Oakland School for Arts cultivates ambition

THIS PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL’S MISSION IS TO PREPARE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS FOR ACTUAL CAREERS IN THE VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS

At 8:30 a.m. on a typical Monday at the Oakland School for the Arts, Ashley Lecair, 16, is learning an African song called “Zingela” with other members of the school choir. Lara Perez, also 16, is taking a jazz dance lesson. Meanwhile, students in the visual-arts division are sketching still lifes, learning about light and shadow.

By Anita Amirrezvani

Mercury News

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/performing_arts/8062265.htm

“I love it here,” says Lecair, who hopes to become a professional singer. “It’s a very positive environment, and people focus on what I want to do.”

For some kids, it has been more than just a school — it has been a lifeline. “This school saved my son’s life,” says an Oakland woman whose 16-year-old “went through some really trying times because of all of the bullying and teasing at other schools. He’s a different child now. The child who was shut down and never smiled now has a personality of exuberance.”

Now in its second year, and championed by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, OAS is a public charter school in the Alice Arts Center at 1428 Alice St. (Because the school has started to outgrow its quarters there, it is expected to move to the Fox Theater on Broadway.)

There are other schools in the Bay Area where the arts are emphasized, but public high schools like this one — where the mission is to prepare students for actual careers in the arts — are few and far between. (There’s the longstanding School of the Arts in San Francisco, and a similar “arts magnet” program operates at Lincoln High School in San Jose, but enrollment there for the coming year is effectively closed.)

Though most of the current students at OAS are from Oakland, any California resident can apply for admission, which is free; the deadline is March 8 (see box). OSA offers concentrations in theater, literary studies and arts management as well as visual arts, music and dance.

The curriculum includes college prep work along with pre-professional training, and the school takes a distinctive approach. Classes are designed around what school director Loni Berry calls “windows,” offering study of cultural activity at particular times and places. This year, for instance, ninth-graders will focus on Oakland in 2003, Russia in 1919, England in 1512 and Senegal in 1889.

Asked about the academic standards, Berry points with pride to the results of the California Standards Test, which OSA ninth-graders took for the first time last spring. “Our students scored the highest in the Oakland school district,” he says. “Is there any more to say?”

Rona Renner of Berkeley has watched three of her kids go through Berkeley High School but her 15-year-old, Carina, attends OSA. “The thing I’m most impressed with are the teachers,” Renner says. “They’re highly dedicated, artistic and intelligent.”

The school day is long — 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily except Wednesdays, when classes end at 3 p.m. — and, as in art itself, not every moment is fun.

Perez, the dance student, was sniffling when a recent visitor entered the studio. She’d just been chewed out by the teacher, Reginald Ray-Savage. “I just wasn’t paying attention,” she admitted. “In order for me to be what I want to be, I have to give it my 100 percent and more.”

OSA is known for being strict: no gum-chewing, for instance. And students are expected to do as well in academic subjects as they are in the arts classes.

“The standard that’s necessary to survive as an artist is tremendous, so we have to set high standards for discipline and behavior,” says Taura Musgrove, the school’s assistant director.

The rewards are the opportunities that the school presents. The dance students performed recently with members of the Savage Jazz Dance Company, a professional group, while the visual arts students have exhibited their work at a gallery in the Oakland Museum.

For some students, such opportunities are worth major sacrifices. Lecair commutes 45 minutes each way from her home in Benicia. When her family wanted her closer to home, she switched to another school but prevailed on them to let her return to OSA. “This is where I belong,” she says.

The Oakland School for the Arts, 1428 Alice St.

Grades: Nine and 10; 11 to be added in the fall; 12 to be added in 2005

Hours: 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily except Wednesdays, when classes end at 3 p.m.

Number of students: 174

Diversity: 51 percent black, 27 percent white, 10 percent Latino, 7 percent mixed, 4 percent Asian-American

How to apply: Prospective students are required to fill out written applications and then to schedule auditions. The next deadline for applications is March 8; audition dates are March 20-21. Applications can be downloaded at http://www.oakarts.org. For more information, call (510) 763-8672.

Contact Anita Amirrezvani at aamirrezvani@ mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5756.