Vancouver School of Arts and Academics

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Winter 2002: The VSAA on-stage performance of "A Christmas Carol". Photograph by Joe Ryder.

Vancouver School of Arts and Academics (VSAA) is located in Vancouver, Washington (Clark County, Washington), in the Vancouver School District, and is a public arts magnet school for grades 6 to 12. Opened in the fall of 1996, the school's vision was to create a unique art-centered learning community where young artists were able to develop their creative skills and connect their creativity to an academic foundation. Teachers are commonly artists themselves, and resident artists of every art form routinely visit to teach workshops.

Historically, the school has not just been an artist community; the academics instilled in the students have offered publicly visible results. According to the "2005 Report Card" published in Portland Monthly (September 2005), the VSAA was rated (within the Vancouver School District) with the best graduation rate (98%), the best 2003-2004 Grade 10 WASL Reading (89), Writing (87) and Math (71) scores, the lowest student/teacher ratio (13:1, respectively), and was the only school in Clark County serving grades 6 to 12.

In addition to english, math, science, and social studies - all classes in the general education requirements are based on art form integrations - the students also take classes in dance, music (vocal and instrumental), theatre/drama, literary arts, moving image arts (film/video), and visual art. Every student must study each art form in at least one class; they can then choose to either focus in one or two art forms or continue "multimedia study" (studying all art forms). The school's block schedule allows students to take three 100 minute classes a day. An interdisiplinary core class acts as a collaborative foundation for learning across classes and grade levels, further combining arts, academics into experiential learning projects based on a theme usually set by instructors. The VSAA's 550 students (numbers fluxuate some) are all subjected to an application process that identifies the interest a prospective student has in the arts, which is considered by staff to be the most important qualification for entrance to the public arts magnet, rather than pre-existing talent.