Richard Henry Dana Middle School is a public middle school in
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, part of the
San Diego Unified School District
San Diego Unified School District (formerly known as San Diego City Schools) is the school district based in San Diego, California, United States. It was founded in 1854. As of 2005 it represents over 200 institutions and has over 15,800 employee ...
. It serves approximately 820 students in grades 5 and 6. It is located in the
Loma Portal
Loma Portal (from Latin ''porta'' "gate") is a neighborhood in the community of Point Loma in San Diego, California. It is a hilly area northwest of Rosecrans Street and northeast of Nimitz Boulevard, overlooking San Diego Bay.
Features
Loma Port ...
neighborhood of
Point Loma
Point Loma (Spanish: ''Punta de la Loma'', meaning "Hill Point"; Kumeyaay: ''Amat Kunyily'', meaning "Black Earth") is a seaside community within the city of San Diego, California. Geographically it is a hilly peninsula that is bordered on the w ...
. It draws students from all six elementary (K-4) schools in the "Point Loma Cluster", as well as accepting students on a space-available basis from throughout the district under the District's Volunteer Enrollment Exchange Program (VEEP) and Open Enrollment Program.
History
Dana is named after
Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Richard Henry Dana Jr. (August 1, 1815 – January 6, 1882) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts, a descendant of a colonial family, who gained renown as the author of the classic American memoir ''Two Years Before the Mast''. ...
, author of the book ''
Two Years Before the Mast
''Two Years Before the Mast'' is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship starting in 1834. A film adaptation under the ...
'' which described the San Diego and Point Loma areas in the 1830s.
Before the opening of Dana, students in grades 7-12 attended Point Loma Junior-Senior High School, now
Point Loma High School
Point Loma High School is a public high school in the San Diego Unified School District in San Diego, California, United States. It is located in the Loma Portal neighborhood of Point Loma. The school serves the neighborhoods of Point Loma and ...
. The dates of Dana's opening are not entirely clear. A review of Point Loma High School yearbooks suggests that Dana opened in 1941 for 7th-graders only, served grades 7-8 from 1942 through 1945, and became a full 7-8-9 junior high school in the fall of 1945. This format was retained until Dana's closure in 1983. During the 1940s-1950s the school doubled as a
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
era bomb shelter.
In 1983, the school was closed as part of sweeping changes occasioned by declining enrollment. Prior to the realignment, two area junior high schools (Dana and Collier) served grades 7-9, and fed Point Loma High School which served grades 10-12. After the realignment, Dana was closed; Collier was renamed after artist Steven V. Correia and restricted to grades 7-8; and Point Loma High became a four-year school serving grades 9-12.
In the wake of the closure, the school district clashed with local residents. The district sought to lease or divest the Dana site; community activists, led by Ann Tripp Jackson (then president of the Point Loma Association), lobbied for its reopening as a school. Jackson's efforts led, among other victories, to the school site's being permanently rezoned for educational use. During the protracted battle, however, the site stood vacant for 10 years.
Finally, it was reopened in 1993 to serve as a school district office building. Community support for returning Dana to its use as a school remained strong. In 1998, state-mandated school occupancy guidelines provided the final impetus for reopening Dana as a school. Another major realignment of local schools took place, with local elementary schools becoming K-4, and Dana reopening as a central school for all local 5-6 graders: 1998-1999 for grade 6, expanding to grade 5-6 in 2001-2002. This alignment — one middle school for grades 5–6 and one for grades 7-8 — is unique in the district. The school's auditorium was christened the Ann Tripp Jackson Auditorium to honor Jackson and others who led the successful preservation effort.
In October 2011 the school district proposed closing Dana and a dozen other district schools as a cost-saving measure. The closure of Dana would have saved the district an estimated $500,000 and sent Point Loma area fifth graders back to elementary school, while combining grades 6, 7 and 8 at Correia Middle School. Despite the potential cost savings, the district withdrew the proposal after a community outcry, including a "save our schools" rally at Dana attended by 600 people.
Campus
The campus includes a softball field and a baseball field; the latter is the home field for
Point Loma High School
Point Loma High School is a public high school in the San Diego Unified School District in San Diego, California, United States. It is located in the Loma Portal neighborhood of Point Loma. The school serves the neighborhoods of Point Loma and ...
baseball. It is named for Major League pitcher
David Wells
David Lee Wells (born May 20, 1963) is an American former baseball pitcher who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for nine teams, most notably the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees. Nicknamed "Boomer", Wells was considered on ...
, a PLHS alumnus. In 2014 the school district approved a plan proposed by Wells to replace the grass at Wells Field with artificial turf and perform other upgrades. The upgrade was completed and dedicated in December 2014. Wells now serves as head baseball coach at PLHS.
Student life
Extra-curricular student programs offered at Dana include:
* Instrumental Music
* Surf Club
Surf Club Website
/ref>
* Student Newspaper, the ''Dana Globe''
References
External links
* {{official website, https://web.archive.org/web/20080722111354/http://www.danamiddle.com:80/
Public middle schools in California
Point Loma, San Diego
Schools in San Diego County, California
1941 establishments in California