Since adopting the orphaned Woodward High School building in 1973, the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) has been at home in Over-the-Rhine. As the school anticipates a new facility designed to suit its purposes, it’s important that community and student concerns aren’t left behind.
The selection of SCPA for a new building under the Cincinnati Public Schools’ recently unveiled Facilities Master Plan comes as no surprise. The old Woodward High, built in 1910, could cost $17 million to renovate. Cincinnati Pops Conductor Erich Kunzel’s dream of an arts campus next to Music Hall has received plenty of attention, although current plans represent five years of downsizing.
I spent a recent morning shadowing my sister, an SCPA senior. On old Rookwood tiles below a graffiti-covered wall from a production of Macbeth, I sat with a small circle of seniors. I was impressed by their opinions.
The students respect the neighborhood that has nurtured their school. Many SCPA students come from suburbs and rural communities.
They’re inspired when they look out SCPA’s old windows at Over-the-Rhine. They hesitate to embrace plans for a new building, wondering about the effects on student and community life.
Advocates of the new building believe it will be good for its new neighbors. SCPA Principal Jeff Brokamp says, “Since the school moved in here there’s been a lot of growth in this area. … I think it’d be fair to say that the development around here for the last 15 years probably wouldn’t have happened to the degree that it has” without SCPA’s presence. He imagines the new SCPA will have a similar impact on Washington Park across from Music Hall.
This year’s upperclassmen are not blind to the many amenities absent in their school. “I just found out last year where the computer lab is,” says Emilia Cedercreutz. “I didn’t even know we had one.”
But many students have grown attached to the old building, connecting it with SCPA’s collective self-image. They wonder if the school’s students are too often portrayed as movie-stars-in-the-making entitled to a state-of-the-art facility.
“I think we don’t get considered thoughtful at our school,” says Veronica Strickler. “Moving is just going to make that image even worse. Being in this building keeps the students humble. It reminds us who we are and what we’re doing.”
“It’s like, if you have this new building, you can’t be a starving artist anymore,” Cedercreutz adds. “Then you’re just a spoiled brat.”
While the vision of the class of 2002 might be clouded by premature nostalgia for their deteriorating building, the new facility’s first students will surely take pride in having technologically up-to-date surroundings.
As a magnet school, SCPA accepts talented students from all over Greater Cincinnati. But despite a reputation as the most diverse of the city’s public schools, only 15 of approximately 1,000 kids in SCPA’s student directory live in Over-the-Rhine’s 45210 ZIP code. If school planners really want to create a welcoming home for SCPA in this neighborhood, perhaps they should begin by actively encouraging and seeking out talented kids who live close to the school.
Brokamp says SCPA has tried to increase its enrollment from Over-the-Rhine. But most students come to SCPA with a strong background in the arts generated by school art programs or private lessons. Many inner-city kids don’t have those opportunities.
“Of all the activities in society, the most color-blind is art,” says Paul Bernish, director of the Cincinnati Arts School, Inc., the organization raising funds for SCPA’s new facility. He envisions the new school as more than a K-12 facility opening at 8 a.m. and closing in mid-afternoon. He says it would house adult education programs and provide much-needed meeting space for Over-the-Rhine community organizations.
Brokamp agrees.
“One way we interact with the community is by educating its children,” he says. “The other way is to help educate the adults.”
Construction on the new SCPA is planned for 2005, and the current building won’t be renovated for CPS use. Its future remains an object of speculation.
This article appears in Jan 23-29, 2002.
