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State School for Arts Proposed; Richardson Lends Support to Project

Posted on: Monday, 23 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By RUSSELL MAX SIMON Journal Staff Writer

An impressive array of players are working to bring New Mexico its first statewide high school devoted entirely to the arts.

The school would be highly competitive, draw students from the entire state and act as both destination and training ground for New Mexico's most talented visual and performing artists.

It would be called the Governor's School for the Arts.

The project is the brainchild of Carol Oppenheimer, director of National Dance Institute of New Mexico. Oppenheimer and her husband, Santa Fe entrepreneur Garrett Thornburg, have joined Fred Nathan of THINK New Mexico and Owen Lopez of the McCune Foundation, among several other high-profile names, on the proposed school's founding committee.

Longtime lobbyist J.D. Bullington is drumming up support in the Legislature, where Rep. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, and Sen. Cynthia Nava, D-Las Cruces, are expected to introduce identical bills into the House and Senate on Monday.

Bullington said Gov. Bill Richardson supports the project and has included $500,000 in his education budget for the school's design, planning and start-up costs.

"Our committee is working hard on this project and things are moving along quickly. We are all very excited," Oppenheimer said Friday.

Oppenheimer said the school would fill a critical need in the state.

"Although New Mexico is blessed with a natural reserve of creative, talented youth, many gifted children in New Mexico do not have access to the state's 'arts economy' because they do not have the resources to gain high quality, pre-professional or pre- collegiate level training in the arts," reads a statement from the founding committee.

Based in Santa Fe, the school would operate much like "magnet" schools in other parts of the state that draw a particular type of student, such as White Sands Middle School, which focuses on space and technology, New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell and several schools in Las Cruces.

Unlike a charter school, however, the Governor's School for the Arts would not be subject to a local school board. Admission would not be by lottery, as it now is in charter schools, nor would the enrollment be limited to a particular geographical area.

The admission process, which would include auditions and portfolio reviews, and applicants would be judged on their talent and potential to excel in all art forms, including visual arts, dance, music and theater. Once admitted, tuition would be free.

"This school is going to attract the best of the best in terms of youth who have exceptional artistic ability, regardless of their economic situation," Bullington said. "It's going to fill a niche that's sorely needed."

Oppenheimer said the spirit of the school "is to provide access and inclusiveness. If you're a child of means, you can pay for these types of classes. But if you're not, if you're in the public school system, I really haven't seen programs that can provide across-the- board training in the arts."

Oppenheimer said the idea for the school originated with parents of talented students at the National Dance Institute. They asked her to start a charter school with their support, but Oppenheimer said the Institute's board rejected the idea.

The idea lingered for about two years, until last fall when Oppenheimer brought together a founding committee. Members of the Thaw Charitable Trust, Pro Musica and the Thornburg Foundation rounded out the group.

"We really kept working on the vision until we knew what needed to happen -- we needed legislative changes," Oppenheimer said.

Schools like the New Mexico School for the Deaf and the New Mexico Military Institute, both publicly funded with admissions criteria, are the schools most closely analogous to the Governor's School for the Arts, said Kennedy.

"They're created for a specific purpose and have their own body of legislation," he said.

According to the founding committee's plan, the Governor's School for the Arts would begin with a single ninth-grade class and phase in additional grades, one per year, until the school reaches full status with grades 9-12 and a maximum student body of 400.

The school would include a comprehensive academic program in addition to its arts offerings. Painting, sculpture, art history, digital arts, film, photography, ballet and other forms of dance, jazz, vocal music, creative writing, acting and directing would all be on the curriculum.

A statewide outreach program would identify talented middle- school students as potential candidates for the school.

Oppenheimer said she had a location in Santa Fe in mind for the school, but would not say where.

"I think it's an idea whose time has come... I think it would be the jewel in New Mexico's crown," Oppenheimer said.

Source: Albuquerque Journal

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