Viewpoint celebrates campus growth

At Viewpoint School in Calabasas, bigger is better.

In September, the upper school students in grades nine through 12 began using a new 40,925-square-foot academic center featuring classrooms, state-of-the-art science labs and a technology center.

"We had two buildings that we were using-one for grades six through eight, and one for nine through 12," Dworkoski said. "The building that was six through eight is using what the high school used last year, and the high school is now in the new building. The building that was six through eight is not being used this year . . .

"The new building has made an enormous impact on the school. We've always been a very strong academic school with great programs and the arts and lots of athletics, but we're always so tight" and short of space.

This year, the upper school enrolled about 450 students. The entire school enrolled just under 1,200 students. Aside from being crammed into classrooms, according to Dworkoski, science students, for example, never had suitable labs. This year's senior class will graduate on Sat., June 17.

"The new science labs are huge," Dworkoski said. "All the classrooms are very sizeable and soundproofed . . . It's made a huge difference to have modern spacious laboratories for science because we have a lot of students working on advanced and accelerated programs, and it gives them all the space they need for labs and individual research they may be doing."

Performing arts students also have been given bigger and better facilities.

The school has two large soundproof rooms for instrumental music and another classroom for choral music.

In January, Viewpoint opened its new theater, which has already been used for several events, including the Method Fest independent film festival in April.

The theater has a 2,500square-foot stage, 406 seats with the option to add more than 100 extra movable seats, surround sound, stage lighting and professional stage acoustics.

"Viewpoint has had great programs in the performing arts for a long time," Dworkoski said. "In 2005, we won the award from the Los Angeles County Music Center for having the top programs in the fine and performing arts in L.A. County-it's called the Bravo Award. We have all these great programs, but we had to use theaters off campus, such as the (Thousand Oaks) Civic Arts Plaza or the Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park."

Viewpoint's athletic program continues to use other fields to compete since the school only has small practice fields on campus. But this summer, the school will break ground on a full-size football/soccer field, which will include a scoreboard, bleachers and an "advanced artificial surface," according to Dworkoski.

"Every year, in grades five through 12 for boys and girls, Viewpoint offers over 100 athletic teams-about 35 per season," Dworkoski said. "However, we have done it without having a full-size football/soccer field for high school. So while we practice on our current facilities, we've gone off campus to compete. That's always been a disadvantage, an inconvenience, an expense and a waste of time."

The new field should be completed in the fall.

In addition to receiving performing arts honors and high scores on standardized tests, high school teams clinched eight league championships this year.

"In the spring season, we have five boys' competitive varsity teams in golf, tennis, swimming, volleyball and baseball," Dworkoski said. "All five teams were league champs this season. We're 5-for-5."

Earlier this month, Viewpoint School won the 2006 CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) award for fundraising. Over the last three years, Viewpoint's fundraising totals increased from $3.3 million to about $6 million for 2006.

In a nutshell, 2005-06 was a very good year for Viewpoint, Dworkoski said.