The new arts wing at St. Vincent Pallotti High School looks and sounds much like a conservatory, on a smaller scale. Through one doorway are dozens of racks of costumes and tables covered with stage props. Through another doorway come the sounds of a chamber choir, and another, the brassy tones of a wind ensemble.
This arts-filled "experiment," as some teachers call it, is Pallotti's new Arts Academy, which opened last fall.
"It's been many years in the making," said Saunders Allen, who has taught music at the school for 23 years and serves as the school's performing arts department chairman.
Allen has wanted to open an arts-intensive program at the school for years, he said, to give students at Pallotti more opportunity for individual study in music, theater or art.
Pallotti's principal, Jeff Palumbo, said he had a similar idea.
"I've always had a great appreciation for the arts, probably because I have no talent whatsoever in any of the arts," said the self-proclaimed "athletics guy." He came to Pallotti in 2012 from Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn. "But here at Pallotti, it's a very small school and we have a lot of kids that are very talented and just love the arts. Some of them are our best students who just happen to be very talented in the arts, as well, but a lot of them are students who struggle through high school, and because they love the arts so much, they're not as interested in other subjects."
He said the school, which currently has 515 students enrolled, needed a way to motivate these students.
"And because of their love of the arts, I kind of just thought we needed a program that could give them that focus," Palumbo said.
All that was needed was space.
"Somehow or another, through the working of the Holy Spirit, suddenly this particular wing of the building became available," Allen said.
The section of Pallotti that now houses drawing classes and band rehearsals and vocal lessons was formerly used as the Pallotti Early Leaning Center day care. Two years ago, the day care moved down the street to the new St. Mary of the Mills Parish Center.
The school's visual arts program moved into the top floor of the newly empty space, and the other arts departments — theater arts and instrumental and vocal music — filled in the other floors a year later.
With that move, and the renovation of the Sister Lucy Lobby into a glass-encased, multi-layered space connecting the arts wing with the rest of the school, Pallotti opened the doors of its new Arts Academy for the 2015-16 school year.
During the program's inaugural year, students have had the option to study visual arts, theater, vocal music or instrumental music. Next year dance will be added as an area of study.
Other private high schools in the area offer intensive arts study in various disciplines as well; DeMatha, a boys high school in Hyattsville, has a music program that includes six levels of music theory courses, five concert bands, three choruses and three string orchestras, as well as a fine arts program including drawing and photography classes. Bishop McNamara High School, in Forestville, offers study in a large array of disciplines including African dance and music, classical dance, fine arts media and theater.
What sets Pallotti's program apart, Allen said, is the opportunity to study arts as intensively as they study academic subjects.
"The students' day is divided up academically so that there is concentration in the earlier part of the day in traditional academic subjects," he said, "and then the rest of the day is devoted as seriously to the arts."
In addition to Pallotti's standard academic curriculum and large ensemble rehearsals, the 35 students in the program receive individual instruction in their chosen art during the day and an extra period of arts study after school, in subjects like music theory or history.
"We take roll and give them grades and it counts on their transcript," said Sharon Sefton, chair of the visual arts department, about the extra period. "They put in a significant extra effort."
The students stay in school 45 minutes longer than the students in the regular curriculum, and frequently use their lunch periods for private coaching or individual study.
"That was a little difficult," junior Jordan Smith said about adjusting to the new schedule.
Pallotti's arts teaching staff has about doubled in size to 13, Allen said, with two teachers in the visual arts, two in the visual arts, four in instrumental music, four in vocal music and three in theater.
"Everyone who is involved is active in their own particular field," Allen said about the instructors. "So the kids are involved with people modeling what it's like to have a career in the arts."
All four vocal teachers sing professionally, Allen said, and the instrumental music teachers perform with orchestras in the area. Allen himself is an organist and music director at a local church.
Smith and many of the students in the Arts Academy were recruited to the program as Pallotti underclassmen. There is no extra cost for students enrolled in the arts program; tuition to the private high school is currently $14,500 for Maryland students.
"My art teacher asked me last year, hey, this is a new idea we're trying out, and you'd just have an extra period after school, and would you like to join," said Smith, who is in the visual arts division. "I love art, and just thinking about how much it could improve the skills I already have — it just seemed like a good idea to me."
Others, like Alyssa Savard, were applying as freshmen to private schools in the area and were attracted to Pallotti because of the Arts Academy. To be admitted, students had to audition or submit a portfolio of their work, in addition to completing the high school's standard application.
"It made the decision easier," Savard said about the academy, adding that she also liked Pallotti's family feel. "It's a cool opportunity to do art just outside of regular classes."
The extra time allows for students to receive more individual attention than they would in a traditional art, theater or music class, students and teachers say.
"I've been improving so much faster now that I'm in the Arts Academy, rather than just going to an art class once or twice a week," Savard said. "I've learned a lot more about drawing and more realistic drawing."
A primary goal of the new program is to prepare students for admission to a collegiate arts program.
"For example if you were a voice student here, the goal is to have you ready to do an audition for a college or conservatory music program," Allen said.
Three seniors graduated from the program in May, two of whom are planning to study vocal music and visual arts. The third is planning to major in nursing with a minor in theater arts.
"So, the work that they're doing is highly detailed and demanding," Allen said.
The Arts Academy students develop and hone their technique and style through intensive study and coaching, Allen said, and by learning the history and theory of their craft.
"It's a little harder, because there's more freedom," Smith said. "They expect us to be more mature and focused on our art and developing our own styles, and so it's not so much, 'Draw this circle five times' and stuff like that."
Sefton said that the teachers have been getting a very high caliber of work from the Arts Academy students.
"It's really exciting to have a class that is full of kids that really want to be there," she said. "They feed off each other and compete with each other. It's working."
"I [recently] said that, clearly, someone is doing some work somewhere because they really have produced all sorts of artwork," Allen said, "and the singing kids are singing and the theatrical kids are acting — and convincingly so."
Several of the students said that their first year has been tough, but well worth the artistic strides they have made. Smith, on the other hand, said that it wasn't all that difficult.
"Not the art part, that wasn't hard," she said. "Because if you love it that much, then I think the Arts Academy is really for you."