About San Dieguito Academy

A Brief SDA History:
San Dieguito High School was founded in 1936 as the first public school in the San Dieguito Union High School District, teaching students from 8th to 12th grade. In 1936, there was no campus, so school was taught in tents. The next year Lilian Rice, one of the first female architects in the United States, designed the school buildings, most of which are still in use today. In 1996, San Dieguito High School adopted a new name (San Dieguito Academy) and a new philosophy, becoming a school of choice with strong focus on liberal arts and performance classes.

What SDA is like:
Open. Very open. From the moment you step foot into SDA, it is apparent how different it is from other schools. Kids sit around playing guitar, we have off-campus lunch, and students will voluntarily spend lunch in their classrooms to chat with their teachers. The football team is mysteriously absent however, as we do not have one. We have a yearly freedom of speech day along with many other special days, ranging from emo day to senior mudslide day. It is not unusual to see somebody dressed as an animal walking the hallways, but it is almost unheard of to see a fight to break out.

The school itself is also very unusual. To start, the buildings are all placed seemingly at random, due to the age of the school, making every part of the campus different from all the others. Most of the school is painted white with blue trim, but the walls are slowly filling with mosaics from the sculpture class, and murals from the painting class. Senior tiles cover many walls, allowing each student to permanently make his/her mark on the campus.