Julie Rohr Academy: A Place Where Creativity Flourishes!
Julie Rohr Academy has been called the best kept secret in Sarasota! JRA is a unique private, fully accredited school for students 15 months of age through 8th grade with creative programs to offer your child enabling them to receive the best possible education in the area.
Research increasingly points to the importance of the arts and the direct impact it has on future success of students. An article appeared in a recent issue of Newsweek called “The Creative Crisis – For the First Time Research Shows That American Creativity is Declining. What Went Wrong – and How Can We Fix It?” The short version is that children can be tested on IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and CQ (Creativity Quotient). For 50 years, a team of educators have been tracking a designated group of students. They have found “the correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.” They believe that creativity can be taught, and around the world other countries are making creativity development a national priority. In American education, the focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing has been the trend.
We Do Things Differently at JRA
We are one of the few if not the only school in the area to have art, music, PE, computer education, and Spanish taught to EVERY elementary and middle school student EVERY DAY. All students from 15 months through Kindergarten have art, music and PE every day. Daily Spanish classes begin in Pre-K and daily computer classes begin in 1st grade.
Every year JRA enters the County-wide Public Speaking Contest. Both our elementary students and middle school students compete. Many public schools are in the contest with thousands of students participating. Julie Rohr Academy ALWAYS has top winners. In 2010 JRA won first place in BOTH the elementary and the middle school divisions!
Our students participate in four musical productions every year. We are one of the only schools to do a full-scale Broadway musical every year with students in Pre-K through 8th grade. It requires an entirely different set of skills and abilities than what comes from a textbook!
Performing Arts Provide Essential Skills
We at JRA believe the arts are essential for training specific visual, perceptual ways of thinking. We are constantly searching for new ways to teach students how to transfer skills learned through the arts to academic subjects and problem solving. The dual nature of human thinking is:
1. Verbal, analytical (left side of the brain)
2. Visual, perceptual (right side of the brain)
We want to enhance both thinking modes to increase the potential for human growth and development in both intellectual and creative ways. When both sides of the brain work together, maximum results are achieved. Learning to sing a song provides the opportunity for both sides of the brain to work simultaneously. The right side works to learn the notes while the left side learns the words.
The National Association for Music Education gives us the following information:
• High school music students score higher on SATs in both verbal and math than their peers. In 2001, SAT takers with coursework/experience in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 41 points higher on the math portion than students with no coursework/experience in the arts. Source: Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, compiled by Music Educators National Conference, 2001.
• A ten-year study, tracking more than 25,000 students, shows that music-making improves test scores. Regardless of socioeconomic background, music-making students got higher marks in standardized tests than those who had no music involvement. The test scores studied were not only standardized tests, such as the SAT, but also in reading proficiency exams. Source: Dr. James Catterall, UCLA, 1997.
• “Music education can be a positive force on all aspects of a child’s life, particularly on their academic success. The study of music by children has been linked to higher scores on the SAT and other learning aptitude tests, and has proven to be an invaluable tool in classrooms across the country. Given the impact music can have on our children’s education, we should support every effort to bring music into their classrooms.” Source: U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (NM).
• Music majors are the most likely group of college grads to be admitted to medical school. Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas studied the undergraduate majors of medical school applicants. He found that 66 percent of music majors who applied to med school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. For comparison, (44 percent) of biochemistry majors were admitted. Also, a study of 7,500 university students revealed that music majors scored the highest reading scores among all majors including English, biology, chemistry and math. Sources: “The Comparative Academic Abilities of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi-focus University,” Peter H. Wood, ERIC Document No. ED327480. “The Case for Music in the Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan, February, 1994.
At Julie Rohr Academy, we are committed and passionate about providing our students with the best education possible. That’s why we have a daily strong focus on the performing arts. We will continue to strive to provide an atmosphere where creativity is cultivated, allowing our students to reach their maximum potential.
Julie Rohr Academy is committed to the success of our students. We endeavor to provide an optimal learning environment in which our students can thrive and flourish. Our faculty and staff are committed to creating a community in which our students grow not just academically, but socially as well. We believe our impact as a school reaches beyond the years they spend here with us in our care.
