Maine Arts Academy

Primary and Secondary EducationUnited States11-50 Employees

Maine Arts Academy is Maine's first and only performing and visual arts high school.  We are a charter school, and as such, a public school.  We are in our third year, educating more than 200 students from 57 towns across our state, with a dozen foreign exchange students.  We receive funding only from the state level, and we supplement our lack of local government funding with donations, grant opportunities and support from Maine businesses.

For the past 30 years, the arts have slowly been phased out of public school education due to the mounting pressure on our public schools to raise standardized test scores and face statewide and nationwide school comparisons.  Maine public high school administrators have increasingly come to see arts education as a frill or a luxury versus complementary and essential to educational standards and success.  Hypersensitivity to test results has motivated administrators to cut arts experiences selectively as well, the thinking being that "if you struggle with math, we'll take your arts class out of your schedule and give you an additional math class"!   Kids whose only reason for showing up at school is to play in the band, or paint, or sing, are then presented with additional barriers to school success.

Our students are dedicated to their education, and it is imperative that we reciprocate that dedication by providing the highest quality arts education experiences.  Maine Arts Academy not only offers the broadest and deepest arts curriculum in the state, with an impressive contingent of artist faculty to deliver it, we prioritize arts education in the curriculum so that it is on equal footing with every other curricular subject.  We provide Maine students an outlet for their passions and an education in the subjective, emotional nature of human experience.  We are filling a vital role in the preparation of Maine kids by cultivating the discipline, cooperation, and creativity requisite for success in the 21st-century world.

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