Social-emotional skills, restorative justice, healthy habits, and overall wellness are all major components of the Vista experience. To set this tone school-wide, all freshmen take a wellness seminar to build understanding of their individual strengths and how to incorporate those strengths into their learning experiences. The school’s Wellness Center, which is available to all students at all times, is staffed by two Wellness Center teachers per period. Vista annually delivers a holistic student survey to gather student feedback on both the academic and social-emotional climate of the school. Restorative practices are also a major component of Vista’s approach—in restorative circles, students learn how their choices impact others and how to build positive relationships in order to create a safe, productive, and supportive community. Many students report using the techniques they learn outside of school, in their home, and personal lives. By creating a sense of belonging for the entire student body, Vista strives to fulfill its promise that Vista CARES and creates students who are curious, who are advocates, and who are resilient and empathetic as well as socially and emotionally well.

Vista staff strive to develop self-directed learners who inquire about challenges they see in their world, understand varying perspectives in relation to that challenge, and prototype solutions to positively impact the world around them. This starts with giving students a say in how—and what—they learn. In collaboration with teachers, students at Vista learn to co-create learning opportunities that connect the study of content to their emerging interests, strengths, and passions. To support teachers in shifting from the school’s former passive style of classroom organization, the school’s leaders developed a cohort of peer-to-peer coaches who collaborate with teachers as thought partners to develop new ideas for building student voice into learning experiences. Students at Vista report that they learn better when they have opportunities to co-create their learning experiences. School leaders and teachers at Vista have committed to giving students more and more opportunities to do so.

Vista helps students build understanding of global issues while connecting these issues to the challenges they face in their everyday lives. Vista educators do this by engaging with content differently than they have in the past. For instance, as students read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, they examine the characters, their lives, and their actions through the lens of the United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the same time, the school has built a digital media lab to help students understand, develop, and practice the types of storytelling and technical skills they will need to engage in meaningful challenges, develop potential solutions, and make difficult decisions successfully. Today, students at Vista are reaching out to their local Congressman to ask him to speak at their school, forming peer counselor groups to support students on campus, and organizing voter registration to support civic duty in the community. Students at Vista are finding challenges, creating solutions, and acting to improve their community.

Vista’s creation of a caring environment, where students are supported in developing and pursuing academic interests, will culminate in a system of personalized pathways that align to the students’ passions and post-secondary goals. These pathways will guide students through California’s A-G course requirements for college eligibility while leading each and every student to develop a collection of post-secondary goals and plans. These plans include work that help students develop 21st-century skills like collaboration, research, analysis, and reflection.