In 2020, BSA was named a Silver Medal School by the U.S. News & World Report magazine and was ranked 1,173rd nationally and 29th in Maryland (first overall in Baltimore City).[4]
History
In 1979, the president of the board of school commissioners authored a charter creating the Baltimore School for the Arts. This charter followed many years of effort to create an arts high school, including a 1978 recommendation of a special Task Force appointed and given strong support by then Mayor William Donald Schaefer.[5] The BSA was created as part of the Baltimore City Public Schools system; however, the charter provided the BSA with the structure and the authority to design and implement policies and programs.
The school was initially founded with instructional programs in vocal music, instrumental music, acting, theater production, dance, and visual arts; however, in December of 2016, Mark Joseph donated three million dollars to the school to support a new film and visual storytelling program. The donation was the largest in the school's history. The program was first launched in the fall of 2017. [6]
Mission
The Baltimore School for the Arts is a school that intends to prepare its students for careers in the arts. The school provides qualified students with training in one of five arts disciplines: music (vocal/instrumental), visual arts, theatre (acting/stage design and production), dance, or film[7] in combination with a college preparatory academic program. The theater and music majors are split into two groups each: For the theater department, there are majors both in acting and in stage design and production, and the music department is divided into vocal and instrumental performance majors.
Arts
The Baltimore School for the Arts is a four-year public high school that provides young people with pre-professional training in the arts. Students pursue any one of five disciplines—the visual arts, music (vocal or instrumental), theater (acting or theater production), dance and film. In addition, the school maintains artistic relationships with local organizations such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Center Stage, the Hippodrome Foundation, and the Walters Museum.
Academics
Students follow a college-preparatory curriculum that emphasizes the core values commonly found in a liberal arts education. BSA has a graduation rate of 95 percent and sends 99% of its students into higher education.[8] The academic program includes honors-level English, Spanish, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, World History, and U.S. History courses. AP classes in American Government, English Composition, English Literature, Calculus AB, and Spanish Language & Culture are also offered. In 2022, 131 BSA students took 194 AP exams in English Language and Composition, English Literature, English Composition, and Calculus.[9] Students spend half of each day, four or five periods, in academic courses and half of each day, four or five periods, in their art discipline.
Extracurricular activities
Due to many students' focus on their artistic discipline, the school only began hosting extracurriculars in the 2000s and still retains a limited selection. The BSA has no sports. [10] The BSA's official in-school newspaper is The Muse, which runs bi-monthly and is independent from the school. [11]
Admission
About 400 students from public and private schools in and around Baltimore attend the school. Students are accepted by an audition or portfolio review only– without regard to grades or academic performance. The audition process varies by artistic discipline. Rising 9th and 10th graders may apply to attend. Of the 1,000 or so students who audition each year, about 115 are accepted for enrollment.[12]
Campus and facilities
Situated in Mount Vernon, a historic cultural district immediately north of downtown Baltimore, BSA is located in two buildings on the corner of Madison and Cathedral Streets. It occupies the former Alcazar Hotel and a historic brownstone. Workspaces consist of music practice rooms, art and dance studios, a film editing lab, a costume/scene shop, and a Center for Collaborative Arts and Technology (CCAT) in the third floor library. Performance spaces include a black box theater, a recital hall, an art gallery and a theater for larger performances and galas.[13]
In media
The school in the 2006 film Step Up was a fictionalized version of BSA, called The Maryland School for the Arts. Significant differences exist between the institution portrayed in the film and the real school; some parts of the movie were filmed in the school. [14]
The Maryland School for the Arts also provided the setting for the 2008 film sequel to Step Up, Step Up 2 the Streets, although most of the actual filming of the movie did not take place inside BSA. [15]
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