Planning for the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District’s newest school, Freestyle High, continues on track for a fall opening. Freestyle planners are visiting other schools this month to make presentations and accept applications from current sophomores and juniors. The school is to move into the former location of Alta Vista High School after the space is renovated. Work is slated to begin the end of this month or early February, according to Gordon Jack, one of the five teachers set to form the new school.
Jack described Freestyle as an academy, a half-day program of specialized courses supplemental to traditional high school classes. Juniors and seniors at Mountain View, Los Altos and Alta Vista high schools can apply to spend their afternoons at Freestyle every weekday from 1-4 p.m.
“We’re going to be focusing on a multimedia career theme,” Jack said. “In a few years, we’ll expand to more themes based on this community’s needs – biotech, infotech, nanotech, the hot technology in this area. Our vision is that we create these programs that are very connected to the community so that the school becomes more integrated.”
The school plans to partner with community businesses to supply the new campus and provide internships for its students. The school is funded independent of the district, according to Jack, and will be supported with funds from Mountain View’s business taxes.
As well as being linked to business and industry, Freestyle is being designed in partnership with Foothill College. A permanent location for the school is planned either at the Foothill Campus or at an extension location at NASA Ames Research Park. Foothill is negotiating for space.
“The idea is that wherever we are, we are going to be linked with an institution of higher learning, to allow students to move fluidly through two-year or four-year college choices,” Jack said. “The one thing we don’t want to be is the traditional, comprehensive high school.”
The half-day curriculum will have an interdisciplinary, career-themed approach. Students could select a focus such as film studies, and pursue that subject through fine and liberal arts and hands-on production.
“Students who know they love film and Web (design) will be attracted to it, but I’m really going out there with the message that you don’t have to have any experience in any of these fields,” Jack said. “This isn’t a techy school, it’s a communications school. If you don’t have any experience in Web or film, it’s a perfect way to learn that.”
Students will face a longer school day than at other public high schools and will not be able to participate in after-school sports.
“It is a longer day, but with project work like on-location filming or working on a Web site. The curriculum is also flexible enough that students could take part of the day and go do an internship,” Jack said.
He thought that Freestyle would appeal to students still looking for their niche in high school, and those interested in doing school a different way. The program is accepting applications from sophomores and juniors and will use a lottery to select 64 students for the first year.
