The Da Vinci Academy (DVA) is an division of South Hall Middle School (and is situated on its former campus) in the Hall County School System, located in Gainesville, GA (about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta).  DVA, a program of choice, builds on student interests in the arts and/or sciences as the foundation for advanced learning in all content areas. Learners experience robust collaborative and personal sense-making of subject matter via inquiry, exploration, discovery, problem-solving, and creative expression. Holistic, situated, meaningful learning is the goal in this inquiry-driven, creative community model of teaching and learning. The DVA model supports accelerated, focused learning with this objective in mind: the healthy development of a lifelong learner who is a proactive, problem-solving, collaborative citizen of an increasingly interdependent global community facing as yet unforeseeable problems and opportunities.

DVA's inaugural class is comprised of 120 sixth and seventh graders from all over Hall County, GA, selected from twice that many applicants for demonstrating a high degree of motivation and interest in science and/or the arts, as evidenced in substantive application responses and in references from teachers and other adults. 

The larger DVA community includes these students, their families, six teachers, SHMS principal Paula Stubbs, Hall County's Director of Gifted Education Dr. Sally Krisel, Hall County Board members and superintendent, and local community members invested in DVA's mission.