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DSX is...
DSX Equity Designer
View our DSX School Model Prototype with support from our learning community, New Schools Venture Fund, and Educate78 School Design Lab
our world...
...looks nothing like the world did when high school was created over 100 years ago. if our world is different, shouldn't your high school be as well?
dsx is designed to inspire the self-aware innovators and empathetic leaders in you, our students. dsx knows it does not have the answers to the dilemmas of the modern world and dsx believes that today's students do. our school will empower our students to navigate the complexities of our world with creativity and compassion.
DSX will...
...build with the disparate and beautiful communities of Oakland, bringing together students and families who have historically been designed to never to meet let alone enrich each other's lives. (via residential segregation and institutional racism). We believe that true revolution in learning and education will only come when these disparate groups come together to learn from each other in a safe-for-all culture—a culture that is only possible by valuing humanity first, then content and college.
The DSX community will reflect Oakland's demographics: racially, ethnically, linguistically, social-economically and geographically. We will come from the Hills to the Flats, be newcomers, sanctuary seekers, and children of long-time Oakland residents. We will curate our classes by zip code to ensure that our community is not usurped by those that have the privilege to do so.
Why all Five Regions of Oakland?
"Who you go to school with matters." -Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis
Oakland has a rich cultural canopy of residents and neighborhoods, but it is historically—and increasingly—segregated by race and class. Even students within grades at the same school are segregated in AP or honors or remedial courses. And students at a high performing school in Deep East or the Bottoms of Oakland still don't have access to the true power and opportunity the folks in the Hills have access to.
DSX will bring students together who no longer have opportunities to learn next to and from each other. We will bridge the opportunity gap by bringing diverse students together and building from them, not simply for them.
Our X-shaped students will:
be better equipped to not just get in to college, but thrive through college,
be innovative thinkers and doers,
be financially literate,
empathize through difficult conversations,
navigate the ethical dilemmas facing our time with creativity, cultural competency and compassion,
bring the best out of every person on a team,
make healthy decisions of thought, speech and action,
be grounded in their authentic story,
skilled in the head, heart and hands,
aware of all they bring to any context,
ask "what if?", explore that question, then act,
intuit with their gut, like a ninja.
we will do this by:
co-creating a culture, schedule and program that are designed to ensure equitable academic and non-academic outcomes for all students, regardless of their background. For example, the first quarter of the students' first year will be spent practicing design + fabrication, restorative justice and cultural competencies while building their school with their own hands and hearts. Students will use liberatory design thinking to design environments that support the success of all learners, regardless of race, class, gender, ability--allowing all students to feel belonging and agency. DSX believes this opportunity will set the course for the students' high school journey, a course that is rooted in their own cultural capital while providing them with the collaborative and creative skills desperately needed to navigate the complexities of school and beyond.
You will feel invited, seen, known + crucial to DSX
our enrollment process and building from there so you can become the X-Shaped Student that you are.
Prototype of a DSX Living Learning Portfolio starting when a X-Shaped student expresses interest in DSX. This portfolio is a digital capture of a student's Authentic Story, intrinsic Strengths, present and future Skills, in order to build Stance and Purpose.
Made with Love in Oakland, CA