The Vistas Leadership School Experience
VLA offers a technology rich environment where all students have access to the resources typically available at a workplace including a laptop at their personal work area. In addition, students have the support of a dedicated team of professional educators who are highly qualified and certified in each subject area. The school environment is modeled after a typical work place with cubicle style desks, meeting areas, and advisory groups. An extensive library is available for students at the school and in May, 2010 an Express Branch of the Maricopa Library System will open in the same building as the school. (Click for more information on the future library.)

After school programs are offered on site through the Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley Mesa Gateway Branch (http://williams.clubzona.org/). There is no annual Boys and Girls Club Membership fee for VLA students.

Currently, in addition to core courses, students can select from three foreign language programs, guitar instruction, robotics, library programs, career skills, personal projects, and physical education. More than half of the school will also participate in Solar Car and Solar Home competitions in spring 2010.

VLA opened in the 2009 school year and is now expanding to offer more options for students. In the 2010 school year, Vistas will begin the implementation of the International Baccalaureate® (IB) Middle School Programme and expand the grade levels served based on community interest.

What is the IB Middle Years Programme?

The IB Middle Years Programme, for students aged 11 to 16, provides a framework of academic challenge that encourages students to embrace and understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world, and become critical and reflective thinkers.

The Curriculum

The programme consists of eight subject groups integrated through five areas of interaction that provide a framework for learning within and across the subjects. Students are required to study their mother tongue, a second language, humanities, sciences, mathematics, arts, physical education and technology. In the final year of the programme, students also engage in a personal project, which allows them to demonstrate the understandings and skills they have developed throughout the programme.