San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts - San Diego, California

Rosalía Ledesma.García.

Muy bonito,un lugar para toda la familia

Talia

I like this school lot, wish I would have known about it sooner. If you have an artistic child, I'd say let them try out. They have middle and high school. My kids have never been happier to go to school, they get to learn all the required academics while also exploring their artistic side. The staff has always been friendly and helpful and they genuinely look happy to be working there. There is only one way to go in or out after the gate closes at the beginning of the day and there seems to be always someone walking the grounds.

Terese Smith

this school has the fate of being terrible once class of 2025 leaves. they took away the freedom of exploring arts they offer and the admin don't care about the well-being of their students but more about their reputation. some of the teachers and people are cool..but that's it.

Angel A

Been here since 2017 and graduated in 2024. There are a few things I advise for parents considering to enroll their child here.

First, I want to be clear with parents reading this that you shouldn't make your child audition here for the sake of dropping them off at the nearest school. As mentioned in the name of the institution, it's an art school, and in this art school, your child will be given a sequence to follow for their major that will impact their schedule and may prevent them from enrolling in the academic electives (like AP classes) based on availability in class size. If you know your student isn't very inclined towards the arts, reconsider for their sake. These classes are essentially training students for the creative/performing art industry after they graduate high school.

Now, I will say that this school does provide more opportunities for networking and outreach in the arts. Colleges visit here sometimes. Coming here will vastly improve your chances of getting your work out into the public (and get into institutions such as CalArts and Julliard) compared to a typical San Diego public high school. No class is perfect and there is definitely room for improvement, but it's definitely a privilege to attend these type of classes and get a head start on your art career. However, this doesn't mean you can't graduate and go into STEM. The school has the standard academic classes that will allow you to apply for a major unrelated to what you did in SCPA.
(Personally speaking, I am going into engineering despite my experience as a fine arts major. I'm still going to do art as a side job, but I still want to try my hand in a different field)

Academics here are fine; there aren't many AP classes offered, but dual enrollment (taking college classes in the school) is a thing. I will say that you have to be smart about picking your classes. If you pass your AP English Language exam with a 5, you won't need to take a college English class in SCPA, since both the AP and the college English class will transfer the same in college (and some colleges do not accept replicating credit transfers). For middle school and high school general academic classes, they are fine. Teachers tend to accommodate student struggles and are a great support system.

We also don't have sports here, but students can join Morse sports teams.

As for being aware of school events, dances, and spirit weeks, they are mainly publicized on Instagram. That being said, students who do not have Instagram will have trouble on knowing what's going on at school. ASB has been improving this though, and I hope Instagram won't be the primary way of publicizing in the future. We have posters but some students tend to miss them.

I didn't have many problems with other students during my 7 years here. I didn't experience bullying. Every school has their batch of rotten apples, but compared to other institutions, SCPA is pretty mellow when it comes to drama...but let's face it, being a teenager is generally a rough journey. That being said, this will vary between students. It does get somewhat worse during Senior year, but that's also a pretty common thing between other schools. However, as long as you have a good head on your shoulders and be mature when communicating to others, you shouldn't have major issues being a student here. There's a lot of nice students, but it can also get (academically) competitive very quickly in high school.

As for admin, it can be a slippery slope depending on what situation you're in. Decisions happen because of various circumstances, and it can be hard to understand what goes on their end versus a students' end. One important note is that the counselors here are very helpful. I've done multiple walk-ins asking for advice and help for various things. They're not bad, but like every counselor, you should be responsible for reaching out to them.

Not too bad. I don't regret coming here 🙂

Siobhan Roman-Nichols

Edit:
Annette Barcelona ruined my life! I used to have such a passion for ballet but once I entered my teen years, alot of medical issues started popping up (plus the ones I already had since birth) and it became harder for me to dance, causing me to start missing classes or showing up with injuries because of this.

Barcelona knew this about me as I had a 504 plan and would email her every time I was going to miss a class or show up with an injury.

Even though I had these issues I still tried my hardest to be there and do the best I could.

As an experienced ballerina I wanted and expected to be corrected so I could be better. But she gave up on me once I started missing classes and showing up with injuries.

Whenever I would be able to dance I would, but she just wouldn't give me the time or even look my way. A few times I would purposely mess up to see if she would even look at me or try to correct me, She never would and that's when I started to feel like I wasn't worth anyone's time.

Not only would she just not bother trying to help correct me, but she would also be passive aggressive any time I showed up the day after being out sick and/or if I showed up with an injury.

She would also humiliate me when I came in the day after being out sick and/or if I came in with an injury by rolling her eyes at me and/or laughing at me and saying things like "wow you're injured again?!" "Why are you always injured?!" "You're always absent!" "There is always something wrong with you!" Loud enough for the whole class to hear.

Now the reason I was showing up with injuries was because I am hyper mobile, this makes my ligaments and connective tissue loose which makes my joints unstable. I didn't know this at the time so I've given her the benefit of the doubt. However she still didn't need to humiliate me in front of the whole class for showing up with an injury and/or being out sick the day before.

She made me scared to show up after being out sick and she made me scared to show up injured. And to be honest she was *ONE* of the reasons I started hûrtíñg myself and tried to èñd my lîfê when I was at that school.

I didn't deserve to be given grief for the fact that my immune system doesn't work well, I didn't deserve to be given grief for the fact that (though I didn't know why at the time) I was constantly spraining my ankles or hurting my knees, I didn't deserve to be given grief for my body just not functioning properly. She could have shown sympathy and concern instead of of distain and annoyance.

Because of Annette Barcelona I felt that I wasn't worth it and that I was a bother to everyone around me which led me to retiring from ballet, and because my self esteem had pretty much been crushed and thrown out the window I now have rejection sensitive dysphoria and rarely leave my house for fear that my worries of being given up on again and being a bother to other people will come true.

So congrats SDSCPA on hiring and keeping Annette Barcelona, an ablist, close minded, intolerant person as your department chair for the dance program.

natalia

Class of 2024 here. Some of my thoughts:
- The way they run this school is pretty unorganized in my opinion. They change the schedule around every year with seemingly no rhyme or reason. I wish the staff would just stick to one schedule because it gets so confusing, especially on Fridays. My parents also get confused about when to pick me up because the schedule is so wishy washy.
- If you’re a student who doesn’t have Instagram you might be left in the dark about school events and important information. That’s ASB’s main form of communication w/students. I ended up missing tons of spirit weeks and events as a sophomore because I didn’t follow the school’s ASB on Instagram. On a good note, they started doing daily announcements on the intercom this year which is a major improvement 🙂 I hope they expand that more in the future. The film department also has a monthly show called SDSCPA TV but it’s mostly for skits and interviews with teachers (not that I’m complaining though)
- The biggest gripe I have with this school is that they care more about their reputation than the wellbeing of their students. They put so much energy into getting students to apply and making themselves look good from the outside. Once you’re accepted, however, you realize it’s not all they’ve made it out to be. The quality of education has actually been lacking in recent years. The campus itself is pretty old (I think it was built in the 70s?) and really needs to be renovated. Especially the bathrooms. Half the stall doors don’t close and the sinks are grimy and scratched up. I think this issue stems from a lack of funding which is really sad. Unlike the admin, the majority of teachers here genuinely care about their students and want them to succeed. SDSCPA gets a lot of their money from donors and if the education system weren’t so flawed, maybe we wouldn’t be here.
- The students (at least in my class of art majors) can be kind of apathetic. Call it senioritis or some other thing, but I noticed that the non-performing majors (artists, writers, film majors) tend to be more antisocial and withdrawn. Regardless of what they tell you there are definitely invisible cliques here. In contrast, most of the performing majors I’ve talked to (especially theater majors) are pretty sociable and will make room for you to speak. Which makes sense. They’ve practiced getting out of their comfort zone a lot lol
- Who is raising these middle schoolers They’re crazy. I feel awful for the poor janitor because they will literally leave their entire cafeteria lunches in the toilet and clog the sinks by cramming toilet paper and cheeto dust in the drains. And this happens on the daily. Do they think it’s funny? I just don’t get it. It was never this bad at my old middle school. They also abuse the hell out of art supplies teachers paid for with their own money. They’re the #1 reason I’m counting down the days until graduation—kids are kids but I’m sick of being around screaming 12 year olds all day. Good lord
- SDSCPA is definitely a mixed bag. If you go here, please try to make the most of your experience. Take advantage of the art classes and career training because high schoolers rarely get these kinds of opportunities. Remember, it’s an art school. We don’t have any sports teams (the closest thing to that are dance classes). If you decide to go here just because it’s close to where you live and not because you want to be an artist/performer, there’s a good chance you’ll regret it. Think about this now. Don’t wait until your junior year when your counselor hands you 3-4 advanced art classes that are going to harm your grades (and potentially your mental health) if this isn’t what you enjoy doing.

Jo Ha

My kids started going to this school and changed dramatically. In the first two weeks of school, our children came home calling us “Toxic Parents”. I have a Master degree in Family Studies. I know what “Toxic Parents” are. This school is messed up. The kids are taught to hate their parents. Be aware!
I have many more stories over the last three years. I want to tell to the San Diego School Board. My kids no longer attend that school. We are a happy family again.

Almalucia

This place is AMAZING! It is only my 8th week of school and I am in love with it. It is an amazing environment for everyone. The teacher are radical and tubular! I know these are going to be the best years of my life, highly recommend!