NOCCA Academic Studio Full-Day School Receives Letter Grade “A” From Louisiana Department of Education
October 29, 2014
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Academic Studio
New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) is proud to share the news from the State Department of Education. As the prestigious arts high school celebrates its 40th anniversary year, NOCCA received the classification of “A” for its innovative Academic Studio full-day academic program. NOCCA is one of 39 high schools or combined K-12 schools from across the state to receive this distinction.
President|CEO Kyle Wedberg stated, “This score from the Louisiana Department of Education recognizes our success in offering an additional 280 world class educational opportunities to statewide students. This means that NOCCA, in our 40th anniversary year, is able to provide even more opportunities to the youth of our state through multiple pathways and attendance options. We look forward to supporting students that come half day, full day and multiples of years as we want any student who belongs here to find a path to and through this incredible learning environment.”
About NOCCA’s Academic Studio Full-Day School
The Academic Studio is NOCCA’s full-day, diploma-granting high school preparing students admitted by arts audition, but without regard to current or past academic achievement, for successful careers as leaders in the arts. The instructional model, in contrast to the “sit and get and give it back” approach of traditional high schools, is inspired by the arts and emphasizes collaboration, project-based learning, inquiry and critical thinking. NOCCA accepts students to its full-day school Academic Studio, by a blind arts audition.
In addition to the credits students earn in their respective arts disciplines, students in the Academic Studio take two double-block academic courses per year: Integrated Humanities I-IV and Integrated Sciences I-IV. Students also earn two credits of a language of their choice and other required electives including health and physical education – as required for high school graduation and TOPS eligibility.
The nature of the courses combine the study of English and history and math and science so that students are actually earning credits in the respective subjects but doing so in an integrated, team-taught environment. Academic Studio students are required to take and pass all of the same End-of-Course exams required of other public high school students in Louisiana.
Students read literature, examine visual culture, study the arts, look at primary documents, and read social and political theory that is situated historically or thematically within a field of study at any given time, so that students’ encounters with the arts, governments, economies, religions, social life, and cultural production are contextualized.
· Faculty foster an expectation that students develop certain habits of mind that privilege questioning, critical and creative thinking, analysis, and attention to evidence that are imperative for being artists and intellectuals who are actively and critically engaged in the world around them.
· Classes are taught through a variety of pedagogical techniques, all of which are characterized by active, hands-on projects and activities in which students learn by doing and by thinking out loud, formulating their own ideas about topics they research and engaging in dialogue about those ideas with their peers and their instructors.
Building on this early strength and promising path, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, its arts departments and its Academic Studio, are excited to partner with colleges, conservatories and universities across the country in assuring our graduates – the next leaders of the world’s cultural and creative economies – have the training they need and the education they deserve.