In my search for schools in San Diego County, I was able to speak with the principal of a novel High School

in Escondido, Del Lago Academy, Campus of Applied Science. This is a state of the art school recently built from the ground up using bound money. Del L ago belongs to the Escondido Union High School District yet is able to operate, in some fashion, outside of a traditional public and in some ways act more like a charter. The school started with just a 9th grade cohort with plans to grow a grade level per year. Interested families are required to submit an application by a certain deadline and students are chosen by a publicly witnessed lottery. The first year 200 9th graders won the lottery with just as many placed on the waiting list. The second year, the same enrollment process resulting in the same number of students occurred for 10th grade. The community interest is especially high for this school because the mission promises to work towards the whole student by preparing them to be future scholars, innovators, and world citizens. The school has a strong desire to prepare students with the academic skills necessary for post-secondary and global workforce success. They also place on emphasis on life skills such as being respectful, responsible, ethical, and compassionate. Students are provided with authentic learning experiences where they are challenged intellectually by working collaboratively through real-world problems. This school particularly resonates with me because they believe in the growth mindset model which is exactly the way I started off my teaching career 18 years ago. It seems to me that the advent of No Child Left Behind created a testing and data tracking mentality amongst all stakeholders: teachers, administrators, and the community. Stakeholders expected schools to increase their school performance scores and to show that 100% of students have reached mastery of the grade level content standards. Del Lago Academy approaches academics with the belief that fosters excellence. Students are expected

to value their own accomplishments and strive for academic and social excellence. Because of this growth mindset model, students are able to complete multiple drafts, accept critique, and improve. The grading scale is also set up so as not to be punitive as so many secondary schools inadvertently are. Since grades are set up on a 10% interval for all grades, students who receive a grade of F do not receive 0% but 50% which is a 10% interval from a D. This allows for Fs to not drastically skew. Fs are also considered formative. Students are encouraged to continue to improve and resubmit their work until they are able to show mastery of the material. To me, this is a refreshing model that brings me back to the master based report card that I used as an elementary teacher in the mid-1990s. I look forward to trying to create change in my future school so that more students in San Diego County are able to have the opportunity to experience a growth mindset model where grades are formative tools for teachers and low grades simply mean that the teacher and student need to continue working till mastery, ideally exceeding the expectations.