A Love for the Arts : The Diverse Group of Students at the County High School for the Arts Share a Passion for Creating

The students in Penny Johnson’s theater class look like moving trees as they stomp across the wood floor with their arms branching over their heads and their eyes locked in inanimate stares.

“On heels!” Johnson yells as the students hustle across the room on their heels.

“Toes!” she says, and the class follows her command.

Meanwhile, students in a nearby gospel class also are on their feet, swaying their bodies as they harmonize the lyrics of a song they will perform at an upcoming concert.

It is a typical afternoon at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts--the county’s only tuition-free high school offering instruction in dance, music, theater and the visual arts.

Tucked on the Cal State Los Angeles campus, the school attracts a diverse group, reflecting Los Angeles’ unique multicultural and socioeconomic mix. Some here have been honor students since grade school; others were on the verge of dropping out when they enrolled.

But the 483 sophomores, juniors and seniors are united by one thing: a love for the arts.

“When I first came here, I was really scared to perform in front of people,” said Brandon Gryde, a senior from Eagle Rock who is specializing in vocals. “But my confidence has risen, and now I look forward to getting up on stage.”

Gryde’s classmate, Carla VanScoit, had never had a voice lesson before coming to the school more than two years ago.

“Lessons were too expensive,” said VanScoit, an Eastside resident who emigrated with her family from Mexico when she was in the third grade. “But I was in a mariachi, and I liked to sing.”

Now, after training with the professionals who serve as instructors at the school, the 17-year-old senior has learned to sing from her diaphragm rather than her throat. And instead of being limited to mariachi songs, she now sings opera, gospel, jazz and other types of music she previously knew little about.

“If I had gone to Roosevelt High, I would have had a good mariachi trainer, but I wouldn’t have had a chance to learn other types of music,” VanScoit said. “My voice has gotten a lot better since I’ve been here, and I’m more self-confident.”

To meet admission standards, the school’s new students must audition before a committee and have at least a “C” average. Every year, about three-fourths of the 700 applicants are admitted.

“We look for potential and raw talent more than we look for artistic ability,” said Benjamin Fonseca, the school’s recruiter. “That’s because some students come without having any prior training. We don’t want to exclude them.”

Along with developing artistic talents, the school requires students to display a level of maturity that might be uncommon among other high school students.

In a recent figure-drawing class, students sketched a nude model without looking the least bit uncomfortable. Rather than giggling or ogling the young female model, the young artists concentrated on their drawings and scribbled furiously to complete the assignment on time.

In another class, this one also led by Penny Johnson, students lay on the floor uttering different sounds as part of an exercise to help them use their voices in different positions. When Johnson stepped out of the room for a few minutes, the students continued the exercise without a hitch.

“They can run their own class because we teach them to be on their own,” said Johnson, an actress on TV’s “The Larry Sanders Show.” “We get an adult response from our young people.”

Johnson, who has taught at the school for eight years, said students become disciplined because the school’s curriculum is physically and mentally demanding.

Unlike a traditional school day with five class periods, students at the arts high school are in class for eight periods, which means they don’t get out until 4 p.m. They spend their mornings in academic classes and their afternoons in a variety of elective art classes in their chosen field, including gospel choir, chamber music literature, playwriting and jewelry design.

“This school requires total commitment,” Fonseca said. “But our kids are willing to do that because they want to be here.”

Said Principal Bo Vitolo: “We instill a passion for the arts that could lead students to pursue artistic careers. But at the very least, our kids learn to appreciate art and will become patrons of the arts when they get older.”

During his first year at the school, Leonard Howze rose at 5 a.m. to catch the MTA bus from his home 15 miles away in View Park. Although the 17-year-old’s mother is now able to bring him to school, Howze said he would do just about anything to get to school.

“I consider it a privilege to be here,” he said. “So much is going on in the inner city, and a lot of kids have negative attitudes. Coming here boosted me to another level because the school is helping me set high standards for myself.”

At 6-1 and 235 pounds, Howze said a lot of people once assumed he would play football. But he resisted the peer pressure and pursued his love of acting. Some of his friends still give him a hard time for attending a school outside the community, but he shrugs off their comments, knowing there’s no other school he would rather attend.

“Some of my friends can’t accept being in a multicultural environment,” he said. “But this is preparing me for the real world. In the real world, I’m not going to be around only blacks and Latinos. Coming here has made me more open to all kinds of people.”

About half of the students at the arts high school are white; 24% are Latino, 15% are Asian or Pacific Islanders and 11% are African American. About 75% of all students are girls.

Although school officials are eager to balance the gender ratio, they say it’s difficult to attract boys to the school, particularly in the dance and vocal music departments.

Many black and Latino students, especially those from poor families, also tend to shy away from the school because they can’t afford busing costs, Fonseca said.

“Transportation is definitely an obstacle because it’s hard for some kids to get here,” he said. “They can’t afford the transportation or they need to work after school.”

About half of the students rely on public transportation to get to and from school, Vitolo said; the rest car-pool, get rides or drive themselves.

VanScoit, who attended Belvedere Junior High School on the Eastside before coming to the arts high school, said many Latinos also feel intimidated.

“When I went to Belvedere, everyone was Hispanic,” she said. “When I came here, it seemed like the school was almost all white. I think a lot of Latinos are scared to come to a school like this because they don’t feel they belong or that they can do as good as the Anglo or Chinese kids.”

Because her English was limited at the time, VanScoit sang in Spanish when she auditioned for a spot at the school.

“I remember when I was in the waiting room during my audition. I could hear beautiful opera singers, and that made me really nervous,” she said. “But now I feel comfortable here. This school has opened my eyes to a lot of new things.”

The arts high school was opened in 1985 after a group of local arts patrons formed a task force to promote the advancement of young artists in Los Angeles County.

After organizers developed the concept for the school by studying such performing arts programs as the New York school portrayed in the movie and television series “Fame,” Ann Reynolds, former chancellor of the Cal State system, offered Cal State Los Angeles as the site for the new school. A foundation was created, and so far, more than $2 million has been raised to supplement the school’s $3-million budget.

“It’s one of the joys of my life,” said Caroline Ahmanson, the Music Center’s education committee chairwoman and one of the key organizers of the school. “We wanted to create an atmosphere for young people where they have an opportunity to make arts a career. It’s the jewel in the crown of all county schools.”

Indeed, the school has managed to build a name for itself--not only in the arts, but in academics.

It ranked seventh out of 160 high schools in Los Angeles County in overall school performance in recently released figures from the California Department of Education. The school’s average performance value, which takes into account such things as standardized test scores, was 62.9 out of 100--20 points higher than both the state and county averages.

The school has no dropouts, and about 80% of its graduates go on to a four-year college. Another 10% go to a junior college, and the rest pursue professional careers, according to school figures.

“About 90% of our students are on a (University of California) track, which would qualify them for just about every college in the country,” Vitolo said.

The school employs 18 academic teachers and 85 arts teachers, most of whom are professional performers, musicians and artists. One of the biggest draws is that students have full access to Cal State’s music and art facilities, which allows the school to stage elaborate theater, dance and music productions, including this year’s “Little Shop of Horrors” musical.

Although the school doesn’t expect all of its students to pursue arts careers, a number of young graduates have taken that path.

Matthew Rushing, a 1991 graduate, is now dancing with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. After his senior year, the former Inglewood resident was taken to the Ailey audition by one of the school’s dance teachers.

Breaking with its tradition of taking only Ailey school-trained dancers, the dance company offered Rushing a full scholarship to its New York City dance school and put him in Ailey’s second company. In less than a year, Rushing was moved into the main company and has been busy dancing around the world since.

What’s remarkable about Rushing’s accomplishments is that he came to the school with little formal dance training, said Assistant Principal Alistair Hunter. In fact, he hadn’t even planned to audition for the school but was coaxed into doing so after accompanying a friend to the audition.

“During his first two years, instructors saw a tremendous growth in Matthew, and by his third year he was in full form,” Hunter said. “He was doing things that were just incredible. He became a role model for all the dancers at the school.”

Other graduates have gone on to attend some of the country’s most prestigious art schools, including the Juilliard School in New York City and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Students also have been presidential scholars and finalists in the National Arts Recognition and Talent Search Program.

As of now, the school has no plans to expand or alter its curriculum. It simply wants to build a name for itself, both locally and nationwide, and continue to attract the county’s most gifted and motivated student artists, many of whom did not do well in traditional school settings.

“This represents the future of our cultural community,” Ahmanson said.

Jesus Yanez, a junior in the school’s dance department, said he was thinking about dropping out before he auditioned.

“I wasn’t too happy with life at the time,” said Yanez, an Eastside resident. “Even my first year here was awful, because I was tardy every day and I had a bad attitude. But then I realized that I should enjoy the school. This year, I’m doing much better.”

Yanez now plans to go to college and major in theater.

“Being here opened up my mind,” he said. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.”