During the 2001 - 2002 school year, Bronx High School Superintendent Norman Wechsler brought together a team to lead the task of restructuring six of the Bronx's failing large high schools into campuses of small schools. At that time, Joseph Sherman was working in the Bronx HS Supt.'s office, as Director of Arts Education. Prior to taking that position, Mr. Sherman had been the Arts Dept. AP at Morris High School. He responded to the call for proposals for new schools. In collaboration with a team that included dance educator Marisol Rosado, whom he had worked with at Morris, he created a proposal for the High School for Violin and Dance.

The proposal was approved and HSVD, became one of 12 new small high schools that opened in the Bronx in September 2002. It joined B.L.A.2, Bronx International, and School for Excellence, as part of the restructuring plan for the Morris HS building. The following year the Morris Academy became the fifth and final Morris Campus High School as the phase out of the old Morris was concluded.

The intended purpose of HSVD was to give interested Bronx students intensive training in the performing arts and to use the disciplines of Suzuki violin and classical dance training as a means for developing disciplined, focused young adults who would be prepared to make quality choices in their lives.  As the years have gone by, the purpose of HSVD continues to provide intensive training in the performing arts and violin to students who have an appreciation of and for violin and dance.