At Santa Barbara High School, students in the Visual Arts & Design Academy started the school year in a brand-new building, a project that’s been seven years in the making. 

“The space and the technology that’s in the space is going to let us do just so many new and cool things,” said Daniel Barnett, who teaches the VADA capstone class.

Monday marked the first day back to school for Santa Barbara Unified School District students. The new year brings a lot of changes such as new policies, buildings and services.

The new VADA building allows students to seamlessly go from analog art to digital art. One side of the building has a computer lab, allowing students to work on photography, graphic design or any kind of digital media they choose.

A passageway opens up the other side of the building to a space where students can work on the physical art form of their choosing. 

Barnett said the space allows for a free flow between media.

Barnett’s class is essentially a thesis class for students in VADA. They’ll be spending the year making seven to 15 pieces for a showcase in April.

“As an educator, you kind of want the best for your students, and that’s been the thing driving this building,” Barnett said. “I can’t wait to see what kids do in it.”

SBHS Principal Fred Razo said the space allows students to have professional conversations about their work with their classmates.

“It’s just a real testament to what we want to provide all of our students,” Razo said. “Once you get the students in here, what always impressed me was the dialog they had with each other. It’s that professional dialog of engagement.”

Another change to SBHS, and all of the district high schools, is a cellphone policy that requires students to put their phones in a “cell hotel” during class time.

The district already has an “off and away” policy, meaning electronics need to stay in students’ backpacks or in a storage solution of the teacher’s choosing. Many teachers have already had cell hotels in their classes, but this year each high school decided to make the “cell hotels” a schoolwide policy. 

Razo said he got a positive response from parents when they announced the new policy, and he thinks, in time, students will appreciate it, too.

“I think the students are going to be very appreciative of that as well. I think once they have that clarity for that full 90 minutes, it’s going to be a gift,” Razo said. “There may be some grumbling about it, but that’s OK. I can handle the grumbling, but I’m not going to back off on it.”

Barnett said he’s excited that the new policy will hopefully make students less distracted, but he knows it may take them a minute to get used to.

“I think we’ve got to push through with kids until it’s just normal,” Barnett said. “I’m really thankful that we’re doing it districtwide, because that’s just going to make it so easy.”

This will be a special year for SBHS as it celebrates 100 years at its campus. The school has been around since 1875, but this year marks 100 years since it’s been at 700 E. Anapamu St.

“It makes it a special place, and it’s going to just feel that much more special,” Razo said. “We’re going to have generations of Dons come forward — with 100 years, that’s at least four generations.”

Razo said they are working with the alumni association and will have more information out soon as to how they will be celebrating this milestone. 

Another change to the year is that the district has a new transportation service provider, Zum Services. Zum uses a system that allows parents to track their kids while they’re on the bus. 

Student Transportation of America was previously the district’s transportation provider for 30 years. 

First Day of Class at McKinley

At McKinley Elementary School, students started their first day by looking for their name on a board out front to find their classroom and teacher.

McKinley has roughly 287 students, and Superintendent Hilda Maldonado said it’s one of the schools where they want to grow enrollment.

Enrollment across the district has been declining for the past 10 years. Enrollment numbers for this year will be finalized after the first two weeks.

McKinley is a dual immersion school, meaning students start by receiving 90% of their instruction in Spanish and 10% in English. As students move up, more of their instruction is in English until it’s eventually 50% in Spanish and 50% in English. 

This is McKinley’s fourth year implementing dual immersion. Its first cohort is in third grade, meaning half the school has dual immersion classrooms.

“What’s also great about McKinley is, even though we’re not fully implemented, all of our staff are already bilingual, so we really can meet the needs of our students and families,” Principal Daisy Ochoa said.

McKinley did see some growth in enrollment, specifically in transitional kindergarten, where they added a new teacher and classroom this year, according to Ochoa. 

“We know that means that families want their children to be bilingual and bicultural, because it’s so important in today’s day and age,” Ochoa said. 

Jessica Zamora, a first-grade teacher at McKinley, said having dual immersion allows students to foster their home language and their secondary language. 

“It’s really amazing for students to come into an environment like this. I don’t think they realize that we’re very unique, that if you go to any other school in the district, you’re not going to see that,” Zamora said. “I’m just really grateful to be able to communicate with them using their whole language repertoire.”

Zamora said she’s looking forward to getting to know her students and watching how they grow.

“I always love building relationships with them and then just seeing them grow both academically and also as a person,” Zamora said. “Just getting to see their personality develop, seeing them start to believe in themselves and track their growth and see how much they’re learning, it’s always a really cool experience every year.”