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An Innovative Investment In Our Future
The Multimedia Arts & Design (MAD) Academy at Santa Barbara High School offers its students an academically integrated, career-oriented opportunity to excel in the field of media arts and technology. Our curriculum combines elements of studio art, graphic design, computer graphics, animation, photography, digital imaging, and digital video production. The Academy was launched in the fall semester of 1996 with a seed grant from the California Department of Education, and is one of the few state-sponsored Partnership Academies in California devoted to media arts and technology, (and the first Partnership Academy in the Santa Barbara region).
As a school-within-a-school, the Academy enjoys the same basic state support that all public high schools receive. However, our success depends upon the direct participation and support of parents, citizens, employers, and local community and business groups. The academy is not only a forefront experiment in media arts and production, it represents a model for secondary education reform-a partnership in education that anticipates developments in society and the marketplace. Our partners are leaders and friends from across the Santa Barbara community.
Some of our partners recognize the increased cost of using leading-edge hardware and software to train students for the real-world workplace. Their investments of cash and in-kind software and services help keep us abreast of the changing marketplace. And with this support we are building one of the finest public high school computing facilities available today. Other partners-educators and volunteer mentors-work together to create the new curriculum, integrating media technologies with core courses in the arts and sciences, while bringing a world of experience into the classroom. With this investment, our students not only learn more, they learn better, and this experiment in education becomes a template for the high school of tomorrow.
Still other partners open up their workplaces to our advanced student interns. Here the benefits of the Academy's curriculum are tested in the crucible of market-driven media production. With this support, our partners in industry open a bridge to tomorrow's workplace, and find the talent their business needs in order to grow.
Our partners generally find their investment in the Academy brings more than they might have, at first, imagined. For there is no telling how far our students-given this opportunity, and with their enthusiasm and ability-will go tomorrow.