also inspired by the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education of which the school is a member.  After two hours of Math each day including Real World Math, students experience specialty electives, such as Art, Handwork, Music, Drama, Science, American Sign Language, Grid Beam, Herbal Studies, Rods and Staves movement and more.

The fun starts this year with a Native American focus culminating in trips to the new native Wild Gardens Project at the Hudson Museum and day long workshops in Paleotechnics with Tamara Wilder.  La Vida’s back to school night is the Peace Day Ice Cream Social and will be celebrated with the whole community doing a Spiral Dance.  ‘Spirals in Nature’ is the school theme this year. Spirals will be explored in math, art and science through the Fibonacci number sequence, growth patterns, galaxies, and sea shells.  Students will study donated sea shells, personally collected from around the world by a local family. This year’s play performed at Thankfulness Feast, The Pathfinders, is an original written and directed by Mana Youngbear.  Jerri Jo Idarius, master calligrapher will return and so will Gary Martin presenting Art Appreciation. In High School, US History through the Seabiscuit Story is back. This year, based on the Seabiscuit story, students will create a hero’s journey scenario in virtual reality on the Zspace computers.  Science teachers are partnering with the UC Hopland Field station for a variety of field trips and research projects.

Faculty and Staff are:  Marty Hinton, Lisa Burgess, Danielle Canaris, Nicolette Ferro, Andrew Miller, Fawn Bassett, Sarah Clark, Angela Lau, Isaac Hillhouse, Larry Cole, Karen Walsh, Meghan White, Edward Cannon, Kathleen Slowiczeck, Michael Charnes, Mana Youngbear, Cody Dooly, Grace Rowan, Dan Miller,

and Nori Dolan.

Elementary Parent Orientation is August 28 and High School is August 30 with a morning and evening session. First Day of school is September 4.  Openings are available in 9^th and 10^th grade. For info call 459-6344 or visit www.lavidaschool.org.