Cincinnati Middle Schools Selected for Third Year of JumpStart Theatre Program

The Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), a national non-profit headquartered in Cincinnati, announces the selection of schools for the third year of a middle school program called JumpStArt Theatre. The schools being added in 2017-18 are: Clark Montessori High School, Roberts Academy, and Oyler School. All the schools are in Cincinnati.

JumpStArt Theatre, a collaboration between EdTA and New York-based Music Theatre International and ITheatrics, is a three-year pilot initiative designed to build sustainable musical theatre programs where there previously were none. The pilot is being financed entirely by grants and donations.

Within the pilot, the addition of these particular schools will expand the exploration of the impact that participation in theatre can give to students in diverse situations. Roberts Academy has a large population of students who are English language learners. They aim to use theatre to help teach their students English.

Oyler School is part of a growing national movement aimed at revitalizing schools by combining academic, heath, and social services under one roof. In the Lower Price Hill neighborhood, Oyler School helps address poverty by hosting a health center and vision center within the school and partners with a Community Learning Center to help after hours with services like nutrition classes and mentoring. For a generation, the neighborhood has prioritized increasing its high school graduation rate and has succeeded in growing it from five to 50 percent over the last 15 years. Participation in the JumpStArt Theatre program will play a critical role in the community's effort to continue and increase that growth.

Finally, the addition of Clark Montessori, which was the nation's first Montessori high school, to the program means that both Cincinnati Montessori high schools are participating.

The six schools that joined the program in the first two years-Holmes Middle School, Gamble Montessori High School, Finneytown Middle School, Aiken New Tech High School, Gilbert A. Dater High School, and Felicity-Franklin Middle School-are currently engaged in rehearsals of their JumpStArt Theatre shows and will present public performances in March and May.

Every aspect of JumpStArt Theatre is designed to build sustainability. It structured as a scalable program that can be adapted into a sustainable model for underserved schools nationwide. Each participating pilot school is provided three years of support by EdTA, MTI, and iTheatrics, through educator training, mentors, scripts, and study guides. One component of mentorship and educator training is three day-long 'boot camps' held on Fridays throughout the year.

It is modeled on programs developed by MTI and iTheatrics and embraced in co-partnerships with The Shubert Organization, the President's Committee on Arts and the Humanities, New York City's Department of Education, NBC Universal, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and The Blumenthal Center.

Integral to the pilot is the JumpStArt Theatre Research Project being led by Dr. James Catterall, director of the Centers for Research on Creativity (CRoC). The research will measure the annual and cumulative impact of the musical theatre pilot on student development over the three-year period of the program in nine behavioral areas, including creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. The other areas being measured include metacognition, problem solving, self-efficacy, life satisfaction, attitudes about arts, and a general outlook for the future.

JumpStArt Theatre received a new grant for $25,000 from the Eleanora C.U. Alms Trust, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee. Keri Mesina, Senior Program Officer in The Foundation Office of Fifth Third Bank, said, "I was impressed with the program and the impact it has on the schools and students involved. I enjoyed the [JumpStArt Theatre] breakfast event [in December]; it gave me a better understanding of the program and partnerships you have. It was also nice to see other community funders at the table."

JumpStArt Theatre is funded by a combination of generous grants from public and private sources including: Allstate; Eleanora C.U. Alms Trust, Fifth Third Bank, Trustee; ArtsWave; Barnes Dennig; Benefits Network Insurance; Community Arts Initiatives; Duke Energy; The Greater Cincinnati Foundation; The Donald C. and Laura M. Harrison Family Foundation; Hilton; iTheatrics; The Austin E. Knowlton Foundation; James & Lauren Miller; Music Theatre International; Ohio Arts Council; The Daniel and Susan Pfau Foundation; William O. Purdy, Jr. Foundation Fund; Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP.

To post a comment, you must register and login.