| Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts 6–12 | |
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Believe. Work to Achieve. Succeed!
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| Location | |
| 111 Ninth Street Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222 United States |
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| Information | |
| Type | Public - Magnet |
| Established | September 1979 |
| School district | Pittsburgh Public Schools |
| Principal | Melissa Pearlman |
| Grades | 6–12 |
| Enrollment | 894 as of August 2010[1] |
| Color(s) | black and white, Also red, yellow, white and blue written out in CAPA's symbol |
| Athletics | none |
| Mascot | Unicorn |
| Representative | Mark Brentley, Sr. |
| Website | CAPA |
Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts 6–12 (CAPA) is a magnet school located in the Cultural District of Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. CAPA is one of four 6th to 12th grade schools in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. It is the result of a merger between CAPA High School and Rogers CAPA Middle School.
CAPA offers students six art majors: visual arts, literary arts, theater, instrumental music, vocal music, and dance. The theater major includes traditional theater, musical theater, technical theater, and costume design. Arts classes are taught by adjunct faculty who are working professionals in their respective fields.
Admission is by portfolio or audition. It also offers a complete range of academic studies including Pittsburgh Scholars Program (PSP) and Centers for Advanced Study (CAS), along with activities like the National Honor Society, Tri-M Music Honor Society, National Art Honor Society, yearbook, newspaper, student council, Amnesty International, Model United Nations, the American Mathematics Competitions and North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad, and ski club.
CAPA opened in September 1979 with just 35 students and it was housed in Baxter Elementary School in the Homewood neighborhood. The school moved into its current space at Ninth Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard at the beginning of the 2003–2004 school year.
The 11-story, 175,000-square-foot (16,300 m2) building is a world-class facility that includes a 400-seat auditorium, a black box theater, an art gallery, media arts center, television studio, fitness center, computer labs, and special rehearsal spaces for all the departments. This new location allows students to study their crafts in the hub of Pittsburgh's cultural center and to easily collaborate with working artists from across the city, region, state, and country. Pittsburgh CAPA has just become one of four 6–12 schools in Pittsburgh, collaborating with Rogers CAPA 6–8.
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In 2009, U.S. News and World Report ranked 21,000 public high schools, in the United States, based on three factors. First, the schools were analyzed for the number of students who achieved above the state average on the reading and math tests in 2008. Then they considered how the economically disadvantaged students performed against the state average. Finally, they considered the participation rate and the performance of students in college readiness by examining Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate test data. Seventy Pennsylvania high schools achieved ranking bronze, silver or gold rating. Fifty three Pennsylvania high schools achieved bronze.[2] Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts High School achieved Bronze ranking. Eight high schools in Allegheny County and two Pittsburgh School District schools achieved inclusion in the ranking. Also in 2009, students from the school played for First Lady Michelle Obama and the wives of other leaders attending the G-20 summit.[3]
Mission Statement: The literary arts program at CAPA is a seven year intensive course of study in creative writing—one of only a dozen nationwide. Students participate in many activities including the national Poetry Out Loud competition, and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.[4]
Students in the Visual Arts Department learn the fundamentals of painting, drawing, sculpting, ceramics, photography, printmaking, digital media, art history, and fiber arts. Student work is regularly displayed around the school as well as on the Astrovision (Jumbo-Tron) which can be seen outside the building and in the lunch hall. Notable graduate of Capa's Art Department, Local Artist and Gadabout Max Buriak.[5]
Mission Statement: Emphasis is placed on the theory and practice of refining and enhancing dance technique, understanding and applying corrections and stimulating creativity within each student.[6]
Straight Theatre/Musical Theatre/Costume/Technical Theatre
The theatre department provides a 4 year structured course in various forms of Musical and straight theatre. Every year the musical theatre students perform in 2 recitals and the All School Musical along with many other opportunities through the year.
Classes available to instrumental music majors include orchestra, wind ensemble, string orchestra, chamber music ensembles, various jazz bands, music/jazz theory, music history, piano lab. Each student receives a weekly private lesson with a faculty member specializing on his/her instrument.
The Voice Department offers students unique and rewarding educational experiences through its sequential four-year curriculum, through collaborative with professional music organizations, and through a variety of performance opportunities and Master Classes. Students in grades 9-12 receive a weekly private voice lesson. Students will perform in Concert Choir, Gospel Choir, Jazz Choir, and Chamber Ensemble. Students are also required to participate in the Opera Workshop class and perform in the yearly Opera. Other classes include: music theory, piano lab, music history, solfeggio, eurhythmics, Studio Class, and the creative music technology class. Each Friday, students perform in a recital for their peers studying vocal music. They showcase various songs from all different styles, from world language to musical theater to Jazz, that they work on in their Private lessons with the staff.
Although the high school has no official sports the 6-8 students do have sports teams. They have a boys and girls soccer, and basketball. They have girls softball and boys Baseball. The girls soccer team was an undefeated section champion in 2004. Their main rivalry is against Pittsburgh Frick 6–8 Middle School. The CAPA 6-8 sports teams mascot is the unicorn. Although there have been several ideas relating to a mascot that incorporated the ideas of both the middle and high school mascots, both groups wanted their original mascots. After several weeks of brainstorming new mascot ideas, and picking a few from the finalized list, the students voted on three different mascots; CAPA Unicorns, CAPA Stars, or the CAPA Phoenix. There was no contest, and the winner was the CAPA Unicorns
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