The History of Alma d’ arte
Alma d’Arte Charter High School at the Court Youth Center is the pioneering arts-based secondary school serving a diversity of learners through a rigorous academic and integrated arts program since 2004. Alma’s dynamic educational program integrates the visual, performing, literary, media, and culinary arts into academic content areas. Students learn to understand and creatively explore the connections between disciplines and diverse ways of thinking. This integrated approach ensures that students develop into creative thinkers equipped to better succeed in a complex society where personal, professional and artistic boundaries are increasingly fluid and career multi-faceted.
Arts integration provides the skills, methods, strategies, and problem-solving (opportunities) necessary for positive youth development in today’s sophisticated multi-media world. Alma d’ Arte was chartered by the Las Cruces Public Schools Board of Education on December 2002. The arts integration, positive youth development, and multi-cultural awareness that was created by the Court Youth Center became the basis for starting a charter school. The after-school programs of the Court Youth Center had received local, regional and national recognition. Students asked, “Why can’t this become a school?” The seed for starting a charter school was planted. After two years of research and meeting with a variety of focus groups, Alma d’ Arte was created.
The school is housed in the historic Court Jr. High School, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that opened in 1941. Prior to Court Jr. High School, the land was the site of the original Dona Ana County Court House that existed from the 1890s until 1936 when the construction began for Court Jr. High School.
Today, students and staff who are a part of the Alma d’ Arte learning community are here because they are interested in the value of an educational experience which has arts integration as the foundation to academic excellence.
Alma d’Arte Charter High School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs and activities and provides equal access to apprenticeships, and other opportunities. Apprentices or interns at Alma d’arte are available and placed only to employers whose recruitment and employment policies are consistent with the foregoing policy and who affirmatively agree to abide by the policy. The Principal has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies.