School Days

We live next door to Savannah Arts Academy, the first dedicated performing and visual arts school in Savannah. This morning on my walk, I got to see the kids arriving for class and the big yellow school buses rolling in. I wish I could ride on a school bus and go to class.

One of the bus drivers slowed down to talk to me, and the nice man who was working as the crossing guard said he used to have a dog like me and gave me some love.

Savannah Arts Academy has an interesting history. According to the school's web site (you didn't know I was so tech-savvy, did you?), the building is located on a site that was originally planned as a luxury tourist hotel called the Hotel Georgia. The developers envisioned the Hotel Georgia to "be a palace outside and inside. The grounds will be a dream of beauty." The hotel was to be located at the apex of the Chatham Crescent, a long, sweeping crescent-shaped drive.

Work began on the hotel on August 15, 1912 but due to litigation, steel shortages, funding problems and architectural changes the foundation sat unfinished for about 20 years. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), in the midst of the Depression, expressed interest in the site for use as the new Savannah High School. Permits were granted, construction began, and Savannah High School was dedicated on June 15, 1937. At the time, it was the largest construction in the state.

In 1963, 12 African-American students selected by the NAACP integrated Savannah High School, one of the first two schools in Chatham County to do so. After 61 years on Washington Avenue, Savannah High School classes were moved to a new building on Pennsylvania Avenue, leaving the structure available for the newly formed Savannah Arts Academy in August, 1998. The Arts Academy was granted charter school status in July, 1998. Savannah Arts Academy opened its doors for the first time in August, 1998.

The school is designed to provide high level training in the arts to many students within the context of a comprehensive college preparatory and technical preparatory high school education. The curriculum is integrated, encouraging students to explore common themes in different subject areas. Students concentrate in one of the arts majors: communications technology, dance, instrumental and/or vocal music, theatre arts and visual arts. All elective courses offered are either in core academic areas or the arts.

I went to school once for something called obedience, whatever that is. I even graduated top of my class, although there was only one other dog in my class. If I went to the big school on the corner, I wonder what they would teach me - Squirrel Chasing 101, S-U-P-P-E-R, The Art of Stick Chewing or maybe How to Make Friends and Influence People?