View our DSX School Model Prototype with support from our learning community, d.school K12 Lab at Stanford, New Schools Venture Fund, and Educate78 School Design Lab.

If you are interested in building your own DSX, please check out this document.

our world...

...is forever changed by COVID-19. As the world recovers and communities begin to heal and rebuild, what will remain true in education? What won’t? DSX was designed 6 years before the coronavirus outbreak to build in X-shaped humans the capacity to navigate complex dilemmas in the age of uncertainty. The 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 model will empower our students to navigate the complexities of our world with creativity and compassion.

DSX will...  

...build with the disparate and beautiful communities, bringing together students and families who have historically been designed to never 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.

Our X-shaped students will:

• be better equipped to not just get into 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 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 student's 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

starting with our enrollment process and building from there so you can become your full X-Shaped Human!