San Diego: high school for the arts in the San Diego Area.

Since the late 1970s (when California voters put a cap on property taxes), arts education in the public schools has virtually dried up.

Fortunately, San Diego has found a way to teach dance and other creative expressions in a public school setting.

At the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts (SDSCPA), dance is an integral part of a day's work--along with all the requirements for a bong academic curriculum.

SDSCPA is a magnet school for students in grades six through twelve. The program was designed to educate a culturally diverse student population and prepare them for life in a multicultural society. Talent is not a criterion for admission since the goal of the school is to achieve racial balance, not to produce professional dancers. However, the wonderful byproduct of integrating dance into a public school curriculum is that youngsters with a passion for dance are gaining exposure to the art form and learning to perform everything from ballet, tap, and modern dance, to jazz, hip-hop, and ethnic dance.

Students who reach senior status even choreograph their own dances. Their work is showcased in a theatrical setting [enhanced by professional-level technical support) and enjoyed by the student body as well as by audiences culled from the community. "The students are responsible for everything," says Cynthia Morales, one of the members of the eclectic faculty. "They choose the music and worry about the lighting. The idea is to teach them how to put on a dance performance--that means everything, including auditioning and selecting the dancers and printing the programs."

"We have the largest facility in the West," says Donald Robinson, a fourteen-year veteran of SDSCPA's theater-dance program. "We have 600 dance students, and there are 4,000 on the waiting list for the school."

"They get affirmation as kids that they don't get in a professional environment," Morales explains, "because our first role is to be educators. Our concern is, `what do they need?' and not necessarily to make our pieces look great." That philosophy (shared by the eight diverse members of the dance faculty) fosters growth and self esteem in the children, along with an appreciation of the arts.

The school has catapulted many students to Broadway and the concert-dance world over the years: Jeffrey Gerodias (a standout in the current Alvin Ailey troupe) is one of several alumni to join the Ailey organization; Jonathan Taylor dances in the Broadway production of Cats; Mylinda Hull understudied the role of Lola in the national tour of Damn Yankees; Christian Hoff appeared in The Who's Tommy on Broadway; and Ron Vodicka joined Robert Goulet on the national tour of Man of La Mancha.

The facility includes three theaters (a 500-seat main stage, a 200-seat black box, and a 1,000-seat outdoor amphitheater) and six dance studios, all bustling with activity.

The school's motto stresses "staff dedication, student commitment, parent involvement, and community support," and challenges students "to make arts and academics share center stage." That concept is working like a charm at SDSCPA, a school where campus violence, drugs, and other teen-related problems are definitely off-limits. "This is not a neighborhood school. The kids are here because they want to be," says Dr. Vivian Reznik, a member of the school's board of directors. "The faculty doesn't tolerate any inappropriate behavior."

The Sweetwater Union High School District in Chula Vista, California, has a magnet program running in various schools throughout the district. Chula Vista High School, for example, contains the performing arts magnet, although the program is only one part of a regular public school curriculum. As a result, admission is open to all, and dance students take classes with football players and science students.

Students from grades seven through twelve can major in a variety of disciplines, including stage technology, art, and music. Those in the dance discipline are required to take a daily two-hour dance class, according to Javier Velasco la member of the dance faculty in addition to being a well-known professional choreographer). "In their first two years, dance students receive three days of ballet, one day of jazz, and one day of tap," Velasco notes. "There are six levels, and they move up based on written tests as well as by taking classes. The dance students can also take part in the ballet folklorico program and movement classes for actors.

"There is one student recital and one winter concert every year, as well as the annual school musical," Velasco says. "All the dance teachers have had professional experience in their field, and many of our graduates have gone on to Broadway and regional dance companies."

"These schools really filled the gap when the public schools had no budgets for arts education," says Union-Tribune dance critic, Anne Marie Welsch. "They're having a salutary impact on kids who can't afford private dance lessons. A number of their dancers have gone on to careers, and the rest will go to dance performances all their lives as a result of the exposure."