Demographics and Student Description
Vaux is an internship and project-based school, with a dual-enrollment agreement with Harrisburg University of Science and Technology for the senior English courses. Students attend regular classes three days a week and devote the other two days to off-site internships. Although Vaux exists within an international network of Big Picture schools that prioritize internships, project-based learning, and community, no other Big Picture school operates without application requirements and in an area with a comparable poverty rate.
The current study body is 95% African-American and 86% economically disadvantaged; due to regular shifts in public housing assignments, housing instability, and the proximity of two different youth shelters, this student body is also highly transient. The average reading level of the twelfth grade students is between third and sixth grade, based on benchmark assessments, and a majority of students self-report experiences of trauma and a struggle to meet basic needs.1 Notwithstanding these challenges, Vaux holds a storied history, educating a predominantly Black student body since 1936 and today doubling as a community center with social service and job training non-profit organizations co-located in the building, and teachers are encouraged to connect local history and legacies to current learning.
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